TV Club: Doctor Who, Destiny Of The Daleks
Destiny Of The Daleks (season 17, episodes 1-4. Originally aired Sept. 1-22, 1979)
Just going by pedigree of the writers involved, Destiny Of The Daleks should be a lot better than it is. It marked the final Doctor Who script from Terry Nation, one of the series oldest and most reliable writers and the creator of the Daleks. The story also marked the debutas script editorof the inimitable Douglas Adams, who had written The Pirate Planet for season 16 the year before and was now taking over the big chair. And Destiny Of The Daleks was a huge success at the time, setting new viewership records for the series along with the following story, City Of Deathboth helped a lot by a strike that had taken the BBCs main competitor, ITV, out of action. But although theres a lot to enjoy here, especially in the early episodes, in the end the story fizzles out. Its dragged down chiefly by a revisionist take on the Daleks and their creator Davros that makes both less interesting and fails to build on the promise of their previous appearance in Genesis Of The Daleks. Its sunk further by miring the pepperpots in a stalemate with a deadly dull army of alien robots, the Movellans, who look something like Milli Vanilli in white disco outfits.
Most of what works well here is loaded in the first half of the story, so lets start there.
Originally published May 13, 2012 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.