Doctor Who (1963) 11.03.04

Death to the Daleks - Part Four

The Doctor and Bellal avoid the trap the Doctor detected at the end of the previous episode. They continue to work their way through the city. Two Daleks continue to follow them. The Doctor and Bellal encounter a few other challenges but eventually make it to the nerve center of the city. The Doctor rigs the city to self destruct.

The city sends a couple humanoid creatures to stop the Doctor and Bellal. The two Daleks show up just as the two humanoid creatures are attacking the Doctor and Bellal. The Daleks fight with the city's creatures. The Doctor and Bellal escape during the confusion.

Sarah finds Jill. Together they replace the valuable minerals the Daleks were mining with sand. Galloway and Hamilton are tasked by the Daleks with placing a bomb at the top of the city. Galloway keeps one of the bombs. The Daleks put them to work loading the Dalek  spaceship once they have climbed down from the top of the city. The bags they load are the ones that Jill and Sarah filled with sand.

The Doctor and Bellal make it out of the city. They reunite with Sarah, Jill Tarrant, and Peter Hamilton. The Daleks take off in their space ship but Galloway is still aboard. He detonates the bomb he held on to. The Dalek spaceship is destroyed. The Doctor and the others look and see the city melting away. 

Thoughts

This story ended very abruptly. There was no time for the Doctor and Sarah to say goodbye to Tarrant and Hamilton. The episode didn't end with the Doctor and Sarah returning to the TARDIS. I wonder if there was more script than they had time to film.

Galloway gets to go out as a hero despite the way he acted earlier in this story. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that they played it this way but I didn't see it coming until minutes before it happened.

There is a scene where one of the Daleks panics after it realizes that Jill Tarrant has escaped. It doesn't blow up like the one in the final episode of Remembrance of the Daleks but it seemed equally silly. I didn't think Daleks were supposed to be capable of such emotions.

On the whole I am not a fan of this Dalek story. I think I would rate it below the other two Dalek stories that I have watched in recent years. I wasn't crazy about Remembrance but this one had considerably less that impressed me. They really didn't give Sarah or any of the other supporting characters very much of interest to do.