This was in seven long chapters. Ye gods! And only the second episode has survived. Maybe they should have titled this: The Evil of the Daleks Epic Story With Mostly Reconstructions just to warn us that it is going to be long. Very long. I watched five in one afternoon/evening and the last two the next day because my brain couldn't take all seven in one day. I really wouldn't recommend doing this. Watching them all in a row like that can lead to dizziness and harmful thoughts. I know, watching Doctor Who until one in the morning comes perilously close to obsession and I have the vague feeling that I ought to be doing something better with my life. But I'm always the kind of person that plunges head first into whatever I've committed to doing. On the plus side, I'm making great progress on my quilt.
Moving on: We pick up from the last episode that the TARDIS has been stolen, and the Doctor and Jaime must go find it. That's a clever twist from the usual story. They can't hop back into the police box laughing gaily about the good times. This time they have a purpose. My expert viewer also said that this is a unique episode in that they go from the present, to the past and then to the future all in one story. Trying to trick me with their little time line, aren't they?
I'm never going to step inside an antique store again without thinking that Daleks are hiding in corners. Of course Daleks don't exist. I'm just being silly. But this antique shop is not what you think it is. It's a portal that will bring you back one hundred years. That's nice. The Daleks want the Doctor, so they have designed a rather complicated way of hunting him down, and bringing him to do their bidding. Chameleons, war machines, Daleks. It's a bad day for the Doctor. At least they let him finish with the faceless ones, before stealing his TARDIS.
Back in time one hundred years from 1966, we meet Theodore Maxtible and Waterfield, his sidekick. Maxtible is insane. He is working with the Daleks. He wants a machine that will turn metal into gold, and the Daleks want the Doctor's head on a platter. Good exchange. Maxtible looks suspiciously like an insane Santa Clause. "I put chloroform in your stocking! Ho! Ho! Ho!"
Well they are also holding Waterfield's daughter Victoria captive, just to make sure Waterfield doesn't do any funny business.
The Daleks have grabbed the Doctor, not to kill him, but to make him help them with a science experiment. They want to extract what they call the "Human Factor" from people, and combine it with the Daleks to create a stream of Super Daleks. Why? The Daleks want to know what it is that keeps humans from constantly resisting and defeating them. There's a couple problems with their thinking. Humans refuse to be enslaved. The Daleks don't understand why that's a problem. Everyone likes to be enslaved, right? I'm assuming that they also don't realize that the Doctor isn't human. The Doctor outwits them because he is an alien, and is a tad smarter than everyone realizes.
They had a completely unnecessary chapter with Jamie running through the mansion --- how big is this place anyway --- trying to save Victoria and the Turk. Ah yes, the Turk. They kept mentioning that he is a Turk. He is mute. A mute Turk.
Of course the Doctor doesn't tell Jamie that this is all just a big experiment. Again, this only proves that the Daleks get off on spying on people. So Jamie is running around thinking that he's being a savior, when he's really being tricked and observed. This would make me pretty angry, too. This leads us to ask why Jamie has near death experiences when all that is going on is an experiment on human behavior. If he really did die, that would be the end of the experiment. But maybe the Daleks think that they could just steal someone else from 1966. They've done it before. I have a lot of issues about Jamie running around in a turtle neck and kilt. Is that the Scottish style in the 60's?
This is where it gets all vague and science fi-ish because I don't really know how you extract qualities of this nature and put them into the Dalek brains. How do you do this exactly? The Doctor has is own hidden agenda, as he wants to eliminate the Daleks by giving them human attributes that will make them nice and sweet. Everything seems to go according to this plan. He dubs the three successfully changed Daleks with names: Alpha, Beta and Omega. How cute is that? He writes their names on their machines. They do all look the same, you know. The new Daleks are childlike, and like to play spinning games. Way to go with the three year old Dalek minds.
Through a series of unfortunate events, everyone ends up on Skaro, the Daleks' home planet. We've been here before, haven't we? Only this time, everything looks a little updated, including the windows and walls. They've been busy making everything look more evilly.
Here we meet the Dalek Emperor. He's a real baddie. He's the worse alien I've ever seen, though. Why's he hooked up to all those tubes? He can't move! That has got to be a disadvantage.
Actually the Daleks are smarter than we first thought. They've tricked the Doctor into thinking that they want Daleks who will have the human factor, but in reality they want to put the Dalek factor into all the humans, thereby turning everyone into Daleks. Now that's more like it! The Daleks also want the Doctor to use his TARDIS to spread the Dalek factor throughout time and space. HAH! Dalek sprinkles!
But the Doctor is two steps ahead of the Daleks. He's neglected to mention that he isn't human, so when they try to give him the Dalek factor, it doesn't work on him. To all appearances he's a hobo who has just lurched from the nearest pub. I guess this is a good time for the Daleks to learn that he is most definitely not human. Although up until now, they haven't really discussed the humanity of the Doctor. Hartnell implies that he has one heart somewhere in Season One.
The Daleks who have the human factor stage a rebellion against the regular Daleks. It's a great revolution. Down with the aristocrats and all that! The Dalek Emperor is killed, as well. All he could do was stand there yelling worthless commands as everything around him is destroyed. Darn that wretched Doctor!!! Oddly enough, the special effects guy was so proud of his work, that he saved the footage of all the destruction. So our violent streaks are satisfied that this part was not in pictures. In the melee, Waterfield -- who has experienced a change of heart -- saves the Doctor's life, which is the first time someone blatantly saves the Doctor's life in my recollection.
In a fit of needless violence Maxtible pushes Kemel off a cliff. I'm assuming this is the same place where Hartnell and the Thals were running through way back when. So now Kemel and boring Thal number 15 are down there together. That's going to be a fun reunion. Maxtible, surprisingly, lives to the very end, but he presumably commits suicide as he runs screaming back into the wreckage with something to the effect that he's lost his marbles.
The Doctor leaves declaring that this is the last of the Daleks. But I know in my heart of hearts, that isn't true. It will be a long time before we see them again, though.
During this episode, my expert viewer proclaimed, "You know, this is the first episode in which the Doctor revisits an alien planet."
"No it's not," said I. "He's been to the Web Planet before. He said that."
"WHAT?" My viewer stared at me. He's not used to being corrected. "I meant to say that this is the first episode in which the Doctor revisits an alien planet that we have seen him visit in a previous episode. We did not see him visit the Web Planet the first time."
"Okay. But that's not what you said originally." I'm a mouthy brat.
This introduces Victoria as a new companion. I knew it wouldn't be long until they would introduce a new girl companion. Jamie is kind of into her, probably because he spent a good half hour rescuing her from the Daleks. I find out that my expert viewer really likes her. I don't know how she is going to be. She is a pretty girl.
Next Up: The Tomb of the Cybermen. I've seen this one before on its own, so I'm looking forward to seeing it again, this time with more Doctor Who knowledge.
I'm at the end of Season Four!!!! I'm very happy to have made it this far. We still have many reconstructions to get through yet, but things are looking up.
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