April 1: The Ice Warriors One & Two

After a little time away we're back on video for episode one of The Ice Warriors, with a special credit sequence too!  We've arrived in Earth's future, where a new Ice Age is threatening civilization.  The British side of things is bustling with activity (and really quite astonishing fashion), as they're only just holding the glaciers steady -- apparently without the help of their computer expert, Penley, we learn.  Into this environment the TARDIS materializes on its side, and the TARDIS crew have to climb out of the ship (with doors that open out for once, just like a real police box).  "Oh no, not again," Jamie complains as he sees all the snow.  "Tibet was bad enough, but I think you've put us down just further up the mountain."  And thus this running gag continues.

It's fun to see how quickly the Doctor inserts himself into the running of Britannicus Base, as he follows the base's leader, Clent, around the Ioniser Room and realizes the Ionizer is about to explode -- but fortunately he's able to avert disaster.  In this scene and the next we learn about how the Ice Age came about (an elimination of plants led to an elimination of carbon dioxide; er...) and how dependent Clent is upon the computer.  He basically won't do anything without the computer telling him what to do.  "Every decision is checked to eliminate risk of failure," Miss Garrett tells them.  "Because, of course, all decisions, all actions, must conform to the common good."  The Doctor clearly isn't convinced that such a reliance on computers is a good thing, but he doesn't immediately jump in and tell them all they're wrong, of course.

And the other major event in this first episode is that scientist Arden has discovered an unknown type of prehistoric man in the glacier.  Except the Doctor notices that his helmet appears to have electronic connections.  And as they start to thaw the strange man out, the creature awakens...

Episodes two and three are still missing from the archives, but the DVD has some rather nice animations in their place.  From a different company (Qurios) than the last three stories we've encountered (all by Planet 55), they're actually quite good, other than being a bit paper doll-ish.  And you can tell they've made an effort to use the telesnaps as close reference, which is a welcome move.

It's been remarked that you can lose episodes two and three and move from one to four without really losing much of the plot; this is true, but you also miss some character moments.  In episode one we've been presented with Leader Clent as someone who relies completely on science and technology (as represented by the computer), with the clear suggestion that this is not a good thing.  Episode two gives us Penley's friend Storr, who's so suspicious of anything technological that he won't even take medicine to heal his injured and infected arm: "You'd have stuffed me to the eyeballs with anti-this and anti-that.  I'd have been flat on my back for weeks...  Don't try scare me [sic] with all that scientific guff."  So writer Brian Hayles is making it clear that the opposite extreme is just as bad.

Episode two also gives us the set-up that's going to drive the plot for the next five episodes: the Doctor tells them all that the man in the ice, the Ice Warrior, is from another planet -- which means that his spaceship is still out there and could cause a terrible nuclear explosion if the Ioniser interacts improperly with it.  The rest of the story is going to be concerned with this worrying possibility.  And then added into the mix is the Ice Warrior himself, Varga.  He has a presence and a personality that comes through even in animation, and he doesn't feel like a stereotypical "monster", but rather a fully-formed character; he's concerned with rescuing his comrades in the glacier and contacting his home planet of Mars, and he's not going to let anyone get in his way.  It's a determined characterization, and the cliffhanger reveals that Varga is thawing out four more Ice Warriors just like him...

March 31: The Abominable Snowmen Episodes Five & Six

Yes, no change to the glacial pace; thankfully though, Padmasambhava's comment from the end of the last episode is delivered at a normal speed.  But this time around we get an attack on the monastery by the Yeti, Victoria hypnotized by Padmasambhava, the Doctor going to see his old friend Padmasambhava, and the Great Intelligence working on taking over not just the cave with the pyramid, but the whole mountain as well (and presumably from there the world).

Padmasambhava pleads with the Great Intelligence. (The
Abominable Snowmen Episode Five - from Doctor Who
Photonovels: The Abominable Snowmen - Episode Five) ©BBC

The Doctor's conversation with Padmasambhava is quite touching, as the Doctor realizes there's nothing he can do for his old friend, who's been under the influence of the Great Intelligence for nearly two hundred years (a number which causes problems when we get to 2012's "The Snowmen", but that's a long way off).  And the bit with Victoria is nicely effective, especially when she's been "programmed" to respond to the Doctor's voice with pleas of terror: "Doctor.  There is great danger.  You must take me away.  Take me away, take me away!"  His deprogramming of her has a nice moment too: "Look at my eyes.  You're feeling tired, very sleepy.  Drift away.  Let yourself drift away into sleep.  Deeper.  Deeper.  Sleep.  Sleep.  Sleep.  Sleep.  Oh, not you, Jamie," he adds crossly, as Jamie also starts to drift off.

And the Yeti attack!  Granted, it doesn't seem to be much of an attack, concerned more with property damage than killing people, but one of the monks, Rinchen, is killed when the Yeti knock a giant Buddha statue on him.  And still, after four episodes of seeing the Yeti generally standing around looking menacing, it's good to see them put into action.  And meanwhile, more of the mountain is being consumed by the strange glowing substance that apparently makes up the Intelligence.

Episode six begins quite violently.  The Doctor realizes that the Yeti are being controlled from inside the monastery, which leads Khrisong to confront Padmasambhava and save the Abbot Songsten from his power -- Khrisong not realizing that it's too late for Songsten -- and so he ends up with a blade in the back for his troubles.  The Doctor convinces the monks to evacuate while he faces off against the Great Intelligence (along with help from Jamie, Victoria, and the monk Thonmi), which leads to a mental battle between Padmasambhava and the Doctor (with some help from Victoria), while Jamie and Thonmi smash everything they can, eventually destroying a giant sphere and a large pyramid -- thus severing the Intelligence's control of the Yeti and preventing it from taking corporeal form on Earth by way of an exploding mountain.  And Padmasambhava is finally allowed to die.

So yes, The Abominable Snowmen is rather slow, but I find I don't really mind.  There are enough character moments and interesting set pieces to more than make up for any slack in the plotting.  Yes, it's another base-under-siege tale, but we haven't quite had one like this since The Moonbase (allowing for the fact that The Tomb of the Cybermen, although sharing many characteristics of a base-under-siege plot, is different enough to not quite qualify), so it's ok.  The only real concern is how the Buddhist monk part seems a bit grafted on.  Other than the idea of a monk's mind exploring the astral plane and getting caught up by an alien Intelligence, there's nothing here to really justify this being in a Tibetan monastery.  But to be honest, this isn't a major concern, and I find that in the end I quite enjoy The Abominable Snowmen.  It's not the greatest tale, but it's by no means the worst, and the fact that it remains relatively interesting over the course of six episodes, despite the paucity of story, is an achievement in itself.

March 30: The Abominable Snowmen Episodes Three & Four

The slow pace continues, but it still hasn't become a problem.  I'm not sure why that is, to be honest; earlier I was condemning The Web Planet for moving at a glacial pace, but The Abominable Snowmen isn't moving much faster.  I suppose it could be as simple as the fact that here we have characters we can latch on to; Khrisong's frustration at being unable to adequately protect the monastery is much easier to comprehend than the Menoptra's struggles against a large vaguely arachnid creature.

But let's be honest; this is another episode where there's not much actual story development.  We do learn that Padmasambhava is the one controlling the Yeti, and that he's doing so for the benefit of something called the Great Intelligence (though it's still not clear what determines which voice is used when -- I thought the evil whisper might have been the Intelligence speaking through him, but that doesn't seem to be the case).  He's even got a little board with small carved Yeti to move around.  And the Abbot Songsten is clearly under his power, and so he takes a small glass pyramid up the mountain, accompanied by Yeti.  But beyond that, there's not much incident.  We saw the silver control sphere moving as the cliffhanger for episode two, and it takes all of episode three for it to reach the deactivated Yeti, such that its coming back to life is the cliffhanger for this episode.  But everything else consists of nice character moments, such as Khrisong's decision to give the Doctor and Jamie a little trust, or the spirit trap that the monks construct around the captured Yeti.  Although Victoria seems to be rather nosy this time around, trying repeatedly to enter the Inner Sanctum of the monastery just so she can see Padmasambhava, more out of idle curiosity than anything else.  It's not the most successful characterization for her, to be honest.

The Yeti gather. (The Abominable Snowmen Episode Four) ©BBC

Episode four is more of the same: the primary story advancement consists of the reactivated Yeti leaving the monastery, Abbot Songsten placing the glowing pyramid in the cave with the control spheres up in the mountain, the Doctor and Jamie investigating the Yeti some more (with a signal tracking device this time), and Victoria continuing to be nosy, this time finally making her way into the Inner Sanctum.  And Travers has a bit more to do this time, as he follows Songsten into the cave and discovers the pyramid, just as it cracks open and begins spewing out some sort of substance (Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #36: The Missing Episodes - The Second Doctor Volume 2 -- aka the magazine with the telesnaps for this story -- refers to this substance as "an ectoplasmic goo", but chances are good that it was the BBC foam machine being put to use).  And as we've come to expect, there's a fun scene between the Doctor and Jamie, as they find a Yeti standing guard by the TARDIS.  "Have you thought up some clever plan, Doctor?" Jamie asks.  "Yes, Jamie, I believe I have," the Doctor replies.  "What are you going to do?"   "Bung a rock at it."

The most interesting part of the episode comes at the end, when the Abbot Songsten, who has returned from the cave, tells the monks that they must abandon Detsen.  But Khrisong refuses, insisting that his warrior monks can defend the monastery against the robotic Yeti.  And Victoria, as mentioned earlier, finally enters the Inner Sanctum and sees Padmasambhava face to face, revealing an old yet babylike face smiling serenely at her, which leads to the slowest cliffhanger yet: "Come............in....................." Padmasambhava slowly says.  "You........ have.................... no.............. al....ter...........na............................tive............."

March 29: The Abominable Snowmen Episodes One & Two

Episode one is audio + telesnaps again...well, it was nice watching actual episodes while it lasted.

When you think back on this first episode of The Abominable Snowmen, you realize that not a lot happens; the Doctor goes down to Detsen monastery to return the Holy Ghanta which he took for safekeeping three hundred years earlier and is arrested under suspicion of murder, and Jamie and Victoria wander around the Himalayan mountainside and find a cave and a huge hairy beast -- presumably one of the eponymous abominable snowmen.  (Jamie having earlier been concerned that they were actually still on Telos: "Hey, is it the Earth, Doctor?  I don't fancy another tangle down the Cybermen's tomb." -- this is going to start a running theme for the next couple stories.)  And that's really about it.  Yet when you're listening to it, you don't really notice.  There's a deliberate pace to this, which means that there's no real sense of longueurs pervading the episode, because the entire thing's like that.  There are a lot of talking scenes, as the monks debate what to do about the Doctor, and Travers, the explorer looking for the Yeti, insists that the Doctor must have been the one who attacked his campsite and killed his companion.  But they're interesting talking scenes -- and Troughton is wonderful when he's defending himself over attacks he knows nothing about: "Me?  I haven't attacked anyone!" the Doctor protests, but he's led away nevertheless.  And meanwhile, Jamie and Victoria are trapped in a cave by a Yeti...

Jamie takes a sphere from the pyramid inside the cave. (The
Abominable Snowmen Episode Two) ©BBC

It wasn't until the release of the 1981 Winter Special of Doctor Who Monthly (as Doctor Who Magazine was then known as) that fandom learned of the sheer number of episodes of Doctor Who missing from the archives, with a staggering 136 episodes seemingly gone forever.  Episode two of The Abominable Snowmen was the first episode recovered after the publication of that magazine, returned to the BBC in 1982.  It's more of the same as episode one, with a deliberate paceyness that works to its advantage.  Jamie buries the Yeti in a rockfall and discovers a strange pyramid of glowing metal spheres.  But the Yeti is only stunned, not killed, and so it chases Jamie and Victoria down the mountain, where they run into Travers.  They convince Travers of the Doctor's innocence, but in the meantime Khrisong, leader of the warrior monks at Detsen, has tied up the Doctor outside the gates to use as bait for the Yeti.  But the Doctor has told one of the monks about the Ghanta, and he tells the Abbot Songsten, and then both of them listen to the voice of the old master, Padmasambhava (that's [pæd.mə.'sɑm.bə.və], in case you were wondering), who talks alternately in a slow calm voice and a faster, more sinister whisper -- although it's not quite clear what determines when each voice speaks.  Presumably the whisper is meant to indicate an "evil" voice, but it's rather tough to work out the differences between the two sets of dialogue.

And so the Doctor is set free, thanks to the intervention of Abbot Songsten, which means they can get to work capturing a Yeti.  "Hey, Doctor, if you really want to capture one of these beasties, I think I have an idea which might just work," Jamie says.  "Victoria," the Doctor replies, backing away, "I think this is one of those instances where discretion is the better part of valour: Jamie has an idea."  But Jamie's idea works and they capture a Yeti in a net, and when the Doctor studies it, he learns it's actually a robot -- but with a round sphere of some sort missing.  And by the statue of the Buddha, a silver sphere rolls of its own accord...

So like episode one, episode two also has that deliberate sense of pace that nevertheless doesn't feel like it's dragging; instead it's exactly as quick as it needs to be.  And there are definitely some mysteries going on in this second episode, including the nature of Padmasambhava and why robots are wandering around 20th-century Tibet, which are intriguing and leave the viewer wanting more.

March 28: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episodes 3 & 4

The Doctor is confronted by the Cyber Controller. (The Tomb of
the Cybermen Episode 3) ©BBC

Having announced at the end of the last episode that "you belong to us", the Cybermen appear ready to make good on their proclamation.  They tell the expedition that the surface rooms were designed so that only intelligent people could come down into the tombs and thus become Cybermen -- hence all the logic puzzles and such.  Then the Cyber Controller explicitly marks Klieg and Parry as the first and second people to be turned into Cybermen. We're sort of used to the idea of people being turned into Cybermen now, but this is the first time it's made explicit; yes, there's that moment in The Tenth Planet where the Cybermen announce that the crew of Snowcap Base will be converted into Cybermen, but that never feels like a legitimate threat.  But here, the idea of being turned into a Cyberman is a very real threat, and it's only the intervention of Captain Hopper and his smoke grenades which saves them from this fate.

The rest of the episode is a tense waiting game, as Parry's expedition is only sticking around while the rocket crew repairs the damage done by Toberman in episode 1.  The Cybermen are trapped down in the tombs, unable to open the hatch (um, bit of a design flaw there, not having an opening lever down in the tombs), so they send Cybermats, little metallic "caterpillars" (to use Jamie's description), up small ramps to terrorize the people above.  But before this we get a nice little scene between the Doctor and Victoria, where they talk about the Doctor's family and Victoria's father.  And the Doctor reassures her and tells her, "So remember, our lives are different to anybody else's.  That's the exciting thing.  There's nobody in the universe can do what we're doing."  It's nice to have a quiet little scene like this in the midst of all the action.  But then the Cybermats attack (well, scuttle about), but the Doctor's quick thinking saves them.  "You might almost say they've had a complete metal breakdown," the Doctor puns, to which Jamie groans -- massively out of character for an 18th-century Highlander, but still entertaining.  And then Klieg emerges from the testing room in which he's been kept prisoner by the others, holding an x-ray laser.  Nice work, guys, locking him in a room with working weapons.

Episode 4 isn't quite as entertaining as the others, since it's concerned more with finishing up the story rather than maintaining the mood like the other three have been.  The Cyber Controller orders the other Cybermen back into the tombs "to conserve energy" -- a move which seems to come out of nowhere (Cybermen need to regularly recharge?) but which means that our heroes only have to deal with a couple of Cybermen, rather than a city's worth.  The Cyber Controller arrives to talk terms with Klieg, but he's clearly weakened too, so they lock him inside a cabinet with a revitalizing machine and then tie down the door.  "Jamie, I hope you made those ropes secure," the Doctor says.  "Och, the King of the Beasties couldnae get out of that one," Jamie replies, right before the Controller smashes through the door, the ropes easily falling away.  Another fun moment.  Then the Controller reenters the main room upstairs, ordering Kaftan to open the hatch to the tombs.  When she refuses, he kills her with the x-ray laser, leading to possibly the least convincing death fall in all of Doctor Who, as Shirley Cooklin gingerly lets herself down onto the floor, rather than just falling down dead.  This upsets Toberman, so he kills the Cyber Controller (or, at least, a dummy version of him) by throwing him against the control banks.³⁷  The Doctor then goes down into the tombs to freeze the Cybermen forever.

Toberman attacks the Cyber Controller. (The Tomb of the
Cybermen Episode 4) ©BBC

But Klieg, clearly off his rocker by this point, insists that the Cybermen will work for him, first via strength (because of the x-ray laser) and then because their Controller is killed by Toberman (who's been half-cybernized by this point -- a stark reminder of the fate that awaits the others should the Cybermen succeed).  Still, this does lead to the wonderful "now I know you're mad" moment from the Doctor.  Then Klieg is killed by a Cyberman, who is then himself killed by Toberman (with, it must be said, a really gruesome death, as a huge amount of foam spills from its chest unit -- was this what the deaths in The Moonbase were like?  It is the same director...), and so the Doctor can finally seal up the tombs.  He then reelectrifies everything, but the Controller, it turns out, isn't quite dead, so Toberman sacrifices himself by closing the doors and taking a massive electrical shock in the process.  But the Cybermen are sealed inside their tomb once again.  "Now, that really is the end of the Cybermen, isn't it?" Jamie says.  "Yes, Jamie.  On the other hand, I never like to make predictions," says the man who declared "the final end" of the Daleks last story.

When The Tomb of the Cybermen was recovered in 1991, there was a sense of letdown once people could actually see the thing again, and they noted things like the ropey special effects (dummy Controller, obvious Kirby wires on Toberman, the polystyrene door the Controller bursts through) and the rather variable performances from the guest cast.  Prior to 1991, Tomb had been hailed as a perfect classic, so you can see how people were a bit disappointed when they could watch it themselves.  But the thing about The Tomb of the Cybermen is that it still hangs together quite well.  There are some moments of lesser quality, certainly, but no more than in any other Doctor Who story.  The lapses in story logic are a bit less forgivable, but again, no worse than, say, The Evil of the Daleks and its "mirrors + static electricity = working time machine" stuff.  The sense of dread and tension that pervades the serial makes this quite a standout story, and you can definitely see why it made such an impact on children at the time (these were, after all, the people who later enhanced Tomb's reputation to such a high degree).  Only in the last episode, where we're denied a climactic battle between the humans and all the Cybermen and have to be content with fighting off merely two of them, do things start to really disappoint.  Everything before is marvelously entertaining.







³⁷ Toberman's upset by Kaftan's death, I mean, not her lousy acting -- although I guess we can't rule out the possibility that Roy Stewart is channeling his rage at her performance in his attack on the Cyber Controller.

March 27: The Tomb of the Cybermen Episodes 1 & 2

Whew.  It's something of a relief to finally get to a complete story in the archives -- and thanks to the recent recoveries by Phil Morris, we've reached a point where over two-thirds of the remaining Troughton episodes are in existence.  I think I was getting a little tired of being tantalized by soundtracks and telesnaps and not being able to see much of anything.  This story, of course, was until 2013 the most recently recovered complete story, having been returned from Hong Kong in 1991.

Standard and special edition DVDs

Episode 1 of The Tomb of the Cybermen opens mere moments where The Evil of the Daleks left off, as Victoria is brought into the TARDIS and the Doctor and Jamie explain that it's a time machine, just like her father was working on -- which leads to Victoria's rather marvelous non sequitur, "I mean, if what you say is true then you must be, well, how old?"  As if being incredibly old is a requirement for time travel.  But this serves as a nice little recap not only of what happened between seasons, but also of the show in general.

But then we shift to a rocky planet and an archaeological crew trying to blow a hole into the side of a mountain in order to unearth the lost city of Telos³⁶, the legendary tomb of the Cybermen.  It seems the Cybermen have disappeared from history "many centuries ago", and now archaeologists are keen to learn more about them.  The Doctor and his friends stick around as they explore the lost city (which looks more like just a largeish building up top, but never mind), and then in the cliffhanger, a Cyberman emerges to kill one of the party...

There's an air of confidence about this, even as the odd accents and bizarre characterizations abound; Kaftan and Klieg might as well be wearing flashing "villain" signs for all they try to disguise their ulterior motives.  Kaftan in particular seems spiteful, apparently trapping Victoria in a Cyberman recharging closet just for the hell of it.  But there's a self-assuredness about the direction that makes up for these lapses in the serial.  And being able to see the episode adds to one's enjoyment enormously -- you wouldn't know about all of Troughton and Hines's interplay from the soundtrack alone.  Note in particular the lovely moment where the Doctor, entering the tomb for the first time, takes Jamie's hand in the belief that it's Victoria's, realizes what he's done, and throws it down in disgust.  Great fun.

Episode 2 continues the fun, as Klieg manages to open the hatch leading down into the tomb (thanks to some help from the Doctor, oddly -- he seems to be conflicted here, as he warns the expedition against meddling with things that should be left alone, yet he's eager to give them a helping hand when necessary; maybe his curiosity is getting the better of him).  But before that there's some stuff with the Cyberman in the testing room (actually a robotic dummy), with another fun Troughton/Hines moment.  The Doctor's trying to work out the sequence of events that led up to Haydon's death, and he needs Jamie to show him what buttons and levers he used.  "Now there is a distinct element of risk in what I'm asking you all to do, so if anyone wishes to leave they must do so at once.  Not you, Jamie," the Doctor adds, as Jamie moves to leave.

The Cybermen emerge from their tomb. (The Tomb of the
Cybermen Episode 2) ©BBC

But yes, the hatch has been opened, and the majority of the party descend into the actual tomb, only to discover that the Cybermen aren't dead; they're merely in suspended animation, waiting for someone to come and reactivate them -- an action which Klieg is only too willing to perform.  He seems to think that, as a member of the Brotherhood of Logicians back on Earth, the Cybermen will be only too willing to help them take over (or something...the motivation here is a little vague, to be honest).  He doesn't seem to have counted on the Cybermen being unwilling to go along with this plan.  But they are, and as we meet the Controller of all the Cybermen (as indicated by his lack of a chest unit and his giant brain case), Klieg learns how wrong he is.  "You belong to us," the Controller says, grabbing Klieg's arm tightly.  "You shall be like us."

These two episodes are often a little loose in acting and plotting, but that aforementioned confidence helps carry things off.  It also helps that these two episodes are building up to the end of episode 2, when the Cybermen finally emerge from their tomb.  Their presence hangs over all the proceedings, and their emergence is justly iconic.  So far, The Tomb of the Cybermen is a winner -- we'll have to see how things go next time, to see if they can keep it up.








³⁶ And note that at this point in time the name "Telos" seems to refer only to the city itself, not the entire planet.

March 26: The Evil of the Daleks Episodes 5, 6, & 7

Episode 5 is also padded, albeit not as padded as the last episode -- but really episodes 3, 4, and 5 could have been condensed into two episodes without any real problems.  We do get some interesting moments with the Doctor and Arthur Terrall (where we learn that Terrall seems to be incapable of drinking, and that he also has magnetic properties, apparently because the Dalek control box is flooding his system with static electricity), and we also learn that Maxtible is an accomplished hypnotist, and that he used this skill to get Victoria to go to the Daleks.

But there's more waffle with Victoria in that room with Jamie and Kemel, as it takes them the majority of the episode to get out again.  When they do get out it sounds like there's a good swordfight going on, so there's that at least.  However, the best part of the episode concerns the Doctor and the Human Factor, as he contemplates making the three test Daleks become humanized.  Waterfield tries to get him to stop (both by argument and by force), but the Doctor seems to think that the humanized Daleks won't be as much of a threat as initially believed: "And sacrifice a whole world?  A history, past, present and future?  Destroy an entire race?" Waterfield asks.  "Yes," the Doctor replies.  "I don't think you quite realize what you're saying.  But yes, it may come to that.  It may very well come to that."  It seems even at this point the Doctor is considering the effect his Daleks will have on the Dalek race.  This leads to the oddest cliffhanger yet, as the humanized Daleks play a game with the Doctor, pushing him around and playing with him.

The humanized Daleks play a game with the Doctor. (The Evil of
the Daleks Episode 5 - from Doctor Who Photonovels: The Evil
of the Daleks - Episode Five) ©BBC

Episode 6 gets us back on track, with lots of incident and excitement.   The humanized Daleks are like children, learning about the world with wonder (and there's nothing as oddly creepy as Dalek voices with curious human-like inflections) and learning about things like friendship.  The Doctor names them Alpha, Beta, and Omega -- but then they announce that they're leaving.  Yes, it's time for this adventure to head to Skaro -- once we've blown up Maxtible's house with a bomb first.

Skaro's certainly a more abstract-looking place than the last time we visited, way back in The Daleks.  There's a lot more black space and sharp angles to be seen here, which gives the place a rather German Expressionist look.  Into this city enter Victoria and Kemel, Maxtible, and later the Doctor, Jamie, and Waterfield.  This episode's about moving the pieces into their final positions, but it does so very well.  And then, at the end, we meet the big daddy of them all: the Emperor Dalek.  This is clearly a huge creature, ten feet high at least, that the telesnaps only begin to hint at.  It turns out, under the Emperor's orders, that the Daleks have been more devious than the Doctor thought; instead of isolating the Human Factor, the Doctor has allowed them to isolate the Dalek Factor, which they will use to spread Dalek-ness through all of human history, forcing the Doctor to use his TARDIS to do so...

What's this?  That's right, three episodes today!  (Otherwise episode 1's would be the second episode of a given day until Colin Baker's era.)  So let's finish off this story -- and season 4 -- by listening to episode 7 of The Evil of the Daleks...

The Emperor Dalek. (The Evil of the Daleks Episode 6 -
from Doctor Who Photonovels: The Evil of the Daleks - Episode
Six) ©BBC

Things look bleak at the start.  The Doctor and his friends are prisoners of the Daleks, and they hold his TARDIS, so it looks like there's no way of escaping.  And what's worse, Maxtible is conditioned with the Dalek Factor when his greed overtakes him and he tries to take the machine the Daleks show him that turns iron into gold (seemingly; however, I seem to recall John Peel's novelization indicating that this was actually a hoax to get him to go through the Dalek-ifying archway).  And then Maxtible hypnotizes the Doctor and has him walk through the archway too, turning him into a Dalek-like person as well.  This is pretty crazy "how will they get out of this?" stuff.  But it turns out that the archway doesn't work on the Doctor (because in his words, "I don't come from Earth"), and he swaps the Dalek Factor capsule with a Human Factor capsule.  This sets the scene for the final confrontation, as the Doctor (while pretending to be Dalekized) convinces the Emperor to send all Daleks through the Dalek Factor archway, to try and turn Alpha, Beta, and Omega back into Daleks that don't question orders.  Now there's a large faction of humanized Daleks roaming through the city, leading to civil war on Skaro, with lots of exploding Daleks and wreckage and things.  ("Do not fight in here!" the Emperor Dalek booms memorably, as Daleks blast each other to pieces in the Emperor's control room.)  The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria leave Skaro in the TARDIS -- everyone else (with the possible exception of Maxtible) having been killed in the carnage.  Waterfield's dying wish is that the Doctor look after Victoria, and so that's what he's going to do.  And the story ends with the war on Skaro still raging...

The Evil of the Daleks is quite an accomplished piece of Doctor Who.  Yes, some of the science is ludicrous (though no more than any other Whitaker script), but there's a confidence on display here that more than makes up for this.  The Evil of the Daleks was intended to be a "final end" for the Daleks (Terry Nation intending to take his creations to America for a TV series that never happened), and there's clearly a desire to send them out in style.  And in this, they succeed admirably.  It's padded fairly obviously in the middle, but it's also a suitably epic confrontation between the Doctor and the Daleks, one that starts small but grows larger and larger until the fate of an entire planet is affected.  An impressive achievement.

Yet it's a bit of an oddity for season 4.  Season 2 saw Doctor Who push the boundaries of its format, and season 3 saw more of the same, just in new and different directions.  Yet season 4 sees the series start to play it safe.  After the newness of the base-under-siege format in The Tenth Planet, and the hand-off from one lead actor to another in the same story (handled in admittedly an impressively creative way), there's a feeling here of a lack of ambition.  Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis are content to keep telling the same basic storyline from here on out -- there may be some alterations from story to story, but the basic concept of a crusader who repels aliens attempting to attack/infiltrate/kidnap us remains the same from story to story.  And note that word "crusader"; the Doctor began this series as an explorer and a scientist, one who wanted to learn about the universe rather than shape it, but now he's simply there to fight "evil", because that's what he does now.  The exploration and discovery is a sideshow to repelling the Alien Threat of the Month. 

But it's clear that this is the show Lloyd and Davis want to make, and that anything outside that remit isn't worth doing in their eyes (stand up, The Highlanders).  This method is a success, with ratings remaining steady throughout this period -- and the next season, which is arguably even more limited in its scope, is frequently hailed as one of the finest seasons of the entire series -- but that sense of wonder that characterized the early years is gone, and one gets the sneaking suspicion that the stories this season that are successful are successful in spite of this new direction, rather than because of it.