The Power of the Daleks

The Doctor is gone, and in his place is a new man - shorter, younger, more imp like with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Although they both saw it happen right before their eyes, Ben and Polly have trouble believing that this is the Doctor, the same man who took them away from London in 1966 and on wild adventures through time and space. The new Doctor does not have time to fully adjust to his new body before they are in the thick of it again, being mistaken for visiting Earth officials on the colony world of Vulcan. The planet is not without its problems with local rebels, but things are about to get worse at the discovery of a Dalek capsule and one man's determination to reactivate the monsters inside.

So the show embarks on a new path which is either going to save it or sink it; given that we are still watching Doctor Who in 2016 it's obvious that the gamble paid off, but there were a lot of nails being bitten back in the day wondering if this was indeed going to be a good idea. The ratings were down, the lead actor was going... it's easy to see why the Daleks were brought in to give the series a bit of a boost with the monsters which put it on the map.

It is often said that the companions embody the audience and never a truer word was spoken in this case; Polly knows this is the Doctor and is ready to accept him and even starts goofing around with him ("Lesterson Lesterson Lesterson Lesterson...") but Ben represents the others who were in shocked disbelief refusing to accept that the Doctor had changed. If a deciding vote was needed though look no further than the Daleks who recognize the Doctor as a threat right away. That part is interesting in itself from a continuity perspective; he has only just met the Daleks in this body for the first time, so somewhere in his future he will again.

And what about the new Doctor? He's not at all as serious minded as the first Doctor - he tootles away on his recorder while in thought, he gets distracted and ambles along in a Chaplin-esque manner... now he's less of a grandfather figure and more of a cool yet slightly bohemian look about him with that mess of Beatles-ish hair. The first Doctor's dress sense was far more dignified, and now he's gotten a bit shabby with an over sized coat and trousers which are way too big. Yes, this is the Cosmic Hobo persona right here.

Power, however, suffers from the same fat as most of the second Doctor's era, being that it is missing from the BBC archives save for clips and the complete off air audio soundtrack. They say that nothing ever replaces the original and they are right; despite the best efforts of the BBC this one is never done justice in the commercial releases in other media. It started with the lacklustre novelization of the story by John Peel, who for some reason was the only scribe allowed to make the last few outstanding Dalek scripts into novels, and so-so ones at that. Every effort was made to make the book look like one of Virgin's Missing Adventures range but even that couldn't save it from the vague narrative within and some flunked attempts at humour. The audio release by BBC Radio Collection was and is far and above the best commercial release; sure there was nothing to actually see but if you have even a shred of imagination it's not hard to listen and enjoy it. The most recent attempt to put it back out there is a fully animated version which was released in theaters ahead of its commercial release on DVD and blu ray. I imagine that with animated episodes to fill gaps on DVD releases of incomplete episodes being the way to go the BBC wanted to see how well a full animated restoration would go. Result? Well it's somewhere between Rocket Robin Hood and Archer for animation style with the character faces being a bit comical and the animation being a bit jerky, and where there is a gap in what was understood to be going on there's not much happening on screen which makes the whole thing drag. At least the Daleks are there, though; there's no getting them wrong and animation allows for their sheer numbers to be inflated beyond what a BBC budget would allow. And the wholesale slaughter that the Daleks visit upon the colonists of Vulcan is just insane - their crashed out capsule is obviously some sort of infiltration device and while they lull the colonists into a false sense of security by pretending to serve them they are secretly mass producing themselves to overrun the place. By the time the Doctor gets a handle on the situation there are bodies everywhere - not the sort of thing encouraged on screen, and not as easily realized in audio.

Whatever medium this is enjoyed in, though, the second Doctor is off to a good start with his greatest enemies ultimately defeated and his two best friends at his side.

NEXT EPISODE: THE MURDER GAME