DOCTOR WHO:  DESTINY OF THE DALEKS

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#30:  DESTINY OF THE DALEKS (4 Parts)
ORIGINALLY AIRED:  9/1/79 to 9/22/79
WRITTEN BY:  Terry Nation	
DIRECTED BY:  Ken Grieve
PRODUCER:  Graham Williams	
SCRIPT EDITOR:  Douglas Adams
		

Our old "friends" the Daleks are back again, although they really don't have that much to do in this story. Once Davros was introduced in GENESIS OF THE DALEKS, he was so much more interesting and stronger a character than his creations that he quite overshadowed them. All subsequent Dalek stories to date have included the unkillable Davros. Peter Davison met Davros and Company in RESURRECTION OF THE DALEKS, and Colin Baker did likewise in REVELATION OF THE DALEKS. As in the very first Dalek story (and the second story of the series, THE DALEKS), the Daleks don't even show up until the closing seconds of part 1.

Although he returned for Tom Baker's last season on the show, John Leeson left DOCTOR WHO after THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR, so K9 was written out of the next two shows until David Brierley took over the role in THE CREATURE FROM THE PIT.

In the TARDIS, K9 is once again in pieces. "What a brain!" the Doctor exclaims, admiring one of his components. K9 has laryngitis as well. "How can a robot catch laryngitis? I mean what do you need it for?" the Doctor wonders.

Princess Astra walks into the TARDIS control room and announces she's really a regenerated Romana. The Doctor says she can't go around wearing copies of bodies and tells her to try another one.

Romana-as-Astra leaves, as if she were going into another room for a change of clothes, and returns (as a different actress) in the costume worn by the character Zilda in THE ROBOTS OF DEATH, complaining this body's too short. "Well, lengthen it, then," the Doctor suggests.

Romana leaves and returns as a very zoftig woman with a hefty nose in a sort of harem girl costume. "No, thank you, not today," the Doctor whispers, "It's what's on the inside that matters," he confides to K9's brain.

The next one towers over the Doctor by more than a head. "Too tall, take it away," he requests, "What you want is something warm and sensible; something that will wear well. Something with a bit of style."

Romana returns wearing a smaller version of the Doctor's own costume. "That's exactly right!" he crows, "I never realized you had such a sense of style." He takes off the hat and sees she looks like Astra again. "Have it your own way, but get rid of those silly clothes," he tells her.

This brief, comic sequence is pretty much the most controversial ever to the show's devoted fans. On the one hand, it is a parody of typical women's shopping behavior, as well as a knowing reference to the Doctor's own inability to settle on a costume after he regenerated in ROBOT.

On the other hand, it infuriated fans because Time Lords can regenerate only 12 times. It appears Romana has wasted 4 or 5 of her potential lives before she settles on her original choice. Never before (or since) has it even been hinted Time Lords can regenerate when they feel like it (instead of when their old body wears out or their life is threatened); or can choose their external appearance. Although, in THE HORROR OF FANG ROCK, the Doctor did say, "Organic restructuring is elementary physiology for Time Lords."

The TARDIS materializes in a quarry. Romana returns in a pink version of the Doctor's outfit. The Doctor gives her antiradiation pills because the levels outside are quite high, and a bleeper to signal when the next dose is due. Because of the randomizer they don't know which planet they're on, only that it is subject to seismic activity.

The Doctor puts the component back into K9, who starts to spin, so the Doctor removes it, saying the most important lesson his cybernetics teacher ever taught was "when replacing a brain, always make sure the arrow A is pointing to the front." The Doctor leaves the component on top of K9 and he and Romana exit the TARDIS.

The Doctor has a feeling he's been here before. He finds a rock, which Romana identifies as concrete. "You've got all the makings of a first class navvy," he tells her. A navvy is a laborer excavating canals or roads.

They find the ruins of a city and hear and see signs of drilling. "Underworld dentist?" the Doctor wonders.

They see a band of raggedly clad, dirty people, carrying a body, which they cover with rocks and leave.

The Doctor takes a closer look at the body and discovers from a badge pinned to his shirt the deceased was a combat pilot serving with the Third Galactic Fleet of the Planet Kantra, which is a tropical paradise. He died from exhaustion and malnutrition.

A spaceship lands about a mile away and buries itself into the sand. Romana thinks it has intergalactic range and time warp capability--probably from Star System 4X Alpha 4. Without reference to his JANE'S SPACECRAFT OF THE UNIVERSE, the Doctor can't dispute her. This is an extrapolation from an existing publication, called JANE'S SPACEFLIGHT DIRECTORY.

As they head toward the craft, explosives go off around them, so they run into a ruined building. The Doctor thinks the explosives are high impact phason drills. A closer explosion causes a heavy pillar to fall on the Doctor, knocking him out and pinning him to the floor. It's too heavy for Romana to lift. He wakes up, saying, "Can't a fellow get any sleep around here?"

Romana leaves to head for the TARDIS, reassemble K9 and return with him. The Doctor takes a book, THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE, out of his pocket and begins to read, immediately laughing. "He got it wrong on the first line! Why didn't he ask somebody who saw it happen?" he says.

As she heads back to the TARDIS, Romana is followed by a man with a length of rope over his shoulder. Just before she reaches the TARDIS, more blasting causes rocks to fall, blocking the entrance to the TARDIS. Her bleeper goes off, signalling time for more antiradiation pills.

Back in the ruins, the Doctor's bleeper goes off. He takes a pill and continues reading: "The conditions existing on the planet Magla make it incapable of supporting any life form." He laughs sarcastically and says, "He obviously doesn't realize the planet Magla's an 8,000 mile wide amoeba that's grown a crusty shell."

The Doctor closes the book and looks up. Three people are standing over him, pointing ray guns. They are wearing tight fitting white uniforms and have silvery corn-rowed wigs with silver beads at the end. "You'll forgive me if I don't rise," the Doctor says.

Romana returns to find the Doctor gone, leaving behind his book. She searches for him and runs into the man following her. Backing away from him, she falls down a shaft, knocking herself out.

Although it is not yet mentioned, the people with the ray guns are Movellans. They take the Doctor to their ship, where he whistles the COLONEL BOGEY MARCH and thanks them for lifting the column off him as if it were a matchstick.

The commander, Sharrel, tells him the planet they're on is listed in their star catalog as D5 Gamma Zed Alpha. "That's not much help. I'm terribly old fashioned. I prefer names," the Doctor says. Sharrel says the planet is called Skaro. The Movellans' mission there is directed against the Daleks, who are also on Skaro. Both the Movellans and the Doctor want to know why.

Romana wakes up at the bottom of the shaft and walks to the farthest wall. Two Daleks burst through it, taking her prisoner. She is hooked up to a Dalek lie detector and interrogated. The Daleks determine she is a category 9 subject, representing no threat to Dalek security. They assign her to labor force 2.

The man who followed Romana is brought to the Movellan spaceship and introduces himself as Starship Engineer Tyssan, serving with the Deep Space Fleet out of the planet Earth. He's been a prisoner of the Daleks for 2 years. He was on a work party, fell unconscious and was left for dead, which is how he escaped.

Tyssan tells the Doctor the Daleks have Romana. The Doctor asks Tyssan to lead him to Dalek Control, and Tyssan agrees. The Movellans, whose hearing seems extremely acute, insist on accompanying them.

In the ruins, labor force 2, which consists of about 50 humans, is removing rubble from a Dalek excavation, after machines have finished drilling. Romana is weak from the radiation, as she missed taking her pill. She collapses and, at the end of the work shift, is carried outside.

Tyssan leads the Doctor to the wall the Daleks burst through. The Doctor tells him to go back now, but he decides to stay. The Doctor tells the Movellans--Sharrel, Agella and Lan--this is the place the Daleks were created thousands of years ago (see GENESIS OF THE DALEKS). The Daleks detect unauthorized movement in Section 7 and send some guards to investigate.

The Doctor, Tyssan and Sharrel reach Dalek Control, leaving Lan and Agella on guard outside. The Doctor pockets some explosives and examines a floorplan of the old Kaled city. He knows of a shaft leading from the surface directly to the third level, which is where the Daleks seem to be aiming.

A Dalek exterminates Lan. Agella warns the others, who take cover until the Daleks pass, and then run, pursued by the Daleks.

Sharrel stops by the fallen Lan. The Doctor walks over saying, "Let me see; I'm a Doctor," but Agella won't let him near. Sharrel says it's against the Movellan code to let aliens see them in death.

At the top of the shaft Romana fell down, the Doctor waits for the pursuing Daleks. "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us?" he taunts, "Bye bye!"

The Doctor walks by a grave stone which says Romana. He starts to push the rocks off it, when she walks up next to him. She feigned death; the Daleks didn't know she was a Gallifreyan. "They taught me at school how to stop my hearts," she explains to Tyssan. He wants to know how many she has. "One for casual, one for best," she replies. In PYRAMIDS OF MARS the Doctor tried a similar ploy, using his respiratory bypass system to feign death.

The Doctor strides off and finds the shaft. "If the Daleks are looking for what I think they're looking for, we've got to get there first," he says. Sharrel returns to the ship and leaves Agella with the Doctor. He tells Tyssan he knew how to get into this level due to "local knowledge gained a long time ago."

Just as he suspected, the Doctor discovers Davros, creator of the Daleks. He is deactivated and covered with cobwebs but intact. The Daleks break through, causing rocks to fall on Agella. The Doctor feels for her pulse but doesn't attempt to help her.

Suddenly Davros' one good hand starts to move and the blue light embedded in his forehead glows. What a coincidence he should come back to life at the exact moment the Doctor stumbles over him! The Doctor offers him a jelly baby, saying, "Davros, you don't look a day older; and I'd hoped you were dead."

The Daleks start to break in, so the Doctor pushes Davros' chair down a corridor to a room and gets Tyssan and Romana to put a barrier over the door. He then sends Romana and Tyssan out a window to the Movellan ship for help in keeping Davros out of the Daleks' hands. "Off you go now," he says.

The Doctor brings Davros up to date on what's been happening during the centuries he was dead: "Arcturus won the Galactic Olympic Games; Betelgeuse came in a close second. The economy of Algol's in a terrible state due to irreversible inflation."

Davros plans to rectify the errors of the past, adding new design elements to the Daleks' circuitry and arming them with new weaponry. Since centuries have passed and technology has advanced, all Davros' ideas should be hopelessly out of date, but neither he nor the Daleks seem to realize this.

On the way to the Movellan ship, Tyssan and Romana run into a Dalek. Tyssan draws it off, while Romana hides.

Davros tells the Doctor when the Daleks blasted him centuries ago (in GENESIS OF THE DALEKS), there was damage to his primary life support system, but the secondary and backup circuits switched in immediately. Synthetic tissue regeneration took place while his organs were held in long term suspension. Until the Daleks universal supremacy is established, Davros can't allow himself the luxury of death. "Oh, poor Davros!" the Doctor says with mock sympathy, pointing out Davros has misquoted Napoleon; and promising "One day I'll tell you what happened to him, too!"

The Daleks follow the Doctor's footprints, blast away the barrier and demand Davros. The Doctor has primed the explosive device he picked up in Dalek Control and now threatens to blow up Davros, so the Daleks back off.

Romana makes it to the Movellan ship and asks for help for the Doctor.

The Daleks begin killing off their work force prisoners one by one in front of the Doctor, who says he'll free Davros if all the slave workers are released. When the Daleks don't agree, the Doctor threatens to kill Davros immediately. The Daleks don't understand this illogical self-sacrifice--blowing up Davros will also kill the Doctor--but Davros commands that they agree.

The prisoners are released. The Doctor attaches the bomb to Davros' chair. He's adapted it to explode by remote control. "All I have to do is squeeze my sonic screwdriver and boom, boom, Davros," he says, climbing out the window. When he gets some distance away, he presses the sonic screwdriver, and the bomb detonates, but there was time to remove it from Davros, and instead it blows up two Daleks.

On the Movellan ship Romana tells Sharrel the Doctor is a genius in robotics and knows more about the Daleks than anyone. She tries to leave but Agella and Lan--mysteriously alive again--shoot her at a level 3 emission power--the Movellan equivalent of stun.

Sharrel tells his people to prepare the Nova device, so they can be ready to destroy the planet as soon as they've secured their new objective--the Doctor.

On his way to the Movellan ship, the Doctor hides from a Dalek patrol in some rocks and discovers a Kaled mutant, which is a grayish-pink, stretchy, rubbery thing about the size and shape of a starfish. This reminds him the Daleks were once organic. The reason they now want Davros is they need to inject an element of irrational or intuitive thought into their too logical behavior. The Doctor tosses the Kaled mutant away.

Tyssan meets up with the Doctor and both are captured by a Dalek, which is then blown to bits by a Movellan. "Awfully decent of you. Very grateful," the Doctor says. The Movellan orders the Doctor back to the ship, but he removes a power pack from her belt and she collapses. The Doctor opens her uniform to expose electronic components. "Just as I thought," he says, "just another race of robots, no better than the Daleks."

The entire premise of this story is the Daleks and the Movellans are two races of robots engaged in a stalemated war, because each can anticipate the move of the other and counter it. However, this ignores the previously established reality the Daleks are actually organic and only their outer shell--their travel machine, as it is called in GENESIS OF THE DALEKS--is a machine, so this whole idea of two robotic races doesn't hold up, because the Daleks aren't robots, they're cyborgs--part machine, part organic.

Elsewhere, within a man-sized cylindrical tube, the Movellans test the Nova device, which changes the molecular structure of the atmosphere, making the atoms flammable.

The Doctor and Tyssan come across another Nova device with Romana inside, trapped as Sarah was trapped in the similar looking textron crucible in PYRAMIDS OF MARS. The timer is set to go off in less than a minute.

The Doctor tells Tyssan to hide, and heads for Romana. As he tries to free her, he's shot by Sharrel. The timer reaches zero, but nothing happens. Agella didn't arm the device.

Davros contacts some Daleks in a spaceship orbiting Skaro who send a deep space cruiser, which will arrive in 6 hours. Davros puts all the Daleks on maximum alert until he's safely off the planet.

"Robots!" the Doctor says, waking up in the Movellan craft, "One race of robots fighting another!" When the Doctor notes Agella and Lan are up and around, Sharrel tells him, "Disfunction, or death as you know it, only occurs in us with massive circuitry disturbance. We are infinitely superior." When Sharrel says Movellans function logically, the Doctor says, "My condolences" because "You'll never defeat the Daleks." He demonstrates why in a game with the revived Romana.

The Doctor and Romana bounce one fist each in front of them and then present either a flat opened hand (paper), a closed fist (stone) or their fingers open in a V (scissors). The game is: Paper wraps stone; or stone blunts scissors; or scissors cut paper.

Sharrel and Agella try the game, which always ends in a stalemate for them. "You've discovered the recipe for everlasting piece. Congratulations," the Doctor says.

Davros consults a computer sphere containing the logistics and status of the Dalek battlefleet and discovers the Daleks have been fighting the Movellans for centuries without ever having fired a shot. The battle computers of the Daleks and the Movellans are so evenly matched they can anticipate the move of the other and counteract it. That is why the Daleks returned for their creator (although how they even suspected he would be alive after all this time is never explained)--to have him reprogram their battle computer to eliminate this logical impasse.

Sharrel plays the fist game with the Doctor and loses every time. He tells the Doctor that he must reprogram the Movellan computers to give them an advantage over the Daleks. The Doctor points out, even if he were willing--which he isn't--Davros will be doing the same thing for the Daleks.

Lan has reset the Nova device to destroy Davros, but Tyssan deactivates and reprograms him. Agella goes to check on Lan, who has not responded to radio signals. Lan deactivates her and Tyssan reprograms her as well.

Davros orders the Movellan ship destroyed to prevent the Doctor reprogramming the Movellan battle computer. He attaches half a megaton of bombs to some Daleks who are to march to the Movellan ship and press themselves against the hull. When they are in position, they'll contact Davros by radio and he'll push the button detonating the explosives. The Daleks, who didn't understand the Doctor's self-sacrifice, agree to this without question to assure total Dalek victory in the space war.

The reprogrammed Movellans, Tyssan and the prisoners freed through the Doctor's intervention make for the Movellan ship. The Doctor catches sight of Tyssan in the doorway and starts an argument with Romana to divert the Movellans' attention. Tyssan and his party enter and start to deactivate the Movellans. The Doctor helps by blowing on K9's whistle, which scrambles the Movellans' brains.

The Doctor decides to face Davros alone, saying, "I'm a very dangerous fellow when I don't know what I'm doing." He exits the Movellan ship and sees the approaching explosive-laden Daleks.

Returning to Dalek Control, he chats with Davros. Before the Doctor can press the button to blow up the Daleks prematurely, a guard Dalek comes up behind him.

Sharrel has escaped from the ship and is making for the Nova device to activate it manually. Romana follows and fights with him, kicking his arm off before she manages to deactivate him.

The Doctor tosses his hat over the guard Dalek's eye stalk, blinding it. He attaches a bomb to it, and pushes it out of the room, calling, "Bye, bye!" It explodes.

He tricks Davros into detonating the explosives before the Daleks are in place. The boobytrapped Daleks blow up without harming the Movellan ship.

Davros is put in a cryogenic freezer and loaded on the Movellan ship, now captained by Tyssan and crewed by the prisoners the Doctor freed. A high security ship from Earth will meet the Movellan ship and take Davros away to stand trial. "Bye, bye, Davros!" the Doctor whispers, pressing the button to freeze Davros in a block of ice.

He and Romana leave and the Movellan ship takes off. After digging out the TARDIS, the Doctor tells Romana the answer to the Dalek-Movellan stalemate is the first side to switch off its computer and do something irrational wins. "Make mistakes and confuse the enemy," the Doctor explains.

Romana asks if that's why the Doctor always wins. He confesses he does make the odd mistake. They enter the TARDIS and it dematerializes. "Not that switch!" Romana says, as the TARDIS rematerializes in the same place. "What? Oh yes!" the Doctor says and the TARDIS dematerializes again.

Roy Skelton, who provides the Dalek voices, also did the Dalek voices in the Pertwee show PLANET OF THE DALEKS, the Troughton show THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS and the Tom Baker show GENESIS OF THE DALEKS. He has contributed voices for Computers, Cybermen, Krotons and Monoids as well as appearing in and out of costume in other roles.

Cy Town, who plays a Dalek, has also worn the Dalek costume in the Tom Baker story GENESIS OF THE DALEKS; and DEATH TO THE DALEKS and PLANET OF THE DALEKS, both Pertwee stories and plays a Haemovore in the McCoy THE CURSE OF FENRIC.

Mike Mungarvan, who plays a Dalek, plays the Duty Officer in the third installment of the Colin Baker story THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD.