Rate a story: 'The Evil of the Daleks'

[The Thinker]

Although I haven't got this one, I'll make an exception here.

5 Stars (Outstanding) ;D

[The Valeyard]

4/5. I liked it on photovideo, but I wouldnt give it the highest rating.

[Nytik]

5/5!!! Go Daleks, go Daleks, go Daleks.

Thinker, thats an unfair judgement because you haven't got it, but I still fully respect your vote!

[horg]

Its brilliant!!!

[Nytik]

Of course it is, it's got Daleks in it!

[The Valeyard]

Not all Dalek stories are brilliant-just most of them.

[matthewsee]

Animated

Episode 1:
This is the animated version of The Evil of the Daleks.
As well as its original broadcast, The Evil of the Daleks in its original form was repeated after The Wheel In Space which introduced new companion Zoe.
At the end of The Wheel In Space, Zoe had stowaway in the TARDIS wanting to travel with the Doctor and Jamie.
Having found Zoe, the Doctor placed a device on her showing her past events as the Doctor wanted Zoe to be sure that she wants to travel with them due to the dangers that it entails
What she sees are events of The Evil of the Daleks and this leads to the repeat of The Evil of the Daleks the next week.
For the repeat of The Evil of the Daleks Episode 1 it incorporates audio from the Doctor and Zoe briefly addressing what they are seeing here.
This audio is included as an option for the animated episode 1 on DVD.
The Evil of the Daleks picks up from the previous story The Faceless Ones when the TARDIS got taken away in a lorry.
The Doctor and Jamie therefore goes to look for the TARDIS.
Their investigation has them meeting a man called Bob Hall but the Doctor noticed there is something off with him.
This is revealed to be trick set up by an associate of Hall, a man called Kennedy.
Due to a disagreement Hall and Kennedy got into a fight with Kennedy fleeing.
The Doctor and Jamie found Hall unconscious as he says Ken unable to say Kennedy's full name.
When Hall was conscious enough he too ran away but left a clue with the Doctor and Jamie that of matches from a coffee bar called Tricolour.
The matches was left behind deliberately for the Doctor and Jamie to find as it is revealed that Kennedy works with a man called Edward Waterfield, who sells Victorian antique.
In fact Waterfield looks out of place with this time.
Thanks to the matches, Kennedy told Waterfield that the Doctor and Jamie went to Tricolour.
Waterfield asked another man who works for him Perry to go to the Tricolour and asked the Doctor and Jamie to go to Waterfield's antique later on at the appointed time and this is precisely what then happens.
Meanwhile Kennedy is out to rob Waterfield and at the antique shop, Kennedy goes to a safe when a Dalek suddenly appears and the Dalek demands who Waterfield is and marking the cliffhanger.

The animation is pretty good in this intriguing first episode of the story but the animated first episode has at least a couple of differences with the episode's original form.

The animated version has Kennedy in a suit whereas he isn't in the original form while the animated version presents a slightly different cliffhanger with the animated episode 1 ending a few seconds earlier with the original cliffhanger showing what happened to Kennedy right away.

[matthewsee]

2006 stage play:
In 2006, the Patrick Troughton story The Evil of the Daleks was adapted on stage at The Old Portsmouth Arts Centre but without the word "The" at the start of the title.
This starred Nick Scovell and it ran for about 80 minutes which is considerably less than the running time that it was based on as that consist of six half-hour episodes.
Overall it is a pretty good adaptation of the story managing to address the salient points from the TV story.
Certain elements of the TV story such as addressing the aftermath of the previous story The Faceless Ones got discounted as it was not pertinent to the main plot for the stage adapation.
Enjoyable and not bad how it builds up at the end as that was when the Daleks were at their most menacing.

[matthewsee]

Animated

Episode 2:
Animation of the only surviving episode of the story.
Having seen the original episode prior to seeing the animated remake I therefore had knew what to expect with the visuals with the animation.
Intriguing that this starts with Kennedy being exterminated by a Dalek at the start.
The Doctor and Jamie goes into the shop half an hour early.
The Doctor notices that the antiques on sale in the shop are neither fakes nor reproductions. They are the genuine article.
They soon find the dead Kennedy and not long after that Jamie unwittingly set off a trap for him and the Doctor, one that was set up by Waterfield.
The trap is that of a gas that was released knocking the Doctor and Jamie unconscious.
With the Doctor and Jamie now unconscious, Waterfield takes them back to 1866.
The Doctor and Jamie are now in a house.
The Doctor is the first to get up with Jamie still affected by the gas.
He then finally meets Waterfield and the house owner Theodore Maxtible.
As Waterfield and Maxtible explains to the Doctor what is going on, we are introduced to Waterfield's daughter Victoria with Debbie Watling making her debut as her.
Victoria is held prisoner by the Daleks.
A Dalek came to look in on her and placed her on a measuring machine and it is dissatisfied that Victoria has not gained weight.
The Dalek then instructs Victoria to eat the food that they are sending her and leaves.
From his conversations with Waterfield and Maxtible, the Doctor learns of the Daleks being behind all this.
A Dalek then meets the Doctor and informs him that they need Jamie for their experiments much to the Doctor's horror.
Jamie finally gets up but not long after that a man sneaks up to him and knocks him unconscious and abducts him.
Jamie's absence is soon noticed by the Doctor and Waterfield.
The Doctor is concerned with his friend going missing but for Waterfield he is horrified by this development as he was forced in doing the Daleks' bidding due to them holding VIctoria prisoner.
They state with what would happen if Jamie isn't found in time and that is the Daleks will kill everyone on sight.
The Doctor says that their greatest pleasure would be in killing him!
Intriguing cliffhanger with the Daleks about to start their tests and any delay will result in death.

I remember the feeling on seeing the original episode and leaving it hanging given that there are no more episodes of this story around.
Notwithstanding the audio soundtracks that got released glad these animation gets to present this story in full.

[matthewsee]

Animated

Episode 3:
Jamie is eventually found after being kidnapped by a man called Toby who did it on the behest of Arthur Terrall who is the fiance of Ruth Maxtible.
Terrall however after a dizzy spell denied this and Toby runs off in a puff and what an instant dislike Jamie and Terrall has with each other.
Jamie has a conversation with Mollie in which she says that she has an uncle who got killed in the Crimean War and that she heard that Terrall was wounded in that same war.
At this war, the Second Doctor says that he was present at the Charge of the Light Brigade.
The animation of this story was released on September 27 2021 and just over a month later on November 7, the Thirteenth Doctor and briefly Yaz and Dan stepped into that very same in an alternate timeline in War of the Sontarans.
Jamie soon had words with the Doctor as he saw him being chummy with Waterfield who he believed that he murdered Kennedy but the Doctor assures Jamie that Waterfield did not commit that murder.
Jamie then walks out angrily but this was an act by the Doctor to get Jamie, without his knowledge. into the Daleks' test.
Toby is not satisfied with Terrall giving him very little with the kidnap on Jamie and later went into the house to rob it but gets exterminated by a Dalek.
Meanwhile Maxtible gets a large mute man Kemel into this test and to battle against Jamie and Jamie meets him in the cliffhanger as he asked who he is.
Quite intriguing the way to mark this cliffhanger with this meeting of likely adversaries.

[matthewsee]

Animated

Episode 4:
Jamie and Kemel initially fight but when Jamie saves Kemel's life when he stopped him from falling off a railing, the two became friends and worked together to rescue Victoria.
The Doctor elsewhere in the house is monitoring Jamie and Kemel in the test which they had unknowingly gotten themselves into.
Waterfield and Maxitible found the dead Toby and for Waterfield, following from finding a dead Kennedy in Episode 2, he once again found someone exterminated by a Dalek whilst committing a robbery.
Key lesson is not to commit a robbery whilst in the presence of a Dalek!
Maxible shows his impatience with Waterfield and Maxible's ulterior motive in cooperating with the Daleks as he wants the secret to turn things into gold and the Daleks has that secret.
This episode also shows Terrall has power over Maxtible as the former stopped the latter in shooting Waterfield saying that they still need him.
What a sight of Jamie and Kemel working together to destroy a Dalek only for another Dalek approaching them marking the cliffhanger.

[matthewsee]

Animated

Episode 5:
Antepenultimate episode.
After a brush with Daleks, Jamie and Kemel finally finds Victoria.
The Doctor makes an observation to Terrall that no one has seen him Terrall eat or drink.
As it turns out that it because Terrall is under Dalek influence and they are preventing him from eating and drinking.
Victoria tells Jamie that she does not remember how she came to be under the Daleks' power.
Notwithstanding my previous experience with this story, I correctly surmise that it was Maxtible who brought Victoria to the Daleks due to his desire to learn the secret of gold conversion.
Terrall grabs Victoria and this leads to his fight with Jamie.
This fight was stopped when it got discovered by the Doctor, Ruth and Mollie.
The Doctor tells Ruth to take Terrall and Mollie as far away from here as possible and Ruth complies with this request.
Victoria is found by Kemel but a Dalek orders him to take her into the time travel cabinet.
The purpose of the test is to install the Human Factor into Daleks and therefore would enable them to anticipate outcomes in their battles against human.
This Human Factor is placed into three test Daleks and these Daleks marked the cliffhanger as they are in a childlike state and forcing the Doctor to play a game of trains with them.
Certainly presenting a fun activity in the midst of the seriousness of this narrative.

[matthewsee]

Animated


Episode 6:
Penultimate episode.
After the little game of trains, the Doctor gives the test Daleks the names of Alpha, Beta and Omega.
Things sure took a climatic turn when Maxitible's house got blown up by the Daleks but everyone got safely teleported to Skaro.
Also it was tense seeing the fight between Waterfield and Maxitble with the former being outraged with the latter's more than willingness cooperation with the Daleks.
This makes it all then more tragic that the original episode 6 are among the missing episodes as the sight of this explosion and the lead-up to it would have been a sight to see in live-action especially with the Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield just making it out in time.
As it is given, the rest of the episode is set in Skaro where the Daleks eventually discover the Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield there.
The end has them meeting the Emperor Dalek, the first time it has ever appeared.
The Emperor Dalek revealed the purpose of the Human Factor is to discover at the same time the Dalek Factor.
Enthralling the cliffhanger as the Dalek Emperor instructs the Doctor to install the Dalek Factor in every Dalek and using the TARDIS, which it revealed the sight of, as leverage.

[matthewsee]

Animated


Episode 7:
Conclusion.
Having become the setting in the second half of the previous episode, this the concluding episode is all set in Skaro.
Curious symmetry with the settings because before the move to Skaro, the story was set in Earth even with the change of time period in Episode 2.
Very creepy when Maxtible is mentally converted into the Dalek.
Soon a Dalek civil war ensues between those loyal to the Dalek Emperor and the humanised who had been implanted the Human Factor by the Doctor.
Result is that of carnage of the Daleks.
Tragically Waterfield is exterminated by a Dalek whilst saving the Doctor's life and the Doctor promises Waterfield to look after Victoria.
Another tragedy is that Kemel got killed when he has a fight with Maxible who pushes him over a cliff.
Was surprised on seeing Maxible's fate being ambiguous as the last we saw of him he was approaching the collapsing Dalek city.
This left the presumption that he is killed not long after.
Can't remember whether the narrations on the audio soundtracks made it clear about his fate.
No doubt, the surviving clips of it notwithstanding, the visuals of the original episode was very haunting and eerie to see with the effects of the Dalek Civil War.
The Doctor, Jamie and the now orphaned Victoria then leaves Skaro with the Doctor declaring the final end of the Daleks.
The Doctor would however be proved wrong on this as the Daleks would make their full-on return in 1972's Day of the Daleks, notwithstanding Dalek cameos in-between.