Production Code: 7H
First Transmitted
1 - 05/10/1988 19:35
2 - 12/10/1988 19:35
3 - 19/10/1988 19:35
4 - 26/10/1988 19:35
Plot
The TARDIS arrives in London in November 1963, where the Doctor and Ace discover that two rival factions of Daleks - one loyal to the Dalek Emperor and one to the Dalek Supreme - are seeking the Hand of Omega, a powerful Time Lord device that the first Doctor hid there during an earlier sojourn on Earth.
The Daleks are focusing their search around Coal Hill School - the school that the Doctor's grand-daughter Susan attended - while a military unit led by Group Captain Gilmore is attempting to resist their incursions.
The Doctor tries to keep Gilmore and his team out of harm's way while the two Dalek factions battle each other for control of the Hand. The imperial Daleks eventually overpower those led by the Dalek Supreme and capture the device.
The Dalek Emperor is revealed to be Davros, now with only the last vestiges of his humanoid form remaining. The Doctor begs him not to use the Hand, but is ignored. However, this is just the final ruse in a complex trap laid by the Time Lord to defeat his old adversaries.
The Hand vaporises the creatures' home planet, Skaro, by turning its sun into a supernova, and then returns to destroy their forces orbiting Earth. The Doctor confronts the Dalek Supreme and causes it to self-destruct by convincing it that it is the sole surviving member of its race.
Episode Endings
The Doctor is trapped at the top of a flight of stairs leading from the basement of Coal Hill School as an imperial Dalek ascends behind him chanting that he is an enemy of the Daleks and will be exterminated.
Ace fumbles ineffectually with a rocket launcher weapon as three imperial Daleks surround her and prepare to exterminate.
A Dalek shuttle craft lands in the playground of Coal Hill School and the Doctor muses that he might have miscalculated.
Ace asks the Doctor: 'We did good, didn't we?' He replies: 'Perhaps. Time will tell. It always does.'
Roots
Quatermass ('I wish Bernard was here,' says Rachel 'British rocket group has its own problems,' replies Allison).
Aliens ('What do you expect to do then, talk to them sternly?').
Grange Hill.
Nightmare on Elm Street (little girl's murder theme).
Dance with a Stranger (period ambience).
Predator (Dalek's eye view).
The Doctor reads Doctor in the House.
Dialogue Triumphs
The Doctor : "Every large decision creates ripples."
The Doctor : [To Ace] "Do you remember the Zygon gambit with the Loch Ness Monster? Or the Yeti in the Underground? Your species has an amazing capacity for self-deception."
The Doctor : "Oi, Dalek! It's me, the Doctor! What's the matter, don't you recognise your mortal enemy?"
Continuity
There are references to Skaro, the Kaled/Thal war, the invasion of Earth (incorrectly dated to the 21st century) and Spiridon (the Doctor rigs a jamming device). Ace tells the Doctor that if there had been an invasion in 1963 she would have heard about it. He replies 'Do you remember the Zygon gambit with the Loch Ness Monster? Or the Yeti in the underground? Your species has an amazing capacity for self deception.' The imperial forces have a 'Special Weapons Dalek'. The renegades and are led by a black Dalek Supreme, with a human child to operating their battle computer.
The Doctor says he has '900 years of experience'. The Hand of Omega was placed in a coffin by the first Doctor in 1963. The grave in which it is buried bears the symbol Ω Apart from changing Ace's baseball bat into a Dalek killing machine, the device sends Skaro's sun supernova.
Symbols on a 'calling card' left behind by the Doctor include a question mark and theta sigma (see The Armageddon Factor).
'This is BBC television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Do...' [Whatever it is, it's not Doctor Who. As it's not dark, and later events do not indicate an evening, is there early morning television in the 1960s in the Doctor Who universe?]
QV
Location
Coal Hill School, Shoreditch; 76 Totter's Lane ('I've been here before'), 1963 [The pre title sequence includes speeches by John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and de Gaulle. The fact that no reference is made to JFK's death ( the major world event in 1963) suggests that the story takes place before November 22nd. It is also noted that these events take place 'a few weeks' after An Unearthly Child (if we say that story took place in October, then this could be on the weekend of 15th/16th November).
Untelevised
The Doctor hs visited Earth soon after this, as he knows the outcome of Harry's wife's pregnancy.
Trivia
The Doctor again returns to the junkyard in Totter's Lane, as previously seen in the series' first story, 100,000 BC, and in season twenty-two's Attack of the Cybermen. The owner's name is this time shown as being 'I M Forman' rather than 'I M Foreman' on the junkyard gates.
The Doctor leaves a 'calling card' bearing a question-mark symbol.
Simon Williams, one of the stars of LWT's Upstairs, Downstairs, appears here as Gilmore.
Mention of 'Bernard' and 'the British Rocket Group' are in-joke references to Bernard Quatermass and his team as seen in Nigel Kneale's seminal science-fiction serials.
From this story onwards, Doctor Who was transmitted with NICAM stereo sound, although - except for the 1996 television movie - only in the London region.
Myth
This story reveals for the first time that the Daleks are capable of ascending stairs. (Although this is the first time that a Dalek is actually seen to ascend a flight of stairs, there is a scene in season two's The Chase: Journey into Terror in which such an occurrence is clearly implied; and season twenty-two's Revelation of the Daleks shows that both the Daleks and Davros are capable of hovering above the ground.)
Goofs
One of the soldiers does a good impression of Dad's Army's Lance Cpl Jones, coming to attention five seconds after everyone else.
In episode two, if it really is 5:15pm in November, it should be dark.
The Doctor pronounces Spiridon incorrectly.
Rachel talks to Allison about the Dalek in the junkyard without being told the name.
A lot of modern cars are visible.
In episode one, when the headmaster appears, so does a camera at the top right.
The junkyard sign should read 'Foreman' (not 'Forman').
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
Ace - Sophie Aldred
Allison - Karen Gledhill
Black Dalek Operator - Hugh Spight
Dalek Operator - Hugh Spight
Dalek Operator - John Scott Martin
Dalek Operator - Tony Starr
Dalek Operator - Cy Town
Davros - Terry Molloy Terry Molloy was credited as 'Roy Tromelly' - an anagram of his name - on Part Three so as to conceal from viewers the fact that Davros, a character he had played in the two previous Dalek stories, was within the Emperor's casing.
Embery - Peter Hamilton Dyer
Emperor Dalek - Roy Tromelly
Gilmore - Simon Williams
Harry - Harry Fowler
Headmaster - Michael Sheard
John - Joseph Marcell
Kaufman - Derek Keller
Martin - William Thomas
Mike - Dursley McLinden
Rachel - Pamela Salem
Ratcliffe - George Sewell
The Girl - Jasmine Breaks
Vicar - Peter Halliday
Voice - John Leeson
Voices / Dalek Voices - Roy Skelton
Voices / Dalek Voices - Brian Miller
Voices / Dalek Voices - Royce Mills
Crew
Director - Andrew Morgan
Remembrance of the Daleks