Destiny Of The Daleks (1979) Review

"And then there was the time I met this giant squid called Kroll..."
"Zzzzz..."

Destiny Of The Daleks kicks off the new season with a nostalgic sequel to one of Doctor Who's most revered stories. Unfortunately, it's as much of a shambles as the Kaled bunker where the Doctor finds Davros.

WRITTEN BY

Terry Nation, the writer who conceived the Daleks and then used them as a cash cow for the rest of his life. 

PLOT

The TARDIS lands on Skaro, several centuries after the Kaled-Thal war. Whilst exploring, the Doctor and the new incarnation of Romana find the Daleks attempting to resurrect their creator, Davros, so he could solve a vital tactical dilemma in their warfare against the equally intelligent androids, the Movellans.

ANALYSIS

It is something of a joke amongst fans that Terry Nation was so lazy, he just kept remaking his first Dalek story over and over again. And whilst that's not entirely true, it is a fact that the man wrote in a very formulaic fashion, forcing the production team to compensate, the most famous case being that of Genesis Of The Daleks, where Terrance Dicks demanded a more innovative script from Nation(and definitely got it). 

Four years later, Douglas Adams is the show's new script editor(more on that below) and Terry Nation is being wheeled out again(covered in cobwebs too, I imagine) to either cough up some plot points for Adams to fill in with his nutty humour or bring forth an interesting, if a bit dry sequel to Genesis that Adams subsequently decided to rewrite because it wasn't funny enough. Whatever you believe, what we ended up with was an awful mix of Williams-era fluff and Hartnell-era earnest sci-fi that nearly scuttled the whole thing. 

Destiny has a lot of things going for it. Just the idea of making a sequel to Genesis and bringing back Davros is pretty exciting, even if Davros was best left dead. And in the first episodes, this works as we see the Doctor explore and rediscover Skaro all over again. But once the Movellans and Davros are actually found, it just collapses like a card house of pantomime. 

CHARACTERS

Surprisingly, Tom Baker is by far the most serious actor in this story and seems to be trying to return to the dark, afraid performance he gave in Genesis. The initial scene with him and Davros together is quite powerful and it's clear that he's having a trip to the past with this. 
Unfortunately, at some point during filming, he realised how pathetic the production was and gave up, resulting in some really goofy bits. Nevertheless, this is the first time that I've taken Tom Baker seriously as the Doctor in ages. You really feel like he has gone through a lot and become a different person since Genesis(he tries to actually kill Davros) and now he's back to where it all began...

Lalla Ward is now Romana II and I like her. I'm still missing Mary Tamm, but I like Lalla and I think she's really sweet. I love her outfit and slightly snippy personality!

David Gooderson is an unfortunate Davros. He is passionate, sure, but I don't get the sense that he is the same person as he was in Genesis at all. He lacks the curiosity and terrifying intelligence that Davros should have. Whilst there is a scene that has the Doctor and Davros chuckle over the Daleks' plight, for the most part he's just generically psychotic. I do like the idea that Davros has become so insane that he's deliberately ignoring past events, but it's unlikely that either Nation or Adams had that in mind. He does do a passable Michael Wisher impression with the odd delivery here and there, but the writing nor the toned down voice modulation helps him. 

Tim Barlow is quite interesting as Tyssan, a former engineer who's escaped Dalek slavery. Apart from his bizarre zombie-like appereance, the most interesting thing about Barlow was that he was deaf until recently. And he still gives a really good performance!

Nothing positive can be said for the rest of the cast. The Movellans are easily the silliest-looking characters in Doctor Who yet, with white jumpsuits and silver Cleopatra-style wigs. Nothing could've saved them. And as for the extras, most of them have a "I'm on the telly" smile on their faces. Really. 

NOTES

*I personally believe that the Daleks are not robots in this story, but merely trapped in logical thinking. The term "robot" can be applied metaphorically, although it does sound odd.
As for the Kaled mutant that the Doctor finds, I think it could imply that the original Kaleds did finally mutate into something like the Daleks, since Davros merely accelerated their mutation in Genesis. 

*The Doctor's hat is starting to turn into a cameo guest appereance.

*Romana's regeneration is very odd, but I choose to ignore it. The Time Lords are aliens, I'm sure there's an explanation out there. It's not plot-related and doesn't directly mess with continuity, like Moffat's "odd moments" do.

*The Dalek dialogue in this story is awful. I think I remember some of their dialogue being really repetitive in the Nation stories of the 60s, but here, they just literally keep saying the same things over and over and over and over... here's their first line: "Do not move! Do not move! Do not move! Do not move! Do not move! Do not move! You are our prisoner! Do not move! You are our prisoner!" It's especially hilarious in the scenes where they are looking for something, as the Dalek in charge keeps saying "do not deviate!" as if they are in kindergarten.

*The scene in which Davros urges the Daleks to get a move-on is eerily reminiscent of the "Well, see to it!" from The Chase.

*What's up with the baby-blue eyepieces and orange guns that the Daleks now have? Also, this is the first time the operators seem to be physically firing the Daleks' weapons since the 60s and it's obvious why... the bits of orange paper that fly out to make it look as if energy is bursting out of the weapon would only ever work in the monochrome era. And with the blue energy beams added in post-production, it just looks ridiculous.

*I love how eager Davros is to escape Skaro and go forth conquering the universe, despite(from his perspective) only finding out that other worlds are a thing like yesterday.

*In a blatant plot hole, Episode 1 has the Doctor and Romana carry around radiation pills(the Doctor obviously having learned from his initial experience with Skaro), but those are never mentioned again, despite Romana spending a huge amount of time away from the Doctor. Does he just give her the pills off-screen?

*This is the quarry-est Doctor Who story yet. "Oh, look, rocks!" just sums it up.

*One legitimately nice touch was the use of the creepy music from The Daleks and the iconic Dalek heartbeat sound. 

*Davros's behaviour in this story reminded me a lot of Mavic Chen, GUARDIAN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, who also believed he was in charge of the Daleks when he really wasn't. Again, I don't think it was intentional, but that's what I read from it, anyway.

*One small thing that really bothered me about Gooderson was that he didn't fit into the shoulder straps designed to keep the sickly Davros in position. 

*Davros is oddly silent during his kidnapping, isn't he? He just doesn't say a word whilst everybody's wheeling him around and coming up with plans. He doesn't even shout "over here!" to the Daleks.

BEST QUOTE

"BYE-BYE!" - Tom Baker's newfound catchphrase.

CONCLUSION

Whilst the fundament for a great Dalek story were there, the Williams era just isn't the place for continuity.