Destiny of the Daleks

Four episodes
Aired between 1st September 1979 and 29th September 1979

Written by Terry Nation
Produced by Graham Williams
Directed by Ken Grieve

Synopsis

As the Doctor treats K9 for Laryngitis (*shrug*), Romana decides that she wants to regenerate.  She "tries" multiple faces on before deciding to become the spitting image of Princess Astra (See The Armageddon Factor).

They land on Skaro and soon discover that the Daleks have returned to the site of the long-abandoned Kaled bunker and are using slaves to dig underground in order to find their creator, Davros.

An enemy race called the Movellans arrive, trying to work out the Daleks plans and stop them.

The Doctor and Romana team up with them and soon discover that the Movellans and Daleks are locked in an inter-stellar battle that's being going on for years.  Their battle computers are so finely tuned that they anticipate each others moves and are now at a stalemate.  The Daleks hope that by resurrecting Davros, he will be able to give them the edge in the war.

Whilst the Doctor works with the Movellans, he discovers that they are a race of robots and they too have ideas of galactic conquest.

In a pre-emptive strike, Davros sends suicide Daleks with bombs strapped to them so they can blow up the Movellan ship.

The Doctor foils this plan by blowing them up early.

The slaves rebel and storm the Movellan ship, shutting down all the robots except their leader, who is stopped from detonating a bomb at the last second by Romana.

Davros is imprisoned by the slaves on board the Movellan ship which they will use to get back to civilisation.

The Doctor and Romana will simply return to the TARDIS and have more adventures.

Trivia

• Douglas Adams came on-board officially as Script editor.  He wanted new and fresh writers, but as he asked around, it became obvious that a lot of people didn't know how to write well for Doctor Who.  He reluctantly began to ask around old writers, and Terry Nation was one of them.

• This was the last story Terry Nation would write for Doctor Who and it's speculated that Douglas Adams had to do a lot of work to get it ready for broadcast. 

• At the end of The Armageddon Factor, Mary Tamm jokingly said why not ask Lala Ward to step in.  Graham Williams did and she slipped into Romana's shoes.  Mary Tamm said later that she would have happily done a regeneration scene, but she was never asked.

• One of the costumes Romana changes into is Zilda from Robots of Death

• Romana's costume was designed to be identical to the Doctor's but in different colours.

• The actor who played Tyssan was partially deaf, but could lip read quite well

• This story was the first time ever that "Steady cam" rig was used in the BBC.

Review

My feelings on The Destiny of the Daleks can be summed up in one short phrase: "....but the Dalek's aren't robots".

If you believe some of the guides I've read, then Douglas Adams' original ideas revolved around a planet of the dead (where the conversations about "Zombies" come in), but as you can see, he got Terry Nation and so he got to do a Dalek story.  After the success of Genesis of the Daleks, this is no bad thing, but by this time even Terry Nation isn't clear on what's happening with the Daleks anymore and decides to throw all of his continuity out of the window by suggesting that the Daleks are robots.

"But, they don't say that, they even mention it's the battle computer that's the logical thinker"

Yes, but the Doctor and even Davros himself use the line, ANOTHER race of robots when referring to the Movellans.  Davros talks about re-programming (could be genetic, but come on).

"Is it so bad?" 

Yes, yes it is, because it undermines all the good work that's gone before.  At the bottom line, any writer can introduce ANY concept they want to in a story, without even justifying it, but to do so pulls the viewer out of the rich world you've created and cheapens the integrity of the story.  In other words it undermines all the sacrifices characters have made and the angst they went through.

There's no finer example of just that in Romana's regeneration.  Why can she regenerate at will?  If we accept that she can, then why are we even worried about the Doctor succeeding or losing at all.  Don't worry, he can just will a regeneration up and he'll be fine.  And they only get 13, so Romana's lost almost a quarter of her life, trying to find a face that suits her.

As a fan, you can't wish it away or pretend it didn't happen, you just have to endure it, much like this story....but....as an abstract concept, two armies locked in an impasse vying for an edge is good.  The Doctor visiting a world of "Zombies" is good.  It's just all the continuity that gets in the way.

Rating

4 out of 10

Rewatchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Dominators
• Genesis of the Daleks
• Resurrection of the Daleks

The Armageddon Factor (The Key to Time Part 6)

Six episodes
Aired between 20th January 1979 and 24th February 1979

Written by Bob Baker and David Martin
Produced by Graham Williams
Directed by Michael Hayes

Synopsis
The Doctor and Romana follow the tracer to the last segment of the key to time, which lands them in the middle of a war between two planets - Atrios and Zeos.  They are curiously led to the location of Atrios' princess - Astra, who has been trapped.  The Marshall of Atrios believes they trapped her and intend to kill her.

This leads to a lot of cat and mouse antics until the Doctor ferrets out evidence of a shadowy figure manipulating the war from behind the scenes.

This shadowy figure kidnaps the Princess and Romana ends up teaming up with Astra's love interest, Merak to try and find her.  They eventually find their way to a hidden transmat which goes to the base of this shadow figure (who's coincidentally called "the Shadow").

The Shadow tries to make the Doctor hand over the segments as he works for the Black Guardian, but the Doctor bluffs his way into the TARDIS and gets away.

The group eventually end up on Zeos and discover that everyone on the planet is dead, but a great supercomputer is running everything.  As the Doctor tries to dismantle it, he gets word that the Marshall is on his way in a warship to blow Zeos up.

 The computer goes into self destruct mode and the Doctor is forced to jury-rig a fake sixth segment and use the key to place Zeos and the Marshall in a time loop so the solar system isn't destroyed.

Once the threat is stalled, they all go back to the Shadow's base to find the sixth segment.  K9 gets separated and is brainwashed, and Romana is captured.  The Doctor looks around and finds another Time Lord, Drax, who was forced to install the Zeon computer.  He agrees to help the Doctor and constructs a shrinking machine.

The evil K9 is sent to capture the Doctor, and the Shadow finally gains access to the key to time.  He prepares to use it for evil purposes, but the Doctor (having escaped again) and Drax, manage to interfere and steal back to the key.  They discover in the process that Princess Astra herself is the real sixth segment of the key, and they use her to restore order.

The Doctor disarms the Zeon self destruct mechanism in time and the Marshall's weapons are deflected to the Shadows ship, blowing it up.

Drax is taken back to Atrios and K9, Romana and the Doctor all go away.  All that's left is the full key.  The Black Guardian turns up, disguised as the White Guardian and asks for the key, but the Doctor realises the ruse as he has no regard for Astra being trapped in it, therefore, the Doctor snaps the tracer and scatters the key away.

Astra re-appears on Atrios and is reunited with Merak, and the Doctor and Romana escape in the TARDIS thanks to the Doctor's installation of a randomiser switch.

Trivia

• During the filming of this serial, Tom Baker became more and more vocal about his anger towards the production of the show, and the fact that his ideas weren't being taken seriously. This may have been a contributing factor to Graham Williams beginning to decide that he'd had enough.  Nevertheless, he met with Tom to hear out his opinions but they were outlandish and impractical so he had very little impetus to help Tom out.

• The Randomiser wasn't a random decision at all.  Graham Williams realised that a lot of the tension of the show and the mystery would be cut out if the Doctor could travel anywhere and anywhen.  To get around this, he put in the randomiser to make sure that the mystery remained

• This was Mary Tamm's last Doctor Who story.  As mentioned before, her decision to leave was due to the fact that she felt the character had become quite generic and the format required her to dumb down Romana to help the audience understand what was happening which wasn't the character she had been sold.  

The Review

The Armageddon Factor shares a significant point of a lot of successful Doctor Who stories; it begins with a setup of a mystery.  The war torn world in civil war with a trapped woman behind an immovable obstacle is just as successful as being dropped onto a sand hopper, locating a local village that has strange people, or finding a deserted London that's actually infested with Daleks.

Indeed, the setup, whilst quite camp in places, is a distinct reminder of the Kaled / Thaal war from Genesis of the Daleks and promises a good analogy about the horrors of nuclear war.

Further from that, the second episode begins to develop an interesting plot twist by indicating that the Marshall is being dominated by an evil force.  This is as insidious as the War Games, and offer much promise.  From here though, alas, things begin to go downhill rapidly.  There's a strong strain of farce that runs through the story including the first two episodes in places, and the middle very quickly sags into a "run around corridors" block of filler.

The Shadow is a wonderful acolyte to a primal evil force at first, but quickly proves to be just another inept bond villain and he's got stiff competition for the most annoying character with Cockney Drax and Shapp (and the less said about his portrayal of getting shot, the better!).  At least John Woodvine is competent, but the set and script aren't great.

And the ending, the ending just doesn't make sense.  The Doctor determines that the White Guardian isn't the White Guardian because he doesn't care about Astra, but have you ever thought about the greater good?  And he breaks the tracker and scatters thew key, but there's no indication that the actual White Guardian has used it.

The Armageddon Factor has much potential but I'm sorry to say that it never really gets used and provides a boring slog of six drawn out episodes until it collapses exhausted at the end of the series, not giving anyone much satisfaction.

Rating

3 out of 10

Rewatchability Factor

2 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Myth Makers
• The War Games
• Frontier in Space
• Genesis of the Daleks
• Warriors of the Deep
• Battlefield

The Power of Kroll (The Key to Time Part 5)

Four episodes
Aired between 23rd December 1978 and 13th January 1979

Written by Robert Holmes
Produced by Graham Williams (actually it was John Nathan-Turner but he's unaccredited)
Directed by Norman Stewart

Synopsis

The Doctor and Romana arrive on the third moon of Delta Magna, a swamp planet.

They are once again split up as The Doctor is captured by a bunch of humans that are refining chemicals from the planet.

Romana is captured by a bunch of green skinned natives referred to by the humans as "Swampies".

The Doctor is told by the humans that their refinery is in danger as the Swampies attack it, and are helped by the notorious arms dealer - Rohm Dutt to try and drive off the humans from the moon.

The Doctor escapes the refinery and manages to rescue Romana, just as the Swampies try to sacrifice her to their god, Kroll.

They are captured again and throughout their captivity, they discover that Kroll is a giant squid that has swallowed the Swmapies holy symbol and grown enormous.  Now, it wakes up every few hundred years and feeds.

The high priest believes that Kroll is punishing them for consorting with Rohm Dutt and does what he can to repent, by tying them up to a bed with vines that shrink in the sunlight, thereby making it like a rack.

The Doctor frees them all by using an ultra high pitched scream to shatter the window above them and let rain wet the vines, allowing them to escape.

Meanwhile, the refinery staff squabble amongst themselves until their leader lets his racism get the better of him, kills one of his crew and intends to blow up the swampies once and for all.

The Doctor, Romana and Rohm Dutt race to stop the Swampies as they go to storm the refinery but Kroll turns up and kills Rohm Dutt and some of the natives.

They all get to the refinery, just as Kroll returns to attack it.

Many die including the deluded high priest and the refinery leader, before the Doctor touches Kroll with the tracking device for the Key to Time and turns him into the fifth segment!  It turns out that the holy symbol he swallowed was the true segment, and Kroll has reverted back to a tiny squid.

The Doctor and Romana make their way back to the TARDIS and console K9 whom they had to leave behind.

Trivia

• The story was given to Robert Holmes, but with orders to keep it serious and for the monster to be huge. He didn't like it, but that's what he did.

• There were many mess up's on the casting front, as Philip Madoc (the man who played great characters in the Brain of Morbius and the War Games) was due to play the refinery commander, but ended up as a subordinate, and John Leeson, the voice behind K9, was pulled in as one of the crew too.

• Graham Williams was taking a break when this was filmed, and then Production  Unit Manager, John-Nathan Turner, stepped in to fill his shoes, with Barry Letts being asked to keep an eye on them from a distance. 

• It was around this time that Script Editor, Antony Read decided that he'd had enough of the low budgets and Tom Baker's bullying, and so he gave notice.

• The green makeup for the Swampies had to be waterproof, as there were several scenes in the swamps and during rainfall.  After the scenes were shot, the unfortunate actors had to go to a nearby RAF base and get it off with swarfega in the chemical showers; a process that could have been avoided had the necessary solvent that removes the paint been ordered at the same time!

The Review

This would be one of the stories that if it was lost and only existed in stills, would be a true classic.  Just look at the pictures above and you can see that your imagination makes it feel terrifying, just like the 1950's B movie - you can see what they were getting at.

Alas, we do have this story, and the reality is somewhat deflated.  You expect a story about a giant squid to have lots of action, but this just doesn't.  It's boring.

There's a good kind of analogy around man's hubris, drawing parallels with the refinery leader and the high priest stubbornly clinging to their beliefs that ultimately cause their downfall, but we have 90 minutes of it.  Kroll shows up now and again, and we're left to fill the remainder with funny men painted green dancing around, and other men with terrible accents looking to fill the void.

This story tries too hard to be something it's not.  The selling point is the giant squid, but all we get is capture and escapable death trap after capture and escapable death trap.

This could have been so good, and from Robert Holmes, I expected better.

Rating

4 out of 10

Rewatchability Factor

5 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• An Unearthly Child
• The Ark
• Fury From the Deep
• Colony in Space
• The Mutants
• The Face of Evil
• The Caves of Androzani 

The Androids of Tara (The Key to Time Part 4)

Four Episodes
Aired between 25th November 1978 and 16th December 1978

Written by David Fisher
Produced by Graham Williams
Directed by Michael Hays


Synopsis

The Doctor decides he's fed up of being a pawn in an intergalactic chess match and goes to an Earth-like planet: Tara, to do a spot of fishing, leaving Romana to go off on her own and find the next segment of the Key to Time.

Romana finds the segment relatively easily (it's disguised as a statue), but is captured by Count Grendel, a noble who is seeking to claim the throne of Tara for himself.

He mistakenly believes that Romana is actually a princess on this planet called Strella.  He has both of them locked up when he realises the truth and is going to use an android copy of Romana to try and assassinate the Prince, Reynart as he turns up to lay his claim on the crown.

The Doctor meanwhile is captured by Reynart's men and taken to the Prince.  He is asked to help repair an android copy of the prince that they will use as a diversion for the real Prince to sneak into the throne room and claim the crown.

The Doctor manages to keep Reynart alive, until Grendel storms their hideout and kidnaps the Prince too, injuring him and leaving him to die slowly in his dungeon.

There's lots of back and forth with the Doctor enlisting K9's help to try and rescue Romana and Prince Reynart from Grendel's dungeons, which he ultimately does.

He faces off with Grendel and the two fight with swords until the Doctor bests him.  Count Grendel dives into the moat and swims away into exile, leaving Prince Reynart to claim the kingdom.

The Doctor and Romana recover the segment and go back into the TARDIS with K9.

Trivia

• Let's get the pretty obvious one out of the way.  This story is near enough a remake of the Prisoner of Zenda, just on another planet

• The fishing rod the Doctor used was actually an expensive antique, and it got lost in the water when Tom Baker accidentally dropped it in. The production staff had to go into the lake and get it before anyone knew what had happened to it!

• The ending was supposed to be much grander and have a lot more fighting, but filming was cut short as the location was used as a last minute site for some Middle East peace talks

• The fat guy who delivers a message to the Doctor as a trap, is the same guy who played the original Jabba the Hutt in the scene cut from the original Star Wars movie

• Mary Tamm had ridden horses for thirty years but she refused to do a stunt in this show without a helmet as she didn't know how the horse would react

The Review

Now and again throughout this re-watching of Doctor Who, I come across a story that fills me with dread. I have distantly recalled nightmares of the terrible slog it is to go through the 90+ minutes of pain that are these episodes.  In those instances, I try to be objective and give the story a fair shot as if I were watching it for the first time.  The Androids of Tara was a story I was dreading.

Now that I've watched it and it's fresh in my mind though, it's not as bad as I remember it to be.  It's not in the same league as some of Tom's earlier work, and I can't imagine it getting on many popularity lists, but because this is a remake of a classic, it carries with it some hint of appeal.

The first and most obvious is the humour that Tom Baker has been falling back on more and more as the season progresses.  The line "if you don't stop burning my scarf, you'll have to kill me" is absolute gold, and it's not on it's own.  He does the witty one liners all the way through and this story is fairly camp anyway, so much so that it boarders on farce, so it never feels too out of place.

The plot to assassinate the Prince is a little complex, and it's regrettable that Count Grendel falls back on a Bond-Villain mentality by leaving people alive and in escapable situations for no reason. That's a shame, because as a villain, he is good, charming and charismatic. He has character that we want to see more of, and even has a love interest which is unusual for a Doctor Who  villain.

It wasn't until the back end of episode 3 that things started to get repetitive and dull.  The escape / capture / negotiate schtick all starts around then and drops the intrigue like a lead weight until it ends in a very drawn out swashbuckling sword fight.  Some people like it I guess, but for me Tom Baker isn't Jon Pertwee and it just gets yawn-worthy towards the end.

This story has a few more highlights than the others of this season, but overall I think it's just too long and could do with the ending to episode 4 editing onto the back half of episode 3.

Rating

5 out of 10

Rewatchability Factor

5 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

The Reign of Terror

The Crusade

The Massacre 

The Ribos Operation

The Awakening

The Kings Demons