The Power of the Daleks

I am your servant!

If you took a poll of Doctor Who fans as to which lost story they would like found, Marco Polo would probably win. But their likely second choice (and my first) is Power of the Daleks. This story is the first full appearance of the Second Doctor following the regeneration at the end of The Tenth Planet. Despite there being no recovered episodes, the concept behind this story was good enough that it was pinched for the first half set up in the New Series episode Victory of the Daleks.

The newly regenerated Doctor and his companions appear on a recently colonized planet that is in minor turmoil due to acts of sabotage performed by a band of rebels. Meanwhile, an alien spacecraft has been recovered and the scientists are eager to get inside. The Doctor poses as an inspector from Earth whom he found murdered outside the base. They manage to get the spaceship open and find a group of dormant Daleks. The Doctor urges the people to reseal to ship but some of the Daleks bleed power from the ship to reactive themselves and pose as grateful servants to the colonists for reviving them. The leader of the rebels moves to destroy the leadership while the Daleks quietly reproduce themselves and spread power capability throughout the colony. When the rebels appear to have taken control, the Dalek's strike and destroy much of the colony. The Doctor manages to get to their source of power and sends a surge through that kills all the Daleks. As the colony recovers from the attack and the leadership retakes control, the Doctor and his companions slip back to the TARDIS.

This is an interesting story in that the Second Doctor has just regenerated and is still reorienting himself. It is probably not until The Moonbase that he truly becomes the Doctor that we are familiar with but it is interesting to see the familiar traits exert themselves while mixing in with some oddball things such as his hat fetish.

The other thing that is so good is how the Daleks operate. We are so used to seeing Daleks that are arrogant and direct in their attacks that seeing them take a subtle and deceptive method is fascinating. Even better is how the Daleks start to chafe against this subtlety as the story progresses. The Doctor pushes them and as they get closer to the point where they can strike, their obedience becomes more hesitant and some of their responses become laced with tinges of sarcasm, "I... am your serrr...vant." It's an effective way to add to the tension since we know that the Daleks are planning an attack and it's just a question of when they will strike.

You would also think that as a six part story, it might drag a little, but the build up is steady and the conversations keep you engaged, barely noticing how the episodes pass by. The only truly frustrating thing about this story is the fact that it is all recons, especially in episode six. Most of episode six is taken up with the battle between the colonists and the Daleks and it is so aggravating to see freeze frames of all the action being heard and experience it as intended.

I think that if this story was found I would give it a full score. Heck, I think that even if episode six was found, I might mark it up full. But since it is a full recon, it comes with all the downsides entailed in that. Still, if you had to pull a recon to try, this would be an excellent story to try.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5