Doctor Who (TV Series) The Evil of the Daleks: Episode 4 (1967) User Reviews

The plot thickens, Jamie's placed in danger.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 31 October 2015]

Jamie is set to face off against unknown aggressor Kemel, the pair battle. Kemel falls through a window, nearly plunging to his death, but it rescued by Jamie. Kemel in turn saves Jamie's life and the pair reach a truce, realising they are both on the same mission to save Victoria. The Daleks interpret Jamie's mercy as weakness, they coerce Waterfield into doing unspeakable things. Jamie's actions and emotions are fed back into a bank of machines overseen by the Doctor. Maxtable tests the Daleks patience, he's desperate for a secret, the transmutation of metal into gold. Jamie discovers Victoria, but two Daleks appear out of the darkness.

It's an interesting episode, I'm curious to see what the on screen dynamic would be between Kemel and Jamie.

I especially like the performance of Marius Goring, he's just wonderful, drowning in charisma. I love the scene where he pushes the Daleks and gets put in his place. He has a power lust developing, he's trying to reason out what's happening, and somehow justify the events.

It's nice also that we're getting to see a little more from Victoria, she was a great character, very underrated.

The closing scene is brilliant, the music, coupled with what I imagine to be a powerful imagery of the Daleks appearing out of the shadows.

A very good episode, that goes towards building up the awesome finale.

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