Who Review: Destiny of the Daleks

The new TARDIS randomizer takes our heroes to a planet of dust, rocks, and high radiation. With K-9 in pieces (and suffering from laryngitis), it’s up to the Doctor and the newly-regenerated Romana to investigate. The first curious thing they observe is a group of shabbily-clad people burying one of their dead under a pile of rocks. Next, they feel a series of underground explosions, like some kind of mining operation. Then they see a spaceship land, with its bottom half drilling into the surface of the planet. The explosions cause rubble to fall, trapping the Doctor, and burying the TARDIS. While Romana leaves to get help, the Doctor is rescued and taken prisoner by a party of white suited, silver haired people. From them, the Doctor discovers they are on the planet Skaro, and these white suited people, Movellans, are at war with natives of Skaro: the Daleks. Romana, meanwhile, soon finds herself a prisoner of the Daleks, and consigned to work the mines with the rest of the ragged people. It seems they are searching for something that was buried there a long time ago. Something they need to gain a tactical advantage in the war. However, the Doctor’s biggest concern is for him and Romana to somehow escape with their lives, which they may not be able to do without getting involved…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

A new season of Doctor Who kicks off with a new script editor–Douglas Adams. And while he is not the sole writer of any of the televised stories this season, his input and influence is clearly discernible. We see a marked increase in the humor, and that particular humor that Adams is well-known for, which doesn’t always work for Doctor Who.

Indeed, Adams’s mark is felt on the show from the outset with Romana’s regeneration. Mary Tamm decided to leave at the end of the previous season, but since Romana is a Time Lord (or Time Lady), there was no need to get a new companion. Romana could just regenerate. I daresay Mary’s departure was unknown to Terry Nation when he was commissioned to write “Destiny of the Daleks,” so it was left to the new script editor to take care of this scene. In the hands of Terrance Dicks, Robert Holmes, or even Anthony Read, we might have had a scene in which something fatal happens to Romana (a deathly illness, for example), followed by the traditional cross-fade change from Mary Tamm to Lalla Ward. But Douglas Adams is not one for sticking to convention. Instead, he chooses to riff on the Fourth Doctor’s costume change scene from his first story, “Robot,” resulting in a, frankly, ridiculous sequence where Romana tries on different bodies. That her new look is a copy of Princess Astra from last season’s finale, “The Armageddon Factor,” is less problematic than the fact that her regeneration has no rhyme or reason. Given that Time Lords only get to regenerate 12 times, you would think Adams would have provided a significant motivation for Romana to cast off her old form. There are Whovians who find this “regeneration” funny and delightful. I don’t. Sorry! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Douglas Adams’s writing, but I don’t think his humor always hits the right note at the right time. And this was a miss.

The observant viewer might also notice that K-9 doesn’t feature in “Destiny.” We’re told that he’s suffering from laryngitis (another Douglas Adams touch?). As I understand it, John Leeson, who usually voices K-9, was not available this season, so Dalek voice actor Roy Skelton provided his coughs and croaks for this story.

We get into the story proper once the Doctor and Romana leave the TARDIS. From here on, it’s not a bad tale with a fairly solid internal consistency. The core of the story is the idea of two opposing forces at a stalemate because they both operate on the basis of pure logic. To break the stalemate, they need to introduce an organic, irrational factor. For the Daleks, this means digging up their creator, Davros–the one they exterminated and left for dead at the end of “Genesis of the Daleks” four years ago. The android Movellans were initially hoping to find Davros first and prevent the Daleks gaining this tactical advantage. Then the Doctor comes along and, lo, they now have their own irrational factor–if he can be persuaded to join their cause. Since both the Daleks and the Movellans want the same thing–universal dominion–the Doctor’s not very keen for either side to win. His solution is to neutralize both sides, and work on the side of the oppressed slave labor that the Daleks brought in to help find Davros.

As I said, it’s a good idea, and works well. However, in the outworking of this, there were some problems. First, when the Doctor encounters Davros, he looks dead. Then, for some reason, at the end of episode two, his life support kicks in, his hand moves, and his little blue head light comes on. What triggered this? Did the Doctor accidentally flip a switch? Was it the mere presence of his old adversary that kicked his systems into life? Who knows! He just springs into life on cue for the episode cliff-hanger. And then there’s the Movellan power unit, which, for some wacky reason, is located on the waist, plain as day, waiting for someone to figure out what it is and pull it off, leaving a limp and lifeless android. You would think such a vital piece would be better concealed and protected. Finally, why is it that the Daleks are restricted to seeing through their eye stalks? I hadn’t really thought of this before, but watching “Destiny” made me realize that this is a serious design flaw. The Daleks are wandering around corridors searching for the Doctor and other intruders, limited only to what they see with their eye pieces. For all their fancy gadgetry, they don’t have radar, or heat sensors? If they did, they would have saved themselves a lot of time otherwise spent trundling down empty passageways.

On the whole, the acting is good. Tom Baker is superb, as always. Lalla Ward makes a good debut playing a Romana who is a bit more self-assured and playful than her predecessor. I thought she overdid the screaming when she fell down a not-very-long shaft, but otherwise she did a fine job. The original Davros actor, Michael Wisher, wasn’t available, so David Gooderson takes the role this time. He does a passable job, but his voice doesn’t quite capture the same intensity and sinister quality that Wisher gave it. One particularly creepy scene is when the Daleks are sent off as suicide bombers to destroy the Movellan ship. Seeing them with explosives strapped to their sides, like modern-day terrorists, is a little unnerving.

Overall, this is a good story, and worthwhile, though by no means a classic.