“DAY OF THE DALEKS” (4 EPISODES) – Original Airdate January 1-22, 1972
The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) deduces that Sir Reginald Styles (Wilfred Carter) hails from 200 years in the future, and a device found with him is a time machine. The Doctor and Jo (Katy Manning) battle the Ogrons and Daleks and end up prisoners at the Dalek base. Will time travel help them escape?
“Day of the Daleks” is a pretty fantastic story and one of my favorites from the Jon Pertwee era. It starts off the ninth season of the series in epic fashion with the Daleks and a rollicking wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey storyline that would be right at home in the current series. However, what I probably enjoy most is how comfortable Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning are in their roles of the Doctor and Jo Grant. And this story contains one of my favorite lines spoken by the Doctor, when tasting a wine he describes it as “sardonic but not cynical…” Although set during what is considered the “U.N.I.T. era” of the program this and the final story of the season are the only two to include the Brigadier, Benton and Yates. At any rate, it is a first class story featuring a fun adventure and terrific acting. Special mention should also be made about the role of the Controller, or more specifically the actor playing him, Aubrey Woods. The year previous to this episode, Woods was scene in the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as the candy store owner who sings “The Candy Man” in a famous, early scene.
“Day of the Daleks” is presented on two discs with a bunch of nifty extras. There is an audio commentary, a Making Of and a feature on vision mixing. However, the meat of this release can be found on disc two and that is the “Day of the Daleks” Special Edition, which features new visual effects and Dalek voices re-done by Nicholas Briggs, but also some brand new footage shot recently and added to the episodes. The Special Edition Making Of explains how and why this was done and it is all really cool. None of the new footage distracts from the show, but really enhances it. It’s basically all done to make the fight between the U.N.I.T. soldiers and the Daleks and Ogrons feel and look much bigger than it was originally. Considering the producers of the new footage obtained film cameras from the 1970s and shot at the actual locations used for the original, it looks really authentic. I applaud the BBC for giving viewers the choice of watching the original version or the Special Edition and not just making the new version the only one available. However, this new version and it’s special features make this set worth buying and owning.