Destiny of the Daleks
The randomizer takes the TARDIS to an unknown planet where the Doctor and the newly regenerated Romana face the Daleks and a second race of machines, the Movellans. Both sides are locked in a conflict that has been going on for centuries, with not a shot fired on either side. Both races are waiting for their computers to predict a moment of maximum advantage for attack, but the Daleks, having realized that there is an impasse, have returned to Skaro to retreive Davros where he was left for dead. The Movellans have followed, and realize that if Davros could help the Daleks, then maybe the Doctor would be an asset to them...
Oh the poor Daleks. Physically they look like hell in this one; there are four primary units used for the show and all of them are in terrible disrepair with bits falling off, paint missing and casings patched back together with whatever could be found. Sad. They do, however, have a new laser effect which doesn't require turning the whole screen to a negative now; it is confined to the individual being exterminated. The Movellans, as far as looks go, are perfect humanoids with a definite Egytptain influence, right down to their ship looking like an inverted pyramid. Those white spandex suits, though, they must have come right from Buck Rogers.
So Romana has regenerated, with no apparant reason given for it, and now she looks like Princess Astra of Atrios (played by Lalla Ward, who Tom Baker would marry eventually. and then divorce. Her relationship with the Doctor takes a much lighter route than it did with the first Romana, starting with a comic scene where the Doctor originally disapproves of her new body and she goes off to re-shape it, going through some extremely tasteless (no offence to the actresses hired) choices before returning in her new shorter, blonde haired version. Unlike the Doctor and his varying extremes of personality from body to body, Romana more or less retains her character, but perhaps losing a bit of the snobby supermodel edge that Mary Tamm brought to the role. She is clever though, managing to bluff the Daleks into thinking she knows nothing about them when they capture and interrogate her, and she even takes on the Movellan commander in a knock down drag out mudwrestle in part 4.
Ah Davros. This is pretty much what everyone was afraid would happen; by using Davros before, the Daleks would now become tied to him in future stories, although at this point he does not exactly trust them and isn't entirely on their side. Still, how would you feel if your children tried to kill you and then came back and not so much admitted you were right but asked for your help. This time it's a different actor playing the role, although I would have preferred Michael Wisher to have done it. Despite the efforts of future actors, I still think of the original Davros as the best. At least Michael Wisher didn't bounce around in his seat while trundling the Davros wheelchair about.
You can tell the script editor had changed at this point; the Doctor was now doing crazy stuff but Tom Baker was pulling it off brillaintly, with exclaimations of "Oh look, rocks!" when operating the TARDIS scanner, and being the first to openly criticise the Daleks for their lack of climbing ability.
And there is no K9 this episode. John Leeson wasn't going to be able to do the voice this season and as K9 was by and large this obstacle on the set that most writers didn't enjoy writing for, it was easy to sideline him for this episode, citing a bout of laryngitis as the reason for his absence. Just as well, really; K9 in a firefight with the Daleks would have been just too quick a fix for some situations where the Doctor would have in past relied to his own cunning and guile to outwit them.
Does this episode do much for the Daleks? I'm not entirely convinced it does. As I said before, now that Davros has been hauled back into life (how he didn't decompose over all that time I'll never know.. it's very Dorian Grey) there comes a danger of him being the focal point of every Dalek story to come; in effect making everything a Davros story and forgetting that for years before he was shown the Daleks were the force to be reckoned with. But ah, the people behind Doctor Who are for the most part brilliant, and if indeed Davros did become too central a figure for the TV series at the time, in future things would be different...
NEXT EPISODE : CITY OF DEATH
Oh the poor Daleks. Physically they look like hell in this one; there are four primary units used for the show and all of them are in terrible disrepair with bits falling off, paint missing and casings patched back together with whatever could be found. Sad. They do, however, have a new laser effect which doesn't require turning the whole screen to a negative now; it is confined to the individual being exterminated. The Movellans, as far as looks go, are perfect humanoids with a definite Egytptain influence, right down to their ship looking like an inverted pyramid. Those white spandex suits, though, they must have come right from Buck Rogers.
So Romana has regenerated, with no apparant reason given for it, and now she looks like Princess Astra of Atrios (played by Lalla Ward, who Tom Baker would marry eventually. and then divorce. Her relationship with the Doctor takes a much lighter route than it did with the first Romana, starting with a comic scene where the Doctor originally disapproves of her new body and she goes off to re-shape it, going through some extremely tasteless (no offence to the actresses hired) choices before returning in her new shorter, blonde haired version. Unlike the Doctor and his varying extremes of personality from body to body, Romana more or less retains her character, but perhaps losing a bit of the snobby supermodel edge that Mary Tamm brought to the role. She is clever though, managing to bluff the Daleks into thinking she knows nothing about them when they capture and interrogate her, and she even takes on the Movellan commander in a knock down drag out mudwrestle in part 4.
Ah Davros. This is pretty much what everyone was afraid would happen; by using Davros before, the Daleks would now become tied to him in future stories, although at this point he does not exactly trust them and isn't entirely on their side. Still, how would you feel if your children tried to kill you and then came back and not so much admitted you were right but asked for your help. This time it's a different actor playing the role, although I would have preferred Michael Wisher to have done it. Despite the efforts of future actors, I still think of the original Davros as the best. At least Michael Wisher didn't bounce around in his seat while trundling the Davros wheelchair about.
You can tell the script editor had changed at this point; the Doctor was now doing crazy stuff but Tom Baker was pulling it off brillaintly, with exclaimations of "Oh look, rocks!" when operating the TARDIS scanner, and being the first to openly criticise the Daleks for their lack of climbing ability.
And there is no K9 this episode. John Leeson wasn't going to be able to do the voice this season and as K9 was by and large this obstacle on the set that most writers didn't enjoy writing for, it was easy to sideline him for this episode, citing a bout of laryngitis as the reason for his absence. Just as well, really; K9 in a firefight with the Daleks would have been just too quick a fix for some situations where the Doctor would have in past relied to his own cunning and guile to outwit them.
Does this episode do much for the Daleks? I'm not entirely convinced it does. As I said before, now that Davros has been hauled back into life (how he didn't decompose over all that time I'll never know.. it's very Dorian Grey) there comes a danger of him being the focal point of every Dalek story to come; in effect making everything a Davros story and forgetting that for years before he was shown the Daleks were the force to be reckoned with. But ah, the people behind Doctor Who are for the most part brilliant, and if indeed Davros did become too central a figure for the TV series at the time, in future things would be different...
NEXT EPISODE : CITY OF DEATH
Labels: Daleks, Davros, Romana, The 4th Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 10:38 AM
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