“Day of the Daleks” is the first adventure of the ninth season of “Doctor Who” classic series, which aired in 1972. It follows “The Dæmons” and it’s a six parts adventure written by Louis Marks and directed by Paul Bernard.

The story

The world is on the brink of a new war and Sir Reginald Styles is desperately trying to set up a peace conference. While he’s in his study, a mysterious man in camouflage appears and threatens to kill him but before he can shoot him with his gun, vanishes into thin air. When she finds out what happened, his secretary warns UNIT.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) turns to the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) to understand what’s happening. Together with Jo Grant (Katy Manning), the Doctor goes to investigate and when the aggressor is discovered nearly dead, the gun is also found Together with what looks like a crude time machine.

Extras

This double DVD is rich in extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, a gallery of pictures from this adventure, the Radio Times Listings and a promo of the “Doctor Who” DVDs soon to be published.

There are various comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonist actors Anna Barry and Jimmy Winston, producer Barry Letts, script editor Terrance Dicks and video mixer Mike Catherwood.

Blasting the Past. A half-hour documentary on the production of this adventure.

A View from the Gallery. A documentary about twenty minutes long in which producer Barry Letts and video mixer Mike Catherwood talk about the work of mixing a multicamera production. It’s not a too technical extra useful to understand how filming was handled at the time.

Nationwide. The delivery of a Dalek to a school that had won a prize.

Blue Peter. Peter Purves remembers the time spent in “Doctor Who”.

Day of the Daleks: Special Edition. A new edition of this adventure with special effects created for the DVD. Usually in these cases there’s the possibility to activate the new effects but this time there were so many that they created a Special Edition. Video effects visibly improve several scenes and Dalek were redubbed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Making of Day of the Daleks – Special Edition. A short documentary on the production of the Special Edition of this adventure.

Now and Then. Some places where this adventure was filmed as they appear today and how they have changed over time.

The UNIT Family – Part Two. The second part, lasting just over half an hour, of a documentary about UNIT.

The UNIT Dating Conundrum. An extra which addresses the problems of inconsistencies in the dates of UNIT adventures.

The Cheating Memory. The producer of the Special Edition compares his memories of this adventure with reality.

Teaser Trailer. A short promo released at the beginning of the production of the Special Edition.

Producer Barry Letts didn’t like to reuse old enemies but at the BBC there was some interest in exploiting the Daleks again after they had been absent from “Doctor Who” for several seasons. Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks met Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks who held the rights on them. Nation was working on another TV show so he couldn’t write a story with the Daleks but gave permission to use them on the condition that it was approved by him.

Initially, the new adventure with the Daleks was supposed to be written by Robert Sloman but soon Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks had doubts about it being suitable to end the ninth season. Eventually, they decided it would be better to adapt another story that Louis Marks was already writing.

Generally, in “Doctor Who” the element of time travel is used only to allow the Doctor and his companions to move from one era to another to live new adventures. Instead, Louis Marks was writing a story in which time travel was the basis of the plot exploring the possible paradoxes that arise.

In the original script, the the Ogrons were the villains but when the adventure was chosen for the return of the Daleks, they were placed as rulers of the future Earth leaving the Ogrons as their henchmen. The result is a story a little out of the ordinary since the Daleks generally act directly while in “Day of the Daleks” they mostly use the Ogrons and humans and merely supervise the operations.

“Day of the Daleks”, however, starts with the arrival of a mysterious man in camouflage who wants to kill Sir Reginald Styles, who is desperately trying to organize a peace conference at a time when World War III seems almost inevitable. Initially, the man and the other members of his group look like terrorists who want to plunge the world into catastrophe but when the Doctor is able to talk to them he understands that the situation is much more complex.

Ethics and moral shades of grey are one of the most important components in “Day of the Daleks”. The Doctor and Jo Grant see a future dominated by the Daleks in which some humans work with them directing the slave labor camps. In particular, the Controller, a human who answers directly to the Daleks, thinks that his work is saving many people.

The confrontation between the Doctor and the Controller shows very well how the latter needs to think he’s doing the right thing because he still has a conscience. The Doctor fiercely criticizes him for his position but it’s true that there are other humans worse than him who’d be ruthless with the slaves.

The problem of “Day of the Daleks” is in the limited production values, which lead to mediocre results in moments that should be very intense. In the classic “Doctor Who” series sometimes you have to use your imagination to make up for the shortcomings due to the low budget and this is one of those cases.

When the Doctor and Jo are trying to escape the Ogrons in the future on a kind of three-wheeled motorcycle that could achieve only a very limited speed, the slow-motion chase is surreal. Only three Dalek props were available and that’s limiting in the fourth episode. It doesn’t help that the BBC seemed to have forgotten how to make their voices, which in “Day of the Daleks” is perhaps the worst ever obtained.

The Special Edition included in the DVD edition corrects these flaws at least in part. There’s still the Doctor killing an Ogron almost randomly in a behavior really out of the ordinary for him. Otherwise, I think it’s an adventure built really well with a sophisticated plot that also addresses issues that give food for thought and good performances by the cast.

Overall, “Day of the Daleks” is a very good adventure and the double DVD contains many extras generally interesting besides the Special Edition. For these reasons, I recommend buying it.