The Power of the Daleks

Episode of the Doctor Who series
Original title	The Power of the Daleks
Country of production	United Kingdom
original language	English
length	6 × 25 minutes
classification	Season 4, episodes 9–14 ; 135th - 140th episode in total ( list )
First broadcast	November 5, 1966 to ; December 10, 1966 on BBC
Rod
Director	Christopher Barry
script	David Whitaker ; Dennis Spooner (not performed)
production	Innes Lloyd
music	Tristram Cary
occupation
	Patrick Troughton : The second doctor ; Anneke Wills : Polly; Michael Craze : Ben Jackson;
chronology
← Predecessor ; The Tenth Planet	Successor → ; The Highlanders

The Power of the Daleks is the 30th story arc of the British science fiction - television series Doctor Who . It consists of 6 episodes that aired between November 5, 1966 and December 10, 1966. Except for a few individual scenes, the serial is lost .

action

Shocked by the fact that the Doctor's appearance has changed before their eyes, Ben and Polly try to find out what happened to the Doctor. However, the much younger-looking doctor skilfully avoids the two questions and steers the TARDIS towards the planet Vulcan, where the three witness the murder of a man who was supposed to inspect the earth colony living there.
The three are picked up by a security team and taken to the governor of the colony, where the doctor poses as the recently murdered Earth inspector and is promptly shown around the colony. In the laboratory of the scientist Lesterson, the doctor discovers a strange-looking 200-year-old spaceship capsule, which he wants to take a closer look at the following night without being disturbed by the governor or his people. As it turns out, the capsule is a Dalek spaceship with two inactive Daleks inside, but a third seems to have already left the capsule.
When Doctor Lesterson asks about the missing Dalek inside the spaceship, he swears that he has not yet entered the capsule and that he does not know what the doctor is talking about. When Lesterson is alone, he opens a secret door in his laboratory that reveals a room where the missing Dalek is. Despite the doctor's warning not to experiment with the Daleks, Lesterson and his assistants manage to reactivate the Dalek, who puts himself directly into the service of Lesterson as his personal servant.
The next day Lesterson introduces the governor and the doctor and his companions to the Dalek, who continues to pretend to be a loyal servant of the colony. Despite several attempts to lure the Dalek out of his charade, the Doctor fails to convince the Governor and Lesterson that the Daleks are anything but loyal and peace-loving. On the same day, Lesterson activates the other two Daleks from the space capsule, who also pretend to be his servants.
Over the next few days, the doctor notices that there are more than three Daleks in the colony and tries again to warn the governor and Lesterson that the Daleks are starting to multiply, but again neither of them want to hear about it because they have their Dalek - Use the army to crush a rebellion among the colonists. During a rebel attack, the Daleks show their true colors and kill colonists on both sides, including Lesterson and the governor. The Doctor, Ben and Polly try to help the rebels fight the Daleks, but it seems the Daleks are unstoppable.
By chance, the doctor discovers the energy source of the Daleks, with whose help Lesterson had previously brought the three original Daleks to life, and is able to use it against them. After the leader of the rebels Quinn has been appointed as the new governor of the colony, the doctor and his companions decide to leave the colony and meet an almost completely destroyed Dalek on their way to the TARDIS. As the TARDIS begins to dematerialize, the Dalek begins to move again.

production

After David Whitaker had finished the script for all 6 episodes, Dennis Spooner revised the scripts again, but remained unplayed for this work. After the regeneration, the doctor looks at himself in the mirror and can still see his old face; this was resolved by inserting a photo of William Hartnell taken especially for the scene in the frame of the mirror. Since Anneke Wills (Polly) and Michael Craze (Ben) took turns on vacation during the recording of the series, they do not appear in episode 4 and 5 respectively.
The strange behavior of the doctor in the serial was intentionally designed by the authors to show the audience the consequences of regeneration.

Alternative title of the serial

Several titles were considered during pre-production of the series:

The Destiny of Doctor Who (in German Das Schicksal von Doctor Who )
Servants of Masters (in German servants of the masters )

Lost episodes

All episodes of the series were deleted by the BBC in the 60s as it was common practice at the time to reuse the tapes. The 16 mm tapes that were sent abroad for broadcasting the series were also destroyed in 1974. The surviving clips from the individual episodes only survived the deletion because they were often shown as part of other programs, such as B. in the children's program Blue Peter . However, the soundtrack exists for all 6 episodes because it was recorded by fans of the series at the time.
In September 2016, the BBC announced that an animated version of the serial was being worked on and that the serial would be released on DVD in 2017.

Audience ratings

The Power of the Daleks - Episode 1 - 7.9 million viewers
The Power of the Daleks - Episode 2 - 7.8 million viewers
The Power of the Daleks - Episode 3 - 7.5 million viewers
The Power of the Daleks - Episode 4 - 7.8 million viewers
The Power of the Daleks - Episode 5 - 8.0 million viewers
The Power of the Daleks - Episode 6 - 7.8 million viewers

actor

Doctor - Patrick Troughton
Polly - Anneke Wills
Ben Jackson - Michael Craze
Bragen - Bernard Archard
Hensell - Peter Bathurst
Lesterson - Robert James
Quinn - Nicholas Hawtrey
Janley - Pamela Ann Davy
Examiner - Martin King
Resno - Edward Kelsey
Valmar - Richard Kane
Kebble - Steven Scott
Guards - Peter Forbes-Robertson, Robert Russell & Robert Luckham
Daleks - Gerald Taylor, Kevin Manser, Robert Jewell, John Scott Martin
Voice of the Daleks - Peter Hawkins

Publications

A novel version, written by John Peel , was published by Virgin Books in July 1993.
Since the soundtrack for all episodes still exists, the BBC has already released it several times on sound carriers: The first release was on a music cassette with Tom Baker as the additional narrator, the second with Anneke Wills as the narrator on CD and the third and so far last release took place on MP3-CD again with Anneke Wills as narrator.
In 2004, all of the series' remaining clips were released on DVD as part of the Lost-in-Time DVD set. On November 5, 2016, the complete serial was released as a download from the BBC Store, a video on demand service, with the episodes based on the script using animation technology. A DVD and Blu-Ray release of the animated version followed on February 6, 2017, with the Blu-Ray containing a color version specially produced for the release.

Trivia

While episodes 1 to 5 of the series were filmed on video tape, the 6th episode was the first episode of the series to be recorded on 35 mm film.
This was the first serial with the Daleks that was not written by Terry Nation .
Elements of the serial were subsequently victory of the Daleks ( Victory of the Daleks ) Season 5 of the new series with Matt Smith assumed the title role such. B. the fact that the Daleks pretend to be servants of a person in order to ensure their own survival.

Web links

The Power of the Daleks on the official BBC website with a photonovel with Telesnaps to illustrate the episode
The Power of the Daleks - Detailed summary in the Doctor Who Reference Guide.