Doctor Who (TV Series) The Evil of the Daleks: Episode 2 (1967) User Reviews

What are they called these creatures?

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 27 October 2015]

The Doctor and Jamie answer Waterfield's invitation and arrive at the Antique shop early. They are both perplexed by the newness of the antiques, they're all genuine, not reproductions. Jamie guesses Waterfield has created a time machine. It is obvious the Daleks have a control over Waterfield. Jamie and the Doctor fall into the trap set before them, they wake from their unconsciousness and discover they've been transported back to 1867, to the home of Waterfield's partner Maxtible. The Doctor discovers what it going on, he learns the Daleks have Waterfield's daughter Victoria. Some sort of test is to occur.

Fortunately this episode still exits, sadly the only one of the seven we can enjoy today. It serves as a taster for the serial, in my opinion it's one that gets better as it goes on. Surely episode 7 remains one of the most sought after lost episodes.

I love Dudley Simpson's music throughout the serial, it's subtle and doesn't overpower.

Lots of fun performances, Marius Goring, John Bailey, Brigit Forsyth, all assist the regular cast admirably.

I like the concept of the series, it's very different, they upped their game with Evil of the Daleks after The Faceless ones. I love the Doctor's realisation of the Daleks presence, as well as the conversation about static electricity, it's great.

It's a very very good episode.

"There is only one form of life that matters... Dalek life!" The only surviving episode from this story.

[poolandrews · 7/10 · 27 October 2007]

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode 2 starts in London 1966 where the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) & Jamie (Frazer Hines) arrive at Edward Waterfield's (John Bailey) antiques shop at his request as they search for the stolen TARDIS, once there they find a man named Kennedy (Griffith Davis) dead & a secret room with a time machine inside. They are both rendered unconscious by some gas & Waterfield activates the time machine & transports himself, the Doctor & Jamie back 100 years to 1866 & a house owned by Theodore Maxtible (Marius Goring). The Doctor demand to know what's going on & soon finds out as he discovers his old enemy the Daleks are up to no good... again...

Episode 38 from season 4 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during May 1967, The Evil of the Daleks was a mammoth seven part story which was totally wiped from the BBC archives during the tape purge of the early 70's to free up space & thus was lost in it's entirety until 1987 when Episode 2 was found in a private sale here in England. The only other surviving footage is a three second clip of two Daleks from Episode Seven which, lets face it, amounts to just about nothing. The final story from season 4 The Evil of the Daleks was Patrick Troughton's seventh story as the Doctor from his first season & is one of only six complete surviving episode from that season spread across the seven stories. Anyway, directed by Derek Martinus from a script by David Whitaker it's difficult to comment on one episode in isolation but I have to say I quite liked this & after seeing it I am slightly disappointed that I will in all probability never get to see the other six episodes. The story is quite good here, obviously it has a long way to go with a further five episodes & a lot can or indeed can't happen but it looked a good story & by all accounts it was/is. It moves along at a nice pace, it didn't seem to have any padding & I actually got quite into the action. I liked it, a shame I'll never get to see the rest of it. This story also features the debut of Victoria played by Deborah Watling who would go on to travel with the Doctor in TARDIS & become a regular companion until Fury From the Deep (1968) at the end of the following season.

This one looks good with a large part of it being set in 1866, the BBC even back then were damed good at period costume dramas (certainly better than they ever have been at staging convincing sci-fi) & the production design on this is pretty impressive. Was it just me or did the Daleks in this look really short? I mean when one confronts Patrick Troughton who isn't exactly the tallest man ever himself it's actually shorter than Troughton is which just look a bit odd. There is also a very noticeable goof in this, when the Dalek puts Victoria on the scales after the close-up on her face if you look at the left hand side of the screen during the shot straight after you can see part of a TV camera move out of shot! Probably the one that had just filmed the close-up on Victoria's face in fact.

Evil of the Daleks: Episode 2 is a tantalising & frustrating glimpse into what seems like a good Dalek story (contary to popular belief there aren't that many about...) & I'm a tad disappointed I'll never be able to see the other six episodes. Oh well, I suppose in the grand scheme of life it doesn't matter that much. This can be found on the 3 disc Lost in Time Doctor Who DVD release & is a must for fans who have to see everything otherwise I doubt there's much point for more casual viewers.

S4: Troughton – an abrupt but positive change which is annoyingly mostly lost in season 4

[bob the moo · 18 December 2013]

With the (annoyingly unseen) regeneration of Hartnell, I was keen to see what the series did with the new Doctor; after all, this wasn't a change that was because they wanted to take the character a new direction – it was more that Hartnell physically was not able to carry the role on for much longer and needed to step out. As a result of this I wondered if they would try to keep the Doctor roughly the same to ease the transition. Whether they did this initially or not is hard to judge because so many of the episodes from Troughton's half of season 4 are missing. It is 2 serials (one a Dalek one) and 11 whole episodes before the first survives, and then of the remaining 6 serials only 7 of the 25 episodes remain. So basically of the change to Troughon in this season, he has only 7 episodes out of 35.

This is a real shame because from what little I saw here, he is a good change and there is no risk of viewers getting hung up looking back because Troughton does a good job of rushing us forward. Where Hartnell was more of a grandfather type and the companions often were left to the emotional or action material, Troughton seems a lot more active. His Doctor is determined, animated and urgent – and he plays these qualities quite seriously in a manner which adds to the dramatic tension of the episodes. The downside of this is that his companions feel very much supporting characters – nothing like the equals that Ian, Barbara and Susan once felt. In all the missing episodes we lose Ben and Polly – who I did like in the brief moments of seeing them. Scottish Jamie is added somewhere but he feels like a caricature and, considering his character is meant to be from some old clan, he seems to know a great deal and pick up on sci-fi concepts very easily – he doesn't ring true but as always, I had very few episodes for him to settle in.

In terms of serials it is hard to say much because all you get is snapshots. The underwater menace is all a bit shouty and dramatic which seemed to have energy, but the fish people just look daft. The Moon Base episodes showed a much improved cyberman and they look more menacing with metal faces. However for these episodes I didn't really follow the story and, when I saw the vacuum of space kept out of the moon base by using some rags and a domestic tea-tray, it did make me wonder what the rest of the narrative had been like! The Faceless Ones sounded like a good idea but I never got a consistent tone to it and the "human" monsters didn't work in terms of real threat – not helped by them calling their shadow company "Chameleon", which is a bit smug if you ask me. The second Dalek story is also mostly gone, which is a real shame as I liked their manipulative role and in particular I liked Troughton's reaction when he finds it is them behind his situation. So I guess some gold lost but also some weaker stories – but the sad thing is that there is too little left to really judge.

Anyway, of the 7 episodes remaining in Troughton's half of the fourth season, I must say I found enough to be encouraged. The show seemed to have been energized by the new Doctor's active performance. That he also carries a bit of dramatic weight throughout also holds out good hope. So the question of whether I will like the second Doctor appears to be answered so I guess the next question is whether or not enough of his episodes in season 5 survived for me to actually see him in the role?

Extermination

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 10/10 · 28 August 2014]

Review for all 7 episodes:

Spoiler Alert: This 7-parter seemingly ends with the destruction of the Daleks and that is suitably dramatic. The fact that they eventually returned does not diminish the power of this story as they only reappear 5 series later. That is a long gap without the most famous enemy appearing in the show. The drama and impact in this story is impressive but so too is the story idea itself with the great concept of setting events in the past, present AND future. One aspect of the plot does not fully make sense: Why do they even need to test Jamie to "find the Dalek factor" and why is he seen as the only worthy candidate? It seems an unlikely plan but it there are not clear cut illogical things of a kind that annoys me. The whole story is thrilling and interesting.

Over the course of the story with its different elements a tremendous amount of absorbing entertainment is created. We have Earth in the past, Earth in the 1960s (present day of the time) and an alien planet in the future providing contrasting backgrounds to the action. There are also some fascinating characters such as Maxtible (Marius Goring), good acting especially by Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines with plenty of excitement and fun.

The quality of script writing from David Whitaker is as usual very high and nothing really lets this story down very much except the slightly questionable idea of gaining the 'human factor' from Jamie. Despite that minor 'imperfection' it is a great adventure and a great end to series 4 leading into the superb 5th series.

My Ratings: 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 - 10/10, Episodes 3 & 6 - 9/10

Overall: 9.71/10

Season 4 was a momentous season but in my view falls somewhere in the middle compared to all the other seasons rather than near the top. It has five great stories but it also has one of the show's poorest stories and three stories which are OK but pretty flawed. Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis running of the series brought some great stories but not consistent greatness.

Average Season 4 rating: 8.38/10