Writer: Louis Marks
Director: Paul Bernard
Script Editor: Terrance Dicks
Producer: Barry Letts
Working late one night at Auderly House Sir Reginald Styles – a British diplomat – is disturbed by an intruder wielding a futuristic gun, but the gunman vanishes before his eyes. UNIT are called in to investigate this ‘haunting’ but Styles is more concerned in the delicate state of a peace conference. If this should fail there is a real danger that international unrest could escalate into World War III.
UNIT soldiers search the Auderly estate and find an unconscious man in guerrilla fatigues. They also find his gun and a small black box. The Doctor discovers that the weapon is of Earth origin but from advanced technology and the black box is a time machine. In some far off futuristic control room the activation of the box is monitored. A man known only as The Controller reports this fact to his superiors – the Daleks.
The Daleks from day of the Daleks – illustration by Steve Redfearn
Convinced that the ‘ghost’ was a manifestation from the future the Doctor and his assistant Jo Grant spend the night in the haunted house. Whilst UNIT soldiers patrol the grounds more guerrillas materialise at a nearby canal tunnel and head for the house. Meanwhile the political situation is worsening and war seems inevitable.
At dawn the guerrillas make their move. Their female leader, Anat, holds a gun on the Doctor mistaking him for Sir Reginald, the man they have come to assassinate. The Doctor convinces her she has the wrong man and that Styles has travelled to Peking. With her mission a failure Anat sends one of her party, Shura, to contact their leader for revised instructions, but before he can do this he is attacked by an ape-like creature.
News comes through that Styles has succeeded in getting the Chinese to attend his international peace conference at Auderly House. When Anat learns of this she decides that they will lie in wait until Styles returns – and assassinate him as planned. Jo accidentally operates the time box and is whisked away through time to reappear in the Controller’s office in the 22nd century.
The guerrilla assassins and Jo Grant with their stolen time technology
Jo learns that the ape-like creatures are Ogrons and the Controller explains they are simply loyal servants, whereas the guerrillas holding the Doctor are fanatical criminals. Convinced, Jo gives him the exact date and location of the Doctor so that he can arrange a ‘rescue’.
Duly the Ogrons mount an attack on Auderly house and a gun battle ensues. UNIT are thrown into the fray and amidst the chaos the guerrillas return to the canal tunnel to escape to their own time. But the Doctor sets off in pursuit, knowing that only they can lead him to Jo. He runs into the guerrillas just as they are transported to the desolate world of the 22nd century: Earth under the rule of the Daleks.
The Doctor is left to roam the desolation alone, witnessing the brutalised slave labour. He is soon captured and tortured. The Controller releases the Doctor from questioning and reunites him with Jo. Despite Jo’s protestations the Doctor is not convinced of the Controller’s innocence, he knows he is in the employ of the Daleks. Sure enough the Daleks take the Doctor for their own interrogation using the mind probe, discovering that he is the Time Lord who has plagued their schemes before, albeit with a different appearance. He is about to be exterminated when the Controller interrupts; killing the Doctor would hinder his own efforts to destroy the guerrilla network.
The Doctor under the Daleks’ mind probe
The Doctor learns how the Earth fell to the Daleks when the Controller explains that events towards the end of the 20th century resulted in a world war after which the depleted human race could not stand up to Dalek invasion.
A guerrilla attack frees the Doctor and Jo. Thanks to the Doctor the Controller is allowed to live. Back at their own underground base the motive for the rebels wanting to kill Styles is revealed. They believe the diplomat deliberately lured the peace delegates together at Auderly House only to detonate a massive bomb, killing all in attendance and triggering the start of a war that finally resulted in Dalek invasion and human subjugation. The guerrillas have stolen Dalek time travel technology in order to go back to that crucial moment and assassinate Styles, with the aim of changing history. Now they see the Doctor as their last chance and ask him to finish what they have started – to go back in time and kill Styles.
The Doctor cannot believe Styles is a mad man who would want to start a war. He then learns that Shura, the missing guerrilla, has been left behind in the 20th century and surmises that he must still be intent on completing his mission. The truth is revealed: the guerrillas are caught in a temporal paradox of their own making; Shura will detonate a Dalekanium bomb to kill Styles, but end up killing all the delegates – thus starting world war III himself. The Doctor agrees to go back and prevent this from happening.
As they prepare to return the Doctor and Jo are ambushed by the Controller, but he allows them to go, giving them their chance to change the harsh world he has always known and accepted. The Daleks hear of the Controller’s treachery and exterminate him. Knowing that the Doctor will try to put things right they form a squad to go back in time, destroy the conference and ensure their history remains unchanged.
Meanwhile, back in the 20th century the delegates are assembling for the peace conference. Daleks and Ogrons advance towards the house, engaging UNIT soldiers in another pitched battle. With the house cleared of delegates the Doctor finds Shura prepping his Dalekanium bomb in the cellar. He tries to convince him to leave, but already the Daleks are close to entering the house. Shura understands but sees the new situation as a way to destroy the advancing Daleks. The Doctor escapes the house and tells the Brig to let the Daleks enter. When they do, searching in vain for the conference, Shura detonates his bomb.
The peace conference can continue, and the Doctor makes it clear to Styles that it must succeed – he has seen what will become of Earth if it should fail.
The original script was not a Dalek story, producer Barry Letts got writer Louis Marks to add them when he bowed to public demand to bring the Daleks back for the 1972 series of Doctor Who.
A scene in episode one that features the Doctor and Jo encountering future versions of themselves was to be book ended at the conclusion of episode four when they stumble into the same scene from the future perspective. This was cut by the director Paul Bernard as it was felt the scene was too low key a conclusion to the story. Also, being the tag scene to something that happened three weeks before, its point might have been lost on the audience. However the scene was reinstated in the novelisation.
Both Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning stated that this story was not one of their favourites.
For five years audiences had been denied a Dalek story due to an emphasis on new monsters and Terry Nation’s attempts to launch his creations in their own series. So after the epic Evil of the Daleks was it worth the wait? Simply – yes. It’s a very sound story that moves from a perplexing mystery to a solid adventure with nods to the Daleks Nazi heritage along the way. It also has a very satisfying conclusion that not only works well within the story itself but effectively draws to a close the foreshadowing of the previous season with all its hints of international unrest and approaching war.
Doctor Who is a programme that revolves around the premise that a time and space machine allows for the telling of practically any story. More often than not this delivers the characters to a point in history or space from where a tale will unfold. Given that the majority of the Pertwee era exiled the character of the Doctor to Earth in the 20th century Day of the Daleks succeeds because, ironically, it makes arguably the best use of time travel – it is central to the plot.
Pertwee exudes charm and authority as the Doctor and by now had a following of millions of loyal young fans, (baby boomers) many of whom where encountering the infamous Daleks for the very first time. The chemistry between the UNIT ‘family’ continues to shine with all present putting in solid performances. Aubrey Woods deserves a special mention for his portrayal of the ‘quisling’ Controller. As a Dalek collaborator he makes a convincing sparing partner for the Doctor, much more than a one-dimensional bad guy.
Louis Marks may not have conceived it as a Dalek story but it’s hard to imagine them not playing a pivotal role in the drama. Their history adds a resonance to the bleak future reminiscent of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. If The Daleks was a cold war analogy, here the threat of nuclear destruction has come back down to Earth. The script is fairly complex, anything involving time travel and temporal paradox is going to be, but Marks (and Terrance Dicks) succeeds in telling the story coherently. The scene where the clues fall into place and the Doctor figures out what really happened is superbly written and performed.
Ogrons from Day of the Daleks
Design wise, on the plus side the Ogrons are another great creation from John Friedlander, mask maker of this era, and the Daleks, now in the grey livery that would regularly reappear in the classic series, look mean and metallic. They were made out of wood so this is a greater feat than might be assumed. On the negative side it’s clear that Dalek prop numbers are limited to three. If the Daleks themselves have a drawback in this story it is how they sound. Voice artists Oliver Gilbert and Peter Messaline haven’t quite grasped what their predecessors had done with the Daleks and the result is a strange delivery where ev-er-ry syl-lab-ble is em-pha-sised. It comes across as too robotic and is probably the oddest the Daleks have ever sounded.
With only three Dalek props the other negative point of Day of the Daleks is very apparent as the tale reaches it denouement. The Daleks are supposed to mount an all out attack on the peace conference in the final showdown, but the battle doesn’t live up to expectations. It can’t be blamed on the director Paul Bernard, who after all is not only faced with a lack of Daleks, but has to shoot them crossing a lawn (never easy to move Daleks without a track) with OB equipment that probably adds another headache even beyond the time constraints that the production team were always up against. Yet, these good excuses aside, the lacklustre battle is still an issue that any viewer new to the story is likely to comment on.
Back to the positive aspects and Dudley Simpson’s incidental music whilst still avant-garde in its electronic way is less intrusive than in previous season stories like The Claws of Axos. It’s very ‘of it’s time’ and brings to mind the sort of experimentation that Brian Eno was indulging in, but it’s effective with the piece that accompanies the ‘massed’ Daleks emerging from the tunnel particularly striking.
Day of the Daleks is an entertaining story, highlighting the chemistry of the UNIT era with a plot that makes full use of time travel and all its implications. Definitely recommended viewing.
When the Target range began in 1973 Day of the Daleks was one of the first ‘new’ novelisations. Written by Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks, this version of the story is fleshed out and deleted material has been reinstated. The novelisation has been reissued many times and in many languages. Chris Achilleos provided the cover and internal illustrations for the original UK release. An American edition was released with minor language modifications and a UNIT(!?) spaceship on the cover.
Various Day of the Daleks book covers, including the American and Japanese versions
Well known science fiction author Harlan Ellison wrote a glowing forward to the American editions. Interestingly Ellison won an out of court settlement and a credit when two of his stories for The Outer Limits were allegedly plagiarised in the script of The Terminator, a film that might also owe a debt to Day of the Daleks.
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