Day 84 — March 25th 2021
The Evil of the Daleks Episodes Three and Four
The Evil of the Daleks — Episode Three
Ahh, I’m afraid to report that things haven’t picked up for me today. These episodes feel like they contain all the things that I remembered not particularly enjoying about The Evil of the Daleks, and I suspect the biggest problem is that they’re just very dull.
They’re also more than a little tricky to keep track of. There’s so many characters! Having ditched the handful of 1960s characters with Episode Two, this one sets about replacing them with some 1860s ones. We’ve got Arthur Terrell who shows up from nowhere, plus the introduction of Kemel. There’s the robber (who was in Episode Two as well), but where it gets really tricky is that we have two different scientists* with two different daughters, a housemaid, and the Daleks… I find it tricky to remember who’s who and what they’re all up to.
(*Now I think about it… is Waterfield a scientist? I know Maxtible is, but what’s Waterfield doing? Surely his sole function in the story can’t have been to bring Doctor Who to the Victorian era?)
I also don’t think that there’s any real drama in any of this. For all that they’re desperately trying to pad out seven episodes with not a great deal of story, the cliffhanger to Episode Two hinged heavily on Doctor Who and Waterfield being screwed if they can’t find Jamie… and then finding him only minutes into this one. I can’t help but feel that there might have been a bit more tension to wring from that dilemma.
It doesn’t help that today’s cliffhanger is, to but it bluntly, shit. It’s probably the worst cliffhanger we’ve had so far. Jamie opens a door, sees Kemel, and says ‘hello… who are you?’. I’m possibly being unfair again. There’s a good chance that could we actually see this one we’d discover that moment played for laughs (I think we’d miss the joke of Doctor Who knocking stuff over in Episode Two, having just told Jamie to be careful, if we couldn’t see it). All the same, this is the only way we can experience this one for now, and it’s not very gripping at all.
But when I started out on this marathon, I said that I wanted to try and find things to enjoy as much as I could. So I will say that there’s some great dialogue in this episode. Probably my favourite is;
Dalek: ‘We do not trust you.’
Doctor Who: ‘Then we’re quits, aren’t we?’
Patrick Troughton has a really interesting way of being both scared of the Daleks — he never undermines them like all that business in The Chase — but also showing them up in his own way. It works nicely, and it’s one of the things I am enjoying here. And then there’s the discussion of why Doctor Who isn’t suitable for the ‘Human Factor’ test;
Doctor Who: ‘Well why choose Jamie for this test?’
Dalek: ‘His travelling with you makes him unique.’
Doctor Who: ‘But why him, why not me?’
Dalek: ‘Request denied.’
Doctor Who: ‘Why?’
Dalek: ‘You have travelled too much through time. You are more than human.’
Doctor Who: ‘I see.’
I think this story goes on to outright confirm that Doctor Who isn’t human, but it’s interesting to think that the Daleks at the very least think he might be. There’s something a bit interesting about that, and it’s the kind of thing that gets lost once the series starts to pin things down like where Doctor Who comes from.
4/10
The Evil of the Daleks — Episode Four
Frazer Hines tries his best on the Narrated Soundtrack to make this episode sound exciting, but this is the one I remembered most from the last time around — lots of tedious fighting between Jamie and Kemel to try and get to Victoria.
I suspect that this is very much one of those occasions where I’d appreciate things more if I could actually see them. The location where much of the pre-filming took place — Grimm’s Dyke, a house in Middlesex — is gorgeous, and rather beautifully it has the look of a Victorian house, even during filming in 1967. Speaking to Simon Guerrier for his Black Archive on The Evil of The Daleks, costume designer Sandra Reid recalled the house as being ‘cold, scruffy and damp with original Victorian wallpaper peeling off the walls. But that’s perfect. The house has been a hotel for the last 50 years, converted not long after filming of this story, and looking at pictures of it now it’s nice, certainly, but it looks modern. The tele-snaps for this story make it look real, and I think being able to see it properly would really boost my opinion of things.
The same goes for being able to see the Daleks on location. The image above was taken for, and published in, the Harrow Observer during the production of this story. The original negative for the photo is long since lost, so we only have a poor quality copy now, but doesn’t it look amazing?
In his Black Archive, Guerrier argues that the way we view lost stories changes over time, and points out that for a long while the only material available for The Evil of the Daleks was photographs like this. No wonder it built up a reputation as being a classic, because the photos are captivating, and even behind the scenes shots like this one fire my imagination.
The same can’t be said for the episode itself, though. I’m afraid I’m going for a 3/10 on this one. It’s where things really start to disconnect for me, and I find myself amazed that people love this one so much. One of my favourite things about Doctor Who is that we all love different bits of it, and I can appreciate almost anything being someone’s favourite, but surely we can all agree this episode is pretty dull?
