Friday, 25 October 2013

The Evil of the Daleks: Episode 1


The Evil of the Daleks is the final story of this fourth series and it picks up immediately after the events of ‘The Faceless Ones’. It introduces Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield but the episode doesn’t allow much time to get over the departure of Ben and Polly as the Doctor and Jamie try and find out who has stolen the TARDIS. There is a nice feel that came from it being in the modern day that there was during ‘The Faceless Ones’ that has continued in this episode. The first episode is quite a strange one as nothing really happens because the Doctor and Jamie are after the TARDIS, trying to hunt it down and Waterfield and Kennedy are setting things up. The most active that Jamie and the Doctor get is in the café and even then I was more interested in the music that was playing as its not something that we normally get in Doctor Who and so I thought that it was a nice moment.
The supporting cast are all very good and actually steal the show. Edward Waterfield is an interesting character because we know his story but back in 1967 the viewers wouldn’t have known this and so there would be something intriguing about him. He is played brilliantly by John Bailey and there is a nice balance between confident and anxious. Griffith Davies is also quite good as Kennedy and in his only appearance in the story, Alec Ross is fun as Bob Hall. These three are who help push this story and it seems like Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines pop up every so often to remind us that they are in the story.
Now one thing that is a sort of rule in Doctor Who is that the Daleks don’t appear until the very end of the first episode. Even if their name is in the title and this time its true to form as they don’t appear until the final few minutes and even then its only one. It was a very good cliffhanger and as an opening episode it managed to do the transition quite well and the final story of the series and the final Dalek story for five years has started well.

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