A Bluffer’s Guide to Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks
The final end.
Describe The Evil of the Daleks in six words:
Daleks host Tadashi’s Castle then self-genocide.
This is… the one with Daleks in Victorian, England. And then, a civil war on the planet of the Daleks!!!!
Episodes: Episodes 163–169 out of 870 (20 May — 1 July, 1967)
Key Characters
Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)
with Jamie (Frazer Hines) and introducing Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling)
Villains: The Daleks (voices — Peter Hawkins, Roy Skelton; operators — Robert Jewell, Gerald Taylor, John Scott Martin, Murphy Grumbar, Ken Tyllsen) and Theodore Maxtible (Marius Goring)
Other guest stars: Edward Waterfield (John Bailey), Ruth Maxtible (Brigit Forsyth), Mollie Dawson (Jo Rowbottom), Kemel (Sonny Caldinez), Arthur Terrall (Gary Watson)
I’m New to This, What Should I Know:
- This follows directly from The Faceless Ones with the TARDIS having been stolen.
- Terry Nation was trying to get a Dalek spin-off up-and-running. As such, he didn’t want the Daleks appearing on Doctor Who any more. This story was intended to write the Daleks out of the series. Obviously, this wasn’t permanent, although it would be a long time until the next Dalek adventure.
- This story introduces Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield. Victoria will be the new companion. This means that no companions are audience-identification figures in the sense that they represent someone from our time in these adventures (the same is true of Vicki and Steven, but as both came from a 1965 vision of the future, the feeling was less-pronounced than two characters from the past).
- This is also the first story to feature the Dalek Emperor, although they had featured in spin-off media such as the comic strips beforehand.
- Only one episode out of the seven survives. All episodes were animated in colour in 2021.
Recording
Location filming: April 1967 at Kendal Ave, Ealing; Warehouse Lane, Hammersmith; Grimsdyke House, Harrow
Filming: April/May 1967 at Ealing Studios
Studio recording: May/June 1967 in Lime Grove D
Key Production Credits
Writer — David Whitaker
Incidental music — Dudley Simpson
Designer — Chris Thompson
Story editors — Gerry Davis (1–3), Peter Bryant (4–7)
Producer — Innes Lloyd
Dalek fight sequences directed by Timothy Combe
Director — Derek Martinus
Any Behind-the-Scenes Gossip?
David Whitaker (writer) was originally to write Ben and Polly out in Episode 2 but production wrangling meant that they would leave during The Faceless Ones. As such, Whitaker was now asked to develop a female character that could serve as the new companion. He developed the character of Victoria Waterfield. At the same time, Innes Lloyd (producer) made the same request of Malcolm Hulke and David Ellis, the writers of The Faceless Ones. Hulke and Ellis created the character of Samantha Briggs played by Pauline Collins. Collins did not want to become a regular (as described in our entry on The Faceless Ones)
Denise Buckley was cast as Victoria. However, when the plan became making Victoria a companion, Buckley was paid off and replaced by Deborah Watling.
The BBC Visual Effects Department started working on the show after the production team’s relationship with Shawcraft Models soured. A selection of footage not used in the climatic battle survives and is our glimpse at how the BBC Visual Effects Department’s first major contribution was handled.
Stray Observations:
· Ep 2: The Doctor enjoys the hangover cure
· Maxitable’s house: Why does he have a portrait of Waterfield’s wife as a young girl?
· Very Cinderella introduction for Victoria (but also, no visible birds — That took me a while to cotton onto)
· Love Maxitable’s lab
· “Static” — seems to warn the Doctor
· Doctor: They know about me, these creatures?
Maxitable: They gave us likenesses.
(So, not just the Troughton face?)
· Jamie seems much more onto it than he has in previous adventures. As soon as he’s woken up, he’s flicking through Maxitable’s papers.
· Cliffhanger from Ep 2 is resolved incredibly quickly at the start of Ep 3. It does introduce us Arthur Terrell, but his contribution to this serial is rather muddled.
· Dalek describes the Doctor as more than human.
· Mollie definitely fancies Jamie.
· Jamie has become quite literate: reading Kemel, inferring V.W. means Victoria Waterfield
· What we are missing: Quite a lot. But I want to see how the Dalek striking Maxitable was done.
Recommended / Further Reading