The Evil of the Daleks

Right from parting ways with Ben and Polly the Doctor and Jamie realize that the TARDIS has been stolen from Gatwick airport. Their search across London for the ship leads them to an antique dealers run by a man named Waterfield, but this is all an elaborate trap which flings them back in time into a sinister plot by the Daleks. Waterfield's daughter, Victoria, is being held captive to ensure his co-operation, but she is also a subject for a Dalek experiment; Jamie is to be coerced into rescuing her and his actions are to be analysed in an attempt to give the Daleks insight into why they fail against human beings, and then give them an edge for future conquests.

The Daleks here show a bit more imagination than we were led to believe they could, although how much of this trap is theirs of that of Waterfield's associate Maxtible remains to be seen. Waterfield doesn't want anything to do with the Dalek plan; his time travel experiments with Maxtible drew the aliens to their house and gave them the foothold they needed on Earth, but how they knew where to find the Doctor had to be more than a lucky guess. They also have images of the Doctor and Jamie, which is interesting given that Jamie has not met them yet. The project is pretty far-reaching by their standards.

The Doctor is smart enough to know he can't just up and defy the Daleks with the odds stacked against him but his apparent co-operation makes Jamie doubt him and leads to their first major blow up. Jamie's own heroic nature born of his upbringing in a civil war compels him to try and rescue Victoria as she is as far as he can see an innocent trapped in this evil plot. And innocent she is; she doesn't understand what is going on at all, being taken from her father and menaced by the Daleks. She has one friend in this whole scary terrible world: the muscular Turkish wrestler Kemel who has a heart of gold. Pity Kemel isn't very bright and is easily convinced he must fight Jamie.

There's a lot more about Dalek heirarchy revealed in this one: the Doctor comes face to face with the Emperor of the Daleks, something he suspected was out there for some time. The Emperor has his own inner retinue of guards with distinct black domes (no sign of the black Dalek Supreme we have seen before) and sits like a spider in a web of data cables somewhere in the main city on Skaro; it's never really put out as such but I like to think he's just awash in the data streams from all the Dalek operations across the universe as they come in. I can't help but wonder, as most others do, what makes one Dalek the Emperor and the others the subjects - exactly what is inside? There was the opportunity to go there and see what was what in the novelization by John Peel, but what a surprise, he took it nowhere and gave once more a passable account of the story to appease Terry Nation's ghost since he didn't like the story, much like he didn't enjoy Power of the Daleks. This was actually intended to be the last time the Daleks were used in Doctor Who and with dollar signs in his eyes Terry Nation was all set to run off to America and make a full series about the Daleks there, but somewhere along the lines that didn't pan out but it would be a while before they were back.

The fiery conclusion, though, leaves Victoria an orphan on an alien world. But the TARDIS has a vacancy, and the Doctor and Jamie find themselves with a few friend to travel with.

But before the adventures resume for the new three-strong crew, a look back to Polly and where she is after leaving the TARDIS. A bit of time has passed and she remembers some adventures we did not see...

NEXT EPISODE: RESISTANCE