Destiny of the Daleks
Story 104, Episodes 506-509, Season 17 Episodes 1-4
Doctor: The Fourth Doctor
Companions: K9, Romana II
In Terry Nation’s final script for Doctor Who we return to Skaro and Davros for a story that feels sort of disposable but continues to be enjoyable.
The Review
The central problem of this story is that the robotic Movellans are locked into a century-long stalemate with the robotic Daleks, both too logical to make the first move and win. To solve this, the Daleks decided they should go dig up Davros, because he still is organic. Now, Terry Nation, writer of this script, created the Daleks…and has forgotten that they’re not robots? The Doctor has a brilliant display of the limits of artificial intelligence versus the randomness of organic intelligence, the final theme being that he succeeds by being quick on his feet and unpredictable. This would maybe have been a great theme to substitute in the Cybermen and their cold logic (yes they’re not robots), but the Daleks are violent passionate hateful creatures! They’re not robots! Because I’m forgiving, I still found that plot line enjoyable, but it’s a misread of who the Daleks are. You would also think the show would treat the return of Davros as a huge deal, and he’s treated like a joke. I’m fine with some Davros-joking like The Witch’s Familiar but he never really gets to snap into seriousness here. He just hangs around until the Doctor locks him up. So much for Davros!
The first episode is atmospheric, but if you put Daleks in the title and expect us to be shocked by the Daleks showing up as a cliffhanger, get a better cliffhanger. (Dalek Invasion of Earth gets a pass because at the time individual episodes had titles and it was a surprise in the 60s). The Movellans are pretty sweet looking designs, and I enjoyed having a foil to the Daleks. I’m here for more weird looking aliens. There’s some prisoners on Skaro, but they’re not that important. The big story is the reveal of Romana II, who we don’t get much of, but is a bit more charming and a bit less book-smart. I don’t think just deciding to change appearance is something Romana I would really do, but when Mary Tamm tried to leave they didn’t have much choice. I think the best for Lalla Ward is yet to come, but she was a pleasant performance. The story itself is really inoffensive, which makes for a fun story because I’ll always enjoy messing around with the Daleks. Again, it’s biggest problem is its inoffensiveness, in that I felt there could be a lot more going on here. You’d have to completely rewrite this episode to upgrade it up to a classic, but as it is, it’s enjoyable. I wonder when Davros will be threatening again, and not just a fun character to have hanging around.
A fun disposable romp where they could have been an epic return of the mad scientist Davros, ah well. I did love the rock-paper-scissors scene, reminded me of the CERN scene in Extremis.
8.25/10 Davros gets perma-frozen and shipped off to stand trial. I’m sure we’ll never see him again.
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 