The Evil of the Daleks - Episode 4

I was somewhat underwhelmed with the previous episode, I was hoping that this episode would restore my faith and instantly it seemed like this was possible as there was a nice fight scene between Kemel and Jamie. Jamie saved his life and its such a good scene that I forgot that it was part of an experiment and we are reminded of this with the scene between the Doctor and the Daleks. This episode is somewhat light of Patrick Troughton and Deborah Watling as they only appear in pre-filmed scenes. This means that Frazer Hines gets to lead the episode and as usual he makes the most of it. It also means that Edward Waterfield and Theodore Maxtible get more scenes and I like how they are at odds with each other whilst resigned to the fact that they can’t do much about the situation now.

They are utilising Mollie as she discovers that Victoria isn’t in Paris and gets into trouble. The scene where she exits a scene in tears does a great deal to sympathise with her and Edward Waterfield and dislike the Daleks even more. The Evil part of this story is living up to its name and that’s the first time that this has been the case. The supporting performances are all quite good with Deborah Watling managing to be quite good considering all she says is her name several times. In fact everyone seems to be on better form the in episode three.  However when I try and think what happens in this episode all I can remember is the fight at the beginning of the episode, Mollie stumbling across the true location of Victoria in the middle and apart from that very little happens again. The story shouldn’t be called Evil of the Daleks but Daleks spy on Jamie to try and get the Human Factor but I don’t suppose that would have had quite the selling factor that they would have liked.

My original feelings to this story seem to be somewhat misplaced. It doesn’t seem to make sense why this story should be seven episodes long when it should a four part episode. At least in ‘The Faceless Ones’ the story seemed to have a zip to it whereas here there are moments of action but on the whole it’s a lot of nothing happen. Episode 4 is better than 3 buts that not much of a compliment but it does at least feel like its not freefalling to mediocrity..