Daleks Changing History

The original version of Doctor Who ran for a quarter century. The quality of individual episodes during that time varied wildly, with episodes from late in the run featuring the Sixth and Seventh Doctors probably having the highest percentage of poor stories (though those incarnations of the Doctors themselves were excellent).

But the show was good more often than not, which adds up to an awful lot of well-told tales. So the nice thing about its long run is that there always seems to be yet one more four-part or six-part serial that I haven't yet gotten around to watching.

I've just watched "The Day of the Daleks," a four-parter from 1971 featuring John Pertwee as the Third Doctor. I wasn't unfamiliar with the story--as is the case with many of the classic series stories, I had read the novelization. But it was still nice to watch the original episodes.

At this point in the series, the Doctor was stuck on Earth--stranded there by the Time Lords with his Tardis out of order. He's working as the scientific advisor to UNIT, the military organization that's assigned to handle alien invasions, mad scientists and other dangers the regular military isn't generally equipped to handle. Since a lot of the threats they face are annoyingly immune to bullets, having the Doctor around to figure out how to beat the bad guys is advantageous.

This time around, the threat is an unusual one. International tensions are high; nuclear war is a real possibility; and the only person who seems to have a chance to negotiate a peace is a British diplomat named Sir Reginald Styles. So when Styles claims a ghost tried to shoot him, there is reason to be worried. The Doctor is sent to investigate.

What follows is a well-constructed science fiction tale with lots of action and a plot that makes clever use of time travel and time paradox. The would-be assassin comes from a future where Earth, devastated by centuries of war, had been conquered by the Daleks. 

Most humans (those few who survive and haven't sold out to the Daleks) are kept as slave labor, put to work stripping the Earth of its mineral resources. But a resistance group has formed, gathering arms and even stealing plans for a Dalek-designed time machine. 

Well, this gives the resistance an idea. According to their history, Sir Reginald Styles betrayed the other diplomats at a peace conference and blew them up. Though he accidentally blew himself up as well, the mass assassination ended any chance of peace, leaving the Earth easy pickings for the Daleks. So why not go back in time and kill Sir Reginald before he has a chance to put his own evil plan into effect? Won't that prevent war and, in turn, prevent the Daleks from ever taking over in the first place?

The trouble is that the time travel technology they are using is a little wonky, causing the first assassin to blink back to the future before he has a chance to shoot Sir Reginald. Also, the resistance's understanding of history may not be accurate, so killing Sir Reginald might not be a good idea. 

The Doctor and his current companion Jo (not my favorite companion--but you can't have everything) investigate. The Doctor, being the Doctor, soon has an inkling of what is happening. Jo, being Jo, accidentally teleports herself into the Dalek-ruled future. The Doctor ends up there himself before long, where he has to multi-task between escaping from the Daleks and their soldiers (brutal aliens called Ogrons) and convincing the resistance to help fix history properly. 

Various plot points and character arcs are neatly tied together by the end. As I mentioned above, this story is superbly constructed, merging various elements into a satisfying whole.

Special mention should to Aubrey Woods as the Controller, a human who supervises slave-operated factories for the Daleks. He's convinced that the Daleks can't ever be beaten, so helps them while trying to convince himself that he's also helping humanity in the only way possible. His interactions with the Doctor are fascinating and his eventual fate is simultaneously tragic and noble. 

I watched "Day of the Daleks" via a streaming service that shows a version with modernized CGI special effects, so the clip I'm posting below reflects this. I'm in the camp that feels as long as the original story is respected and left unchanged (I'm glaring at you, Mr. "Han no longer shoots first" Lucas), then improved special effects can be a nice addition. I feel the same way about the enhanced TOS Star Trek episodes that were released a few years ago. But an argument that the original special effects should be left intact is a fair one in its own right. I think you can make a case that the technological and budgetary limits on visual effects from that era forced viewers to fill in the gaps in visual realism with their own imagination. On the other hand, a cheesy visual effect might take you out of the story and detract from our enjoyment of it. It is actually a very personal thing that changes from one fan to another.