Hallo My Dalek (TV story)

Hallo My Dalek was a sketch featured on Crackerjack in 1975. Twenty years later, it was rebroadcast as part of More than 30 Years in the TARDIS.

Synopsis
When the Brigadier and Sarah Jane find the TARDIS on top of the Post Office Tower, it's only the beginning in a series of mishaps also including a metal-eating Dalek and a giant chicken with whom the Doctor is only too familiar...

Plot
The Brigadier and Sarah Jane enter a console room and discover that it is indeed Doctor Why's TARDIS. This hardly surprises the Brigadier, as only Doctor Why could ever leave a police box on top of the post office tower. Doctor Why emerges from the lift inside the console room, grinning goofily and, as always, continually knitting his never-ending scarf even as he walks to greet them. Sarah Jane narrowly saves Why from strangulation when his scarf gets caught in the lift doors and quips that this must surely be the reason his eyes bulge quite so much.

With that out of the way, the Brigadier begins berating the Doctor about his reason for calling, namely that Home Office is getting quite riled-up about Doctor Why's habits of leaving his TARDIS parked in stupid or distracting places in London, such as the aforementioned post office tower or the throne room in Buckingham Palace ("she is not pleased"). Why deflects the questions by beginning to mouth technobabble about how there's something wrong with the TARDIS, though the Brigadier isn't fooled, and, indeed, the Doctor eventually admits that all he means is that "there's a screw loose". After briefly threatening the Brigadier with his knitting needle, he reassures Sarah Jane that he will have no trouble repairing it, being an electronics genius.

An alarm rings, and, observing green swirling patterns on the TARDIS scanner, Doctor Why concludes that his vessel is under attack from hostile aliens. The Brigadier's guesses are the Time Lords and the Cybermen, but these ideas are shot down by the Doctor: it is the Wheeltuppers and Shonters who are to blame.

As they are still poring over the scanner, a Dalek comes by and tries to nudge all three of them to get them to notice her, using her manipulator arm. However, each believes that one of the other two humanoids is responsible and the Dalek is unsuccessful, until it cries "Exterminate"; the Brigadier initially thinks this to be a suggestion of what they should do about the aliens, and distractedly answers that he's "trying to give it up", but then catches sight of the pepperpot and realises what's going on. Before his two companions can work themselves into a fright, however, Doctor Why introduces the newcomer as Doreen, a perfectly friendly Dalek who appears to be living inside the TARDIS as his pet — he points out that she is "house-trained".

Without really asking the Brigadier's opinion, Doreen begins to waltz about with him to ironic commentary from the Doctor. Sarah Jane objects, shouting that "this is getting us nowhere". Deciding to start afresh, the Brigadier tries to shake hands with the Dalek to introduce himself; as he pulls down on Doreen's manipulator arm, it goes down with a mechanical "KA-CHING!" noise like a slot machine and coins pour out to the human's glee. Doreen then leaves via the lift, but not before Doctor Why reminds her to be back for dinner, at which point he will have some nuts and bolts and an iron bar for her to eat.

With the controls repaired, the Doctor dematerialises the TARDIS with a high-pitched whistling sound. When it rematerialises, the scanner shows images of large fish swimming about; the Doctor claims that this means they have landed in a fish market. At any rate, the three travellers agree that there would be no point in their staying here and dematerialise again. This time, they end up in Wembley Stadium; Doctor Why initially believes that something must be wrong with the scanner screen, but is forced to admit that this is indeed where they are when a football is kicked past the doors and into the TARDIS, colliding with the pilot himself.

Having had enough of these random destinations, the Doctor inputs the coordinates of the planet Gigantus. Though they firs encounter one of the local, 17-foot-tall kids out playing, they then bump into an old archenemy of the Doctor, the Colossus Chicken of Gigantus, who promptly lays a humongous egg which rolls into the control room. Trying to get rid of it via the elevator, the Doctor discovers only an empty elevator shaft, as Doreen (that "lousy Dalek!") has in fact eaten the lift.

Cast

 * Doctor Why - Don Maclean
 * Brigadier - Peter Glaze
 * Sarah Jane - Jan Hunt

Story notes

 * Doctor Why is a parody of the Fourth Doctor, with parodical Sarah Jane and Brigadier as his companions. Interestingly, however, the Brigadier implies that Doctor Why is not a Time Lord, citing the Time Lords in the same breath as the Cybermen among the species the Doctor could have referred to as "hostile aliens".

Home video releases

 * The opening moments of the sketch were included on the DVD release of More than 30 Years in the TARDIS in the Legacy Collection box set.