Day of the Daleks (TV story)

"Who knows? I may have helped to exterminate you..."

- The Controller

Day of the Daleks was the first story of Season 9 of Doctor Who. It is notable for marking the return of the Daleks as ongoing adversaries of the Doctor, after the villains had been effectively retired five years earlier in DW: The Evil of the Daleks.

Synopsis
Freedom fighters from the future attempt to thwart a Dalek invasion by coming back in time to assassinate a delegate at the second World Peace Conference.

Plot
Sir Reginald Styles, organiser of a world peace conference, narrowly survives an assassination attempt by a combat-uniformed guerrilla who vanishes like a ghost. Later the guerrilla is attacked by huge, ape-like creatures called Ogrons and found unconscious by UNIT troops in the grounds of the house. The Doctor deduces that he comes from about two hundred years in the future and that a device found with him is a time machine. While Styles is away, the Doctor and Jo keep watch. The guerrillas attack again, but the Time Lord convinces them that he is not Styles. One of their party, Shura, is later injured by an Ogron.

Jo meanwhile accidentally activates one of the guerrillas' time machines and is transported to the 22nd Century. When the guerrillas return there, the Doctor goes with them. He learns that the Earth of this period is ruled by the Daleks with the help of the Ogrons and human collaborators, whose leader is known as the Controller. Jo and the Doctor are both taken prisoner at the Dalek base. The guerrillas rescue them and explain that they are attempting to kill Styles because he caused an explosion at the peace conference, starting a series of wars that left humanity vulnerable to Dalek conquest - a history that they wish to change. The Doctor realises that the explosion was actually caused by Shura in a misguided attempt to fulfil his mission.

Returning to the 20th Century with Jo, he has Styles' house evacuated. Daleks and Ogrons arrive in pursuit, but are destroyed when Shura detonates his bomb.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
 * Jo Grant - Katy Manning
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Sergeant Benton - John Levene
 * Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
 * Sir Reginald Styles - Wilfred Carter
 * Shura - Jimmy Winston
 * Anat - Anna Barry
 * Boaz - Scott Fredericks
 * Controller - Aubrey Woods
 * Miss Paget - Jean McFarlane
 * Girl Technician - Deborah Brayshaw
 * UNIT Radio Operator - Gypsie Kemp
 * Guerilla - Tim Condren
 * Monia - Valentine Palmer
 * Manager - Peter Hill
 * Senior Guard - Andrew Carr
 * Guard at Work Centre - George Raistrick
 * Ogrons - Rick Lester, Maurice Bush, David Joyce, Frank Menzies, Bruce Wells, Geoffrey Todd
 * Daleks - John Scott Martin, Ricky Newby, Murphy Grumbar
 * Dalek Voices - Oliver Gilbert, Peter Messaline
 * Television Reporter - Alex MacIntosh

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Sue Hedden
 * Costumes - Mary Husband
 * Creator of the Daleks - Terry Nation
 * Designer - David Myerscough-Jones
 * Fight Arranger - Rick Lester
 * Film Cameraman - Fred Hamilton
 * Film Editor - Dan Rae
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Make-Up - Heather Stewart
 * Producer - Barry Letts
 * Production Assistant - Norman Stewart
 * Script Editor - Terrance Dicks
 * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson
 * Studio Lighting - Alan Horne
 * Studio Sound - Tony Millier
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Jim Ward

Story Notes

 * This story is noted for being one of only a few actual 'time travel' stories, where the very nature of time travel is used as a main plot element.
 * This story had working titles of The Ghost Hunters, Years Of Doom, The Time Warriors, The Day Of The Daleks, Ghosts.
 * The on screen title is Day of the Daleks, however the commercial releases (Video and Laserdisc) it was listed as The Day of the Daleks.
 * A section of the closing title sequence appears in the background on the screen of the Daleks' mind analysis machine at the end of Episode Three.
 * Episode Four was originally to have featured a confrontation between the Doctor and the Daleks, in which the Daleks explain how they destroyed those of their number who were impregnated with the Human Factor in the events seen in The Evil of the Daleks and then turned their attention to conquering Earth by means of time travel. This scene was actually recorded but had to be cut at the editing stage for timing reasons.
 * The Ogrons were neither named nor described in Louis Marks's scripts.
 * To date, this is the only story in which the Doctor encounters - and actually interacts with - a second version of his current incarnation. As this story predates The Three Doctors by a year, it also marks the first on-screen "multi-Doctor" scenario (albeit a brief one).
 * Discounting a couple of brief cameos, the Daleks had not appeared in Doctor Who since The Evil of the Daleks in 1967. With this story they returned to being semi-regular menaces of the Doctor, making annual appearances before going into hibernation again after Season 12.A new sound effect for the Dalek energy weapon is introduced (but not used since). The voices of the Daleks sound laboured after five years.
 * Every serial of the preceding season featured the Master as such, this is the first serial broadcast in 18 months in which he does not appear.

Ratings

 * Episode 1 - 9.8 million viewers
 * Episode 2 - 10.4 million viewers
 * Episode 3 - 9.1 million viewers
 * Episode 4 - 9.1 million viewers

Myths

 * Terry Nation was not consulted in advance about the use of the Daleks in this story and, when he found out about it, this led to a row between him and the BBC. (Although Terrance Dicks recalls such a dispute, Barry Letts does not, and it is clear from contemporary BBC documentation that it is Letts who is correct. Nation was consulted in advance, and his agents ALS Management confirmed in a letter dated 22 April 1971, that he had no objection to the Daleks being used in a story for the 1972 season, subject to the usual negotiations.)
 * This has the distinction of being the first Daleks story not to be entirely written, or co-written, by Terry Nation. (Power of the Daleks and Evil of the Daleks were both written by David Whitaker.)

Filming Locations

 * Dropmore House, Taplow, Buckinghamshire
 * Bull's Bridge (railway bridge), Grand Union Canal, Middlesex
 * Harvey House, Green Dragon Lane, Brentford

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * The Doctor speaks of Napoleon Bonaparte, as though he were a good friend, or at the least, a friendly acquaintance. Would he be friends with a tyrannical dictator? He is only joking around to cheer Jo up and lighten the mood.


 * There are only three Dalek props, not an issue...until it comes to the main action scenes.
 * During the scene at UNIT HQ, when the Brigadier is speaking to his female subordinate about the canteen being closed, the plainly audible sound of the alert going off can be heard for several seconds before anyone acknowledges it.
 * How can it be so easy for the future guerillas to, a) approach the house unseen, and b) remain in the house undetected with hostages? Surely in preparation for a summit meeting of so many important international delegates, more stringent security and more thorough searches would have been implimented.


 * Why have the Daleks not re-instigated 'Operation Degravitate' (See The Dalek Invasion of Earth) during this alternate occupation of the Earth? In this timeline the Dalek's needs are entirely different to the ones that might have had, had the course of history run differently. It may simply be the case that they have no need of a planet with which to fly around the galaxy, in this timeline.
 * At the start of the interrogation scene, the yellow-screen CSO is not only being projected onto the Dalek's video screen: the Gold Dalek's dome and the Doctor's reflective restraints are also flaring.


 * The Doctor's success in preventing the global war which would pave the way for a Dalek invasion of the Earth seems something of an empty victory, since we have already seen in the series that the Daleks are destined to invade the Earth anyway in the 22nd century (See The Dalek Invasion of Earth). In this story's alternate future timeline, the Daleks have already been occupying the planet for some time; probably since the late 20th/early 21st century. If the war had happened, the Daleks would have invaded Earth much earlier. So the Doctor is sparing the human race from decades of additional subjugation, which unlike the sequence of events portrayed in The Dalek Invasion of Earth may not have ended with the Daleks being defeated.

Continuity

 * ST: Honest Living deals with some of the after effects of this story.
 * This is the second time UNIT has provided security for a peace conference (and once more there is a problem with the Chinese), the first time occurred during DW: The Mind of Evil
 * The Daleks tell the Doctor that they have discovered time travel, something he would already know. The Daleks build a time machine in The Chase. In Remembrance of the Daleks the Doctor observes that Dalek time travel is 'crude and nasty'.
 * The Doctor tells Jo, 'I thought I'd destroyed them (the Daleks) once before but I was wrong'. This could be a reference to The Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks or The Power of the Daleks. In these television stories the Doctor witnesses the apparent destruction of the DAleks.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after CC: The Magician's Oath
 * This story occurs before MA: Who Killed Kennedy
 * DWM: Time & Time Again takes place during this story.

Video Releases
Released as Doctor Who: Day of the Daleks

Released:


 * UK July 1986 (Edited Movie format also released on Betamax)
 * UK February 1994 (Unedited episodic format)
 * Australia January 1987 (Edited Movie format)
 * US March 1989 (Edited Movie format boxed in honour of Doctor Who's 25th annversary)

Laserdisc

 * Released on Laserdisc in the US as Doctor Who: The Day of the Daleks in January 1992.
 * Released on Laserdisc in the UK as Doctor Who: Day of the Daleks in December 1996.

Novelisation

 * Main article: Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks


 * Novelised as Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks by Terrance Dicks in 1974.