Death to the Daleks - Episode 1

1 year ago today I decided to start my Doctor Who marathon with An Unearthly Child. What a difference a year makes. There has been a whole range of stories and some have been good and some have been bad. We have had reunions and the birth of some classic monsters and villains. Sadly year two starts off with Death to the Daleks which is one of my least favourite Dalek stories. This story is written by Terry Nation and directed by Michael Briant who previously directed ‘The Sea Devils’, so it’s a surprise as to why this story suffers in the way that it does.

It starts off well enough with Jon Pertwee’s stunt double Terry Walsh being killed by a mysterious arrow and then the TARDIS is forced to land after its power source is drained and considering the power that it has its surprising that this has happened. Sadly the moment that the Doctor and Sarah Jane leave the TARDIS the story falls apart. There’s a brief moment when Sarah Jane returns to the TARDIS with one the exillons inside. After this not much happens and its fifteen minutes before we meet any of the supporting characters. One of those is John Abineri who we last saw as General Carrington in ‘The Ambassadors of Death’.

It seems that all the good work that was done with Sarah Jane because from the very beginning of the episode it seems that they have decided to ditch that feistiness and stick her in a bathing suit. Then all she does is shriek and then run around for a bit, get caught and then find herself in trouble. This is the sort of thing that would have been done to Katy Manning and does show that Terry Nation didn’t get the memo about the new companion and how she was suppose to be different to other companions.

The story does start to pick up when Sarah Jane is about to be sacrificed towards the final stages of the episode but it’s the Doctor that gets the cliffhanger when a ship arrives and with the humans thinking that it comes from Earth, they are somewhat shocked to find that it’s Daleks. The last shot is of them shooting at the Doctor and that’s quite a good way to end and episode that hasn’t quite worked in the entertaining department. I don’t know why but I am finding this story rather dull and that’s a weird thing to write in a Dalek and Terry Nation story. I don’t quite know why the story doesn’t work but it just feels like Terry Nation is going through the motions. Whereas people were quite quick to critisce Nation for ‘Planet of the Daleks’ but I think that this has many more issues in that the previous Dalek story. Never mind, things can only get better. Can’t they?