Destiny of the Daleks - Episode 2

If you tell someone not to move then chances are they wont move and so you don’t need to repeat saying that phrase. It still bothers me that the Daleks feel the need to repeat. Clearly Terry Nation thought that it would be a great way to end the previous episode but I think that it just didn’t work. This is the episode where the Daleks really get into the story and their first piece of action is to interrogate Romana. They are quite cross which is presumably why they are repeating things. Sadly something that is quite obvious as well as their mood is the state of them. Sadly the Daleks here have seen better days and look in relatively bad condition with scuff marks and bits missing.

After she is interrogated by the Daleks, Romana becomes quite active and is the one that is trying to escape from the Daleks. She even goes to the trouble of pretending that she’s dead to fool the Daleks and be buried before surfacing and putting the rocks just before the Doctor finds her ‘grave’.

The Daleks have a plan and its revealed in this episode, they are drilling for something and its not to mine the core of the planet and use it as a giant spaceship. They are after Davros who was last seen in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. Sadly its not Michael Wisher playing the role but instead David Gooderson. Things start off well with Davros’ return but problems will surface in next episode. The idea of using him moving his hand as the cliffhanger is a great one.

Tyssan is the one that made Romana fall down the hole in the previous episode. He is played by Tim Barlow who is profoundly deaf but it doesn’t show. His performance in this episode is quite good. There is something about him that makes him seem quite a solid character and yet he seems like he would fall over if there were a gust of wind. The Movellan’s are a bit rubbish if I am being honest (and I have no reason not to). I just think that its hard to believe that they could pose any kind of threat. It’s hard to fathom whether it’s due to their attire or just the performances that make me think this and I know that they are robots but still it is possible to have charismatic robots, I mean Kryten is a good example and ok this story was shown about a decade before Kryten would appear on Red Dwarf but you get the point.

There is a moment I have seen a thousand times and its when the Doctor is talking down to a Dalek trying to get it to come and get him and its used to highlight the fact that Daleks had trouble going up stairs or going up different levels. Obviously any Doctor Who fan with half a brain would know that they have always been able to go up stairs and it seems odd that the Daleks creator would show up such a flaw. Its made even worse when the flaw isn’t really a flaw but something that wasn’t possibly due to the technology of the period.

This is a much stronger episode than the first one. I think the performances are better and more importantly the humour has been reigned back a lot and it meant that the story could take centre stage and the performances from Tom Baker and Lalla Ward and the other supporting characters meant that I enjoyed it and I am feeling much better about this season as a result. Whether this continues remains to be seen.