The A-Z of Classic Who | Day of the Daleks: Square Dalek in a Round Story

The Daleks are difficult to properly write for. While I'm pointing out the bloody obvious, I should say that unlike something like the Cybermen, where it's difficult to get them right but there's an obvious template that tends to work, pretty much every successful Dalek story has done things very differently. Is there a common theme between Dalek and Genesis of the Daleks as to what makes them good Dalek stories? Certainly not to the same extent as there's an obvious common thread between Tomb of the Cybermen and World Enough and Time. 

I do, however, think there's a common thread between quite a few mediocre Dalek stories - that you could take the Daleks out, replace them with any monster and basically nothing would change. And thus, Day of the Daleks. 

It's fairly obvious when watching this that it never originally features the Daleks - you could take them out and basically nothing would change. You'd need to add a new 'big bad who invaded Earth' but that could literally be anyone. Day of the Abzorbaloffs would probably make just as much sense. Compounding this, the Daleks themselves are poorly executed here - the voices are REALLY shit, visually they are a serious step down from what had come before, and they spend most of the story whinging about how everyone should obey them, before heading to 20th century Earth, confidently strolling through the most pathetic defence against an alien invasion ever seen, and then getting blown up. They're a bit pathetic.

"THE A TO Z OF CLAS-SIC WHO IS AN ENE-MY OF THE DA-LEKS AND MUST BE EX-TER-MI-NA-TED!"

Making this even more frustrating is that what surrounds the Daleks in this story is actually fairly interesting. The guerilla story is a compelling one, the time travel stuff is interesting and delivers a solid twist, the descent of contemporary Earth into war is interesting stuff, and the pieces of the story come together solidly. The Controller is a fascinating character who's rigid obedience to his masters is only broken by subtle instances of his humanity shining through, before he gives his life to change his nightmarish world forever. His defiance when he stands in front of the Daleks and says "Who knows? I may have helped to exterminate you" is the story's highlight - a man giving one final middle finger to the masters who have destroyed his world and his life.

He was, of course, having one or two regrets at this moment

All of this is really solid stuff with a compelling story and characters, some good scenes with the Doctor and Jo, the Brigadier has some solid stuff and of course, what other story has Alex MacIntosh reporting from Auderley House.

At no point are we told who is watching this news bulletin

There's great stuff here, but great stuff that the Daleks simply don't fit in. They're not used to their full potential, and their inclusion drags the prominence of the actually interesting parts of the story. Precious time is wasted with the Daleks trying to find out who the Doctor is, which concludes with them finding out who the Doctor is and then not ending up on screen with him again, which was clearly just a way to make sure he meets the Daleks before he heads back to re-enter where he was in the original story.

The Doctor was using drink to forget the woe of what Day of the Daleks could have been.

It's just a frustrating could-have-been, and what we get on screen is far from awful. The Dalek stuff isn't actively terrible, and the stuff from the original story is still solid even with them there. The final confrontation is notoriously crap with just three Daleks and a few Ogrons marching across the countryside with maybe ten UNIT soldiers firing a few guns and a solitary mortar before getting summarily exterminated, which not only looks pretty poor, but also detracts from the interesting parts of the story going on at the same time. It's really annoying to cut from the Doctor trying to reason with the desperate soldier to unconvincing Daleks staging an unconvincing attack. 

"Look, try and use your intelligence The A-Z of Classic Who"

So overall, Day of the Daleks isn't bad by any means - it has some compelling characters, interesting story elements and some decent bits and pieces scattered throughout, but it's held back by fitting the Square Daleks in the Round Story - they don't fit, and the attempts to make them fit just don't work, which means that something that could have been a classic of 70s Who, is nothing more than just an average Dalek jaunt, which the Pertwee era was filled with. It's an awful shame, but that's life.

Final Score: 5/10. Some great story aspects, characters and premises are dragged down by the ill judged inclusion of the Daleks, their poor execution and how they bring down the rest of the story with them. A wasted opportunity, something that could have been so good ends up being no better than average.

Next Episode: Death to the Daleks