The Evil of the Daleks episode 6 discussion:
P: We took two weeks off, so the story was not as fresh in my mind. But, I still followed the story because it was methodical in its pace.
H: In a rare bit of criticism, I’m going to say that it almost felt a little bit padded.
K: Nope, It definitely felt padded.
P: How did they know that 45 years later… nevermind.
H: It didn’t feel bad. It just felt a little padded.
R: Fluffy, if you will. I was very amused at the fact that the recon actually used a dalek go round.
K: I thought it was silly to see two CG Daleks basically going around in circles. I guess it was to be realistic to what was shown on the actual program. But with CG it just looked silly.
R: I almost felt like the people who made the recon were going “Am I right folks? Am I right?” I thought it was a cute little nod. And I have to admit the Dalek emperor’s plan almost seems clever.
H: For a dalek plan it’s downright brilliant.
R: So simple. So elegant.
K: So unexpected.
A: It just might work.
K: Well, of course it won’t work. The Doctor will save the day in the end.
P: Maybe. Maybe he dies this episode. Forever.
K: <gives him a look>
H: “Warning, there are Monkey Boys in the facility! There are Monkey Boys in the facility!” <Buckaroo Banzai reference>
That’s all I could think of during the “There are human being in the city! There are human being in the city!” bit.
R: Did I misunderstand what happened when the two Daleks came in to the prisoner’s room. It seems that they said “The two humans are still here. There are other humans in the city.”
H: Yes. They were making sure that Kemel and Victoria had not escaped.
K: So they knew there were different humans in the city.
Sc: I was wondering how the Daleks set the time on the bomb with a plunger.
H: The world may never know.
P: They have a hand that they keep behind a hidden door. But they really don’t like it to be on camera because they are vain about their fingernails.
R: I thought they just used a clapper.
K: Still need two hands for that.
P: Two plungers.
R: Touche.
<bad clapper jokes not worth repeating>
P: So what was the point of the bomb because they were all like “go get the Doctor. This bombs going to go off, so go get the Doctor.” And he’s not going to get the Doctor because they’re just about to blow up his laboratory!
R: Hey, at least it advanced the plot.
H: They’re cleaning up the mess behind them.
P: By making a bigger mess?
H: By vaporizing everything. The time machine. The mirrors. Everything that would give any indication that they had been there.
P: Besides the Doctor, who’d be looking?
K: But they think, or at least thought, that the Doctor was going to be on Skaro.
R: What he means is if the Doctor isn’t looking who else would be. “We must clean up the evidence in case there’s another meddling Time Lord out there. Or some kids and a dog or something.”
K: So that explains Maxtible.
R: Of course, Old Man Maxtible.
H: How is this a shady real estate scheme.
K: THEY WEREN’T ALL SHADY REAL ESTATE SCHEMES!
H: There was some hidden treasure a few times, that’s true.
P: And inheritance.
<Scooby Doo jokes go on for a while…>
H: The problem is that so much of this episode was padding that there wasn’t very much to talk about.
P: Sure there is. How about the interesting architecture of the updated Skaro.
A: The Dalek Emperor had boobies.
H: They’re not boobies. They’re bumps. They pick up etheric beam emanations. <Reference to the Doctor Who humor piece “The Curse of the Fatal Death” If you haven’t see it, stop reading and go see that now.>
H: Anyway, the Dalek Emperor. He’s pretty cool.
P: He’s pretty cool because he has the cooling tubes, right?
K: <another look>
H: But yeah, it’s a really neat design I always thought.
P: Sure.
K: Spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler… I won’t say anything then.
H: So, final thoughts?
A: Yeah, there was a lot of padding. I was actually almost falling asleep at the end. I really enjoyed all the friend stuff at the beginning. And labeling them was clever.
H: And the Doctor noticing that one of the Daleks was faking the name later on was also clever.
P: Yeah, and then he kills him.
A: I thought at the time “Why did he do that to Omega?”
P: Oh-Mi-Gah-D!
K: It makes me want to look up the names of the “named” Daleks who show up in current Doctor Who storyline.
H: Those weren’t named after Greek letters.
R: Well, Dalek Thay apparently has a Twitter account. Ah, Dalek Sec, Thay, Caan, and Jast.
K: Ah. But the Omega is reused again. A, B, Z? Why not A, B, C?
H: Omega is easier to write than gamma?
P: Maybe it’s a religious reference?
H: Oh yeah. Maybe. So, moving on.
Sc: I got nothing, really.
Cz: The Daleks were ballerinas.
H: Well, ballerinas actually were an inspiration for Terry Nation for how he wanted the Daleks to move. He claimed he wanted to the smooth movement, not to look like a man in a suit. He thought it would look more unearthly.
P: Yes, I also did enjoy the childish Daleks. I kind of get the feeling like this really wasn’t the original plan for the Emperor. It felt more like “Yeah, yeah, we meant to do that! Yeah!” Also I was fairly impressed with the Dalek city in that for once they really had a clearly defined architecture. We haven’t seen this in a while.
H: It’s the first time we’ve really seen this since the original Dalek story. We didn’t really see that on Kembel in the Dalek Master Plan.
P: I thought the romance that was budding between Kemel and Victoria was actually coming across pretty good. Although slightly archetyped. All in all I liked the episode.
R: There were lots of things that happened, but I can’t sum up in one of my usual soundbites. My only observation would be that somehow the friendly Daleks are actually creepier.
H: The childlike voices?
R: Yeah. There’s something unnerving about them.
P: I think if you spend some time with someone who is psychotic, it’s the same level of creepy. Because they will turn to harm you without really feeling empathy. Which is perfectly Dalek.
H: But surely not human factor Dalek?
P: Yes, I think so. Because you will trust them a little bit. And then that trust will end up being your death.
K: Spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler.
H: I think very cool bits that you don’t know about are yet to come.
K: This one seemed to go quickly because not a lot happened. I did like the return to Skaro. I thought the explosion animation looked silly. Not because it was inconsistent with other recons, but because other than that, this recon was generally very good. So that explosion fade effect with disappointing. I’m still enjoying the story.
H: This episode, again, shows us how David Whitaker makes Daleks clever and scary. I don’t think Daleks in a Terry Nation script would have been sadistic and clever enough to simply make prisoners scream in order to flush out infiltrators like that. Even down to the actual plan, these Daleks are much more intelligent, and malevolent than the Daleks in The Chase, the Dalek’s Master Plan, etc. They’re like the Daleks in Power of the Daleks, oddly enough (another David Whitaker script). And even with padding this was a really find episode of a really, really fine story.
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