Doctor Who/Recap/S4 E9 The Evil of the Daleks

Anyone would think that it's a little game, and it's not. People have died. The Daleks are all over, fit to murder the lot of us, and all you can say is that you've had a good night's work. Well, I'm telling you this, we're finished. You're just too callous for me. Anything goes by the board, anything at all. You don't give that much for a living soul except yourself. Just whose side are you on? —Jamie gives the Doctor a piece of his mind.

At the end of the previous story, the TARDIS was nowhere to be found - turns out it's been stolen by Edward Waterfield, a Victorian antique dealer who has been sent forward in time by the Daleks to capture the Doctor and Jamie.

The Daleks are trying to understand "The Human Factor" - the special quality humans possess that has enabled them to defeat the Daleks so often. Jamie is forced to complete a test - the rescue of Waterfield's daughter Victoria - while being monitored by the Doctor. With the "Human Factor" isolated, the Doctor implants it into three Daleks, who become amiable and playful.

Everyone is suddenly whisked off to Skaro where it turns out that actually the Daleks are trying to isolate "The Dalek Factor" - the impulse to kill and destroy - and implant it into humans, with the TARDIS being used to spread this throughout time and space. The Doctor implants more Daleks with the Human Factor and a civil war breaks out as the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria escape. With her father dead, Victoria comes along aboard the TARDIS as the Doctor watches the destruction of the Dalek city and muses that this must surely be their final end.

Note that this is probably the only time the show really meant it when they said the Daleks were destroyed; this was intended to be the final Dalek story ever in Doctor Who, as their creator was busy trying to sell a Dalek series to America. It didn't take, but it was still five years before they returned to the show. Thus this is probably the closest we'll ever get to a "last Dalek story."

Only the second episode remains but unofficial animated reconstructions of the other six exist. A fully licensed animated production was released on September 27th 2021.

Notably, this was the first televised appearance of the Dalek Emperor, even if an Emperor had first appeared in the pages of The Dalek Chronicles.

Tropes

• Asshole Victim: Kennedy.
• Beware the Silly Ones: As silly as Two was, everything he did was an elaborate plan to commit genocide against the Daleks.
• Children Are Innocent: Alpha, Beta and Omega, the first three Daleks to get the Human Factor. Even the Daleks can be cute.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Black Daleks are evil. Silver Daleks are good.
• Compelling Voice: Arthur Terrall hears a Dalek constantly telling him "OBEY!"
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Maxtible is the Victorian version of this trope.
• Depending on the Writer: When, in the Daleks' timeline, does this story take place? Several hints point to these Daleks being after the Dalek Civil War but before the Last Great Time War; they have likenesses of the Doctor, have advanced time travel and transmutation capabilities, and a stockier design more like the Time War Daleks than those from the coloured era. On the other hand, they seem to have forgotten that the Doctor isn't human. Then again, Daleks are overconfident idiots.
• The Dulcinea Effect: The Daleks' plan relies on Jamie being prepared to risk his life to save Victoria, whom he hasn't even met at that point. He does just that.
• Early Installment Weirdness:
  • There are birds on Skaro.
  • Is one of the last, possibly the last, story to suggest that the Doctor is a human being from the far future.
• Evil Is Bigger: To quote Jamie, "Look at the size of [the Dalek emperor]."
• Evil Is Not a Toy: As Waterfield is horribly aware of and Maxtible learns the hard way.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The Emperor Dalek.
• Famous Last Words: "DO NOT FIGHT IN HERE!"
• Fantastic Racism: "There is only form of life that matters. Dalek life!"
• Gambit Pileup: The Dalek Emperor kidnaps the Doctor to have him isolate "The Human Factor", using that to distill "The Dalek Factor." Taking the TARDIS as a hostage, the Emperor intends to force the Doctor to spread the Dalek Factor across Earth's history. The Doctor expected the Emperor to do all of that and try and imbue him with the Dalek Factor into him. Under cover of being enthralled, the Doctor induces chaos into the Dalek race.
• Grand Finale: Although the Daleks do of course eventually return, this was intended to be the last use of them and they don't reappear for a good few years.
• Greed: Maxtible collaborates with the Daleks in exchange for a machine that trans-mutates iron into gold.
• Humans Are Special: The Human Factor is described in this manner, noting that this is what allows the humans to consistently defeat the Daleks.
• I Have Your Wife:
  • The Daleks get Waterfield to cooperate by holding Victoria prisoner.
  • They do the same to the Doctor by holding Jamie hostage and later threatening to destroy the TARDIS.
• Immediate Sequel: While most of the black and white era could be considered this, this one notably picks up right from the last scene of "The Faceless Ones" with the Doctor and Jamie chasing after the missing TARDIS.
• Individuality Is Illegal: "Who spoke?! WHO QUESTIONED A DALEK COMMAND!?"
• Info Dump: After he discovers the bomb, Maxitible talks with a Dalek, revealing why he's colluding with them. The Dalek sounds profoundly bored and exasperated throughout the whole thing.
• Irony: The Doctor says that "the day of the Daleks is coming to an end." Guess what the story title of the Daleks' reappearance is.
• MacGuffin: The Doctor's motivation for the first two episodes is to get the TARDIS back.
• Madness Mantra: killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
• Mad Scientist: Although he's not really much of scientist at all, Maxtible fits the trope, and he gets madder as the serial progresses.
• Mind Control Device: The Daleks use one on Arthur Terrall on Earth. When the story moves to Skaro, the Doctor and the Daleks both try to use the same machine on each other.
• Missing Episode: It's a seven part story, but only Episode Two survives in its entirety.
• Never My Fault: Maxtible fled his house to escape the bomb that the Daleks placed. They blame him for failing his mission of not bringing the Doctor to Skaro.
• No Sell: The arches that contain the Dalek and Human Factors are calibrated for the two species. Time Lords can pass through unaffected.
• Not Even Human: As the last holdover from the early idea that the Doctor was human, the Daleks say that all his time travelling has made him "more than human."
• Off-the-Shelf FX: Louis Marx toy Daleks were used in the filming of the final Dalek civil war sequences (some raw film for which survives).
• Oh Crap: The Doctor when Maxtible mentions using static electricity in the experiments.
• Orcus on His Throne: The Dalek Emperor. It happens when your casing isn't mobile.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Maxtible.
• Save the Villain: Though they don't, no one thinks that Maxtible deserves whatever fate the Daleks have in store for him.
• Schmuck Bait: As the Doctor warns, Maxtible should go nowhere near the machine that turns iron into gold.
• Smug Snake: Maxtible.
• Spot the Imposter: Not only was the false Omega's mark in the wrong place, it was the wrong shape. The Doctor shoves it down a crevice in seconds.
• Spotting the Thread: The Victorian antiques shop. Everything in there is genuine but too new to be antiques.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Victoria looks very much like her late mother.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Dalek bomb set up to destroy Maxtible's house has a range of half a mile.
• The Voiceless: Kemel.
• Voice of the Legion: The Emperor Dalek.
• We Meet At Last: The Doctor and the Dalek Emperor.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Jamie towards the Doctor, twice. See quote at the top.
• The X of Y