The Evil of the Daleks

Episode 1

Hannah: They could have just called it The Daleks.
Me: We've had that one.
Hannah: But evil is all they are.

The Doctor and Jamie are still at Gatwick Airport on the trail of the missing TARDIS.

Hannah: So this is another undercover operation, happening at exactly the same time as the Chameleons in The Faceless Ones? These people are watching the airport and they didn't notice that those other people were aliens? Or maybe they did notice.
Me: And it's still the same day that Ben and Polly left Earth, which means it's also the day that The War Machines takes place and William Hartnell is currently across town dealing with WOTAN. So all three things are happening in London at the same time.

There's no point waiting until the Daleks make an appearance before talking about them; it's not like it's going to spoil the surprise, they're in the bloody title after all.

Me: Do you remember at the beginning of The War Machines, when the Doctor says that he's having the same sensation he gets when the Daleks are around?
Hannah: Ah! So he was right, he was just in the wrong area of London.
Me: Yes, well, it was written a year earlier, so at the time it was obviously intended to be a reference to WOTAN. But now we discover that the Daleks are in London at the same time, so in retrospect it probably was the Daleks he was sensing.
Hannah: The Daleks obviously aren't going to make much of an impact if the other Doctor never quite noticed they were here.
Me: To be fair, he was rather busy at the time.

Hannah quickly deduces the secret of Edward Waterfield's brand-new Victorian antiques, sort of ("He's going back in time and stealing Victorian clocks?"), but not why he's using the TARDIS to lure the Doctor and Jamie into a trap.

Hannah: He's definitely Victorian. He's got sideburns and everything. Maybe in the future the Doctor accidentally strands him there, so he doesn't like him.
Me: Interesting theory.
Hannah: And he just happens to have bumped into other people who want to help fund his hatred.
Me: What, like a Kickstarter?
Hannah: Yes! The Daleks are giving him money to help him get his own back. Oooh, look at those shiny sewing machines.

This last remark is a reaction to the high-tech secret room in Waterfield's study; presumably it was one of the stretch goals on his crowdfunding project.

While the Doctor and Jamie bide their time in a café, and Hannah strains to hear the 1967 chart music on the jukebox (incidentally, the tracks are "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" by the Seekers and "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles), the hapless Kennedy breaks into Waterfield's office and starts poking around. It's clear to Hannah that this isn't going to end well.

Hannah: Why would you start having a fiddle?
Me: Sorry, I didn't think you'd notice.
Hannah: No, he's randomly flicking switches! Something might explode.

Sure enough, a Dalek turns up and starts making a fuss.

Me: Any comments?
Hannah: I love Jamie trying to deal with the modern world.

Episode 2

The good news is that, unlike the rest of the story, this particular episode actually exists; the bad news is that there's no sixties chart music in this one, which is a pity because "Waterloo Sunset" was number two this week in 1967. Anyway, we open with the Doctor and Jamie sneaking into the antiques shop after dark.

Me: It's a good thing Ben and Polly have already left, otherwise you'd have all four of them trying to hide in there.
Hannah: It wouldn't work. They're very bad at hiding as it is.

The door to Waterfield's study opens.

Hannah: It might as well be a large box, propped up with a stick and with a little cat treat inside it. "Doctor is curious, Doctor wants to find things. Here, kitty kitty, in the box."
Me: It's more subtle than that; they've cleverly set up a string of clues with only just enough information to keep the Doctor and Jamie following the trail.
Hannah: Which is weird, because if you wanted the Doctor to turn up here, why didn't they just tell him where they'd taken the TARDIS instead of making him jump through all these hoops to get here?
Me: He might not have come.
Hannah: Because he thinks it's too obvious? I'm pretty sure he'd still go.

The door to the secret room opens ("They're shaking the box of cat treats directly in his face now"), and the Doctor and Jamie are kidnapped and brought back in time to a Victorian house in 1866. The Doctor briefly looks horrified when Mollie the maid makes a reference to "the master".

Hannah: Obviously he didn't exist yet; he wasn't a thing. But retrospectively, seeing as they're supposed to have known each other since they were children, that's really good, even if it was a lucky accident.

This particular master is Theodore Maxtible. Hannah may not have much luck with identifying sitcom stars of the 1970s, but let's see if she can recognise a bona fide film star.

Me: Maxtible is played by Marius Goring.
Hannah: I don't know who that is.
Me: He was Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death.
Hannah: (long pause) Well, he's changed a bit.
Me: This was twenty years later.
Hannah: He's changed quite a lot; I could never have told you that this is the same person. He was covered in make-up before, and now he's covered in beard.

Our attention is drawn to a portrait of Waterfield's late wife, and we're told that his daughter Victoria is the spitting image of her.

Hannah: And what an image! Did they randomly ask if anyone could oil-paint? They got the actress, painted her face and then saw that it was terrible but didn't have time to re-do it.

Waterfield has been helping the Daleks because they've taken Victoria to ensure his co-operation. They also seem to be force-feeding her to keep up her weight, for reasons that neither of us can quite understand.

Hannah: Are they fattening her up, or just trying to keep her alive? It's a bit creepy when the Daleks walk out of the room but the entire head swivels round to carry on talking to you. They're like evil owls.

As Maxtible and Waterfield helpfully provide exposition to the Doctor and the audience, Hannah's attention is drawn to the laboratory setting.

Hannah: They always have bubbly things, but you really shouldn't leave things bubbling like that without being watched. It's completely foolish. No decent chemist would do that.

Jamie, meanwhile, has been attacked and kidnapped ("Jamie gets a holiday next episode, then"), which is a problem because the Daleks want to subject Jamie to some potentially lethal tests so that they can identify and distil the elusive "Human Factor".

Hannah: The Doctor has a difficult choice to make; I wonder how other Doctors would have reacted. What is this test; psychological or biological?
Me: Maybe it's a urine test.
Hannah: Very interesting story so far. I had no idea where it was going to go, and I'm pleasantly intrigued. A lovely frolic.

Episode 3

It soon becomes obvious to Hannah that Jamie was only abducted because we needed a cliffhanger for episode 2. He is saved by the intervention of Arthur Terrall, but Terrall's split personality only raises further questions.

Hannah: Everything about this is very odd.

Unknown to Jamie, the Doctor agrees to put him through the test; Jamie must rescue Victoria Waterfield so that the Doctor and the Daleks can record the qualities he exhibits.

Hannah: I thought it would be something like that. They're going to discover what the human spirit is and see if they can isolate it. But I don't understand what they're expecting to gain; either they want to splice themselves and make some kind of hybrid, or they want to learn from humans, which is never going to happen. Daleks don't learn. They're just angry and shooty.
Me: They're always learning.
Hannah: They've learned how to go up stairs, I suppose, but how can they learn to love?
Me: They're not looking for a matchmaking service.
Hannah: They want some humanity, and that's what humanity is; the ability to empathise with other people and adapt your own actions to the needs or wants of others around you. Unless you're a sociopath or a psychopath, most humans have the ability to empathise.
Me: Two and a half thousand years of philosophy have failed to agree on exactly what humanity is...
Hannah: I'm not saying that's exactly what humanity is, but I'm saying that it's the closest we can get to putting it in a nutshell. It's all the stuff that they've discarded over the years, which is love and understanding, so I don't see how they expect to put that inside themselves.

The Doctor provokes Jamie into having a furious argument with him, and wraps it up by forbidding him to rescue Victoria. The reverse psychology works beautifully.

Hannah: Sneaky.
Me: He's definitely one of the more manipulative Doctors.

Hannah is still trying to work out the reason behind Terrall's constant dizzy spells and personality switches.

Hannah: Is he supposed to be a sort of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde type? Or is he a remote-control person, and there's interference on the line?
Me: You think maybe someone in that Victorian kitchen keeps turning on the Kenwood food mixer?
Hannah: What on earth is going on with this guy? It was a complete waste of plot and suspense to have Jamie get kidnapped only to be immediately released, and this split personality is just weird and confusing. There'd better be a decent reason behind it all, otherwise it's just been a twisty plot for no reason except to fill time.

Maxtible seems very willing to co-operate with the Daleks.

Hannah: I always thought it was strange that the Daleks have no hands and can't do anything, and now they've hired someone to be a physical person to be in the way. They don't want to just kill people, they want to control and be big.
Me: They want to be big?
Hannah: Big and in the way, rather than just this great big metal roly thing.
Me: In the way of what?
Hannah: Daleks can be easily walked around; they're not very dexterous, they can't turn quickly, they don't have hands, and they don't even have easy access to all rooms and terrains. They can kill you instantly, which is a good persuader, but unless they're willing to shoot their prisoner to try and disable them, they have no way of making somebody stay where they want them.
Me: What about that thing that paralyses your legs?
Hannah: Well, they haven't used that since their first appearance. But even then, they can't carry them, so once they're paralysed and on the floor, that's it; they'd just have to kick them along the ground to get them to where they want to go, so paralysing someone's kind of pointless. They can't keep Victoria hostage because she could just run off, and they wouldn't want to shoot her because she's leverage. They need people to do things for them, so they've got a man in to do the "arms" bits and the "locking in" bits.
Me: And the beard bits.
Hannah: I'm sure Daleks could have beards.

Episode 4

This week's plot: Jamie and his new friend Kemel, a mute, muscular Turkish man, spend a whole episode overcoming deadly traps in their quest to rescue Victoria. That's it.

Hannah: Kemel's not doing what he was told by Maxtible, which was to block Jamie no matter what. He told Kemel that Jamie is evil, but then Jamie saves his life so he can't possibly be evil. What if that was all part of evil Jamie's plan? I mean, on a human level, yeah, I think if someone saves your life, you want to think they're not such a bad person. But if you're given explicit instructions to protect something, and that's your job, you should do it. You don't know this bloke who's turned up in a skirt.

Luckily this is interspersed with the Doctor and a Dalek monitoring Jamie's progress whilst comparing notes.

Hannah: It's just weird.
Me: I know, but that's why it's so much fun. I love it, it's such an odd dynamic.
Hannah: Perhaps he's just playing the Daleks; he's clever and tricksy, so maybe he's using Jamie's behaviours to create a "better" Dalek, in the human sense. I don't see how the Human Factor is really going to help them, though. There's a lot they could learn about humanity that would suit them, but I doubt they'll find it in Jamie.

Jamie and Kemel finally reach their goal, only to find a Dalek waiting for them.

Hannah: I wanted it to have a wig on.
Me: I think a transvestite Dalek might be stretching credibility a little bit too far.
Hannah: It honestly wouldn't seem that unusual anymore. All of this is just weird. An evil Dalek plan to get some brainwaves, taking place in a Victorian house...?

Episode 5

The Doctor is imprinting Jamie's qualities into positronic brains, which will be implanted into three test Daleks.

Hannah: They trust their greatest enemy with what are essentially three of their babies?
Me: They're obviously bad parents.

After a sword fight with Jamie, Terrall's erratic behaviour is explained when the Doctor reveals him to be under the control of the Daleks. Not that it explains his magnetic body.

Hannah: I'd like to see Jamie having a sword fight.
Me: Why?
Hannah: I don't know. Swords and kilts. They go together. Okay, so his strange behaviour has finally been explained, mostly. But I'm still not sure why they kidnapped Jamie for two minutes. It really did just fill time and introduce the character; it provides excitement for the viewers but it's completely pointless.

For a brief moment it looks like the Daleks are going to exterminate Kemel, much to Hannah's dismay, but it turns out they still need him to scoop up Victoria and accompany them back to Skaro.

Hannah: Oh, of course, he's still the hands. Because the Daleks can't carry her themselves, like I said. They're shitting useless.

Jamie challenges the Doctor again, and this time he's had enough; he wants to leave.

Hannah: That seemed very poignant; it feels like Jamie is really prepared to leave him forever. I like how their argument helps explore the Doctor's character, and voices the viewer's concerns about the Doctor's cavalier behaviour in this situation. Yes, the Doctor behaves callously, but underneath he's constantly trying to resolve the situation the best way he can, subtly manipulating everyone, and the complexity of his approach can sometimes make it seem doubtful which side he's on. He's an odd man with a brilliant brain.

The Doctor activates his three test Daleks.

Hannah: Please be Daleks with Scottish accents. "These are your children, Jamie!"

When the human Daleks turn out to be childlike and playful, Hannah isn't sure what to think.

Hannah: It's all very strange.
Me: You know how we've talked before about Daleks being emotional creatures, but having childish emotions? By essentially removing the evil from their nature, he's created benignly childish creatures who enjoy playing games.
Hannah: Has the Doctor committed subterfuge, or are these the human things that the Daleks wanted? Either these "nice" things will round the Daleks and improve their breadth for scheming, or they'll clash so badly they'll go insane. Nice.

Episode 6

When they're done playing trains ("They shouldn't know what trains are"), the human Daleks are summoned to Skaro; the Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield follow them, only just making their escape before the house explodes. It's been a while since we last saw the Dalek city, but Hannah is unmoved by its reappearance.

Hannah: It's a cardboard model.
Me: You know, this is the first time we've been back to Skaro since the Daleks first appeared in The Daleks.
Hannah: Not counting the film.
Me: You want to canonise Dr. Who and the Daleks, do you?
Hannah: No. It's a shame the episodes are missing, I'd really like to have seen the planet. Nostalgia.

I've always adored the human Daleks, but now I love them more than ever, if only because of the big beaming grin it produces on Hannah's face. The Emperor Dalek doesn't seem to strike much of a chord, though.

Me: Do you recognise this chap?
Hannah: I could have a guess. Davros?
Me: No.
Hannah: No?
Me: No.
Hannah: The Dalek Controller, or whatever he's called, then?
Me: This is the giant Dalek Emperor that Christopher Eccleston meets in his last story. Or possibly another one that looks very similar.
Hannah: There's so many different variations of Dalek from all over this place; I don't know the difference between any of them.
Me: It's the Emperor Dalek.
Hannah: Yeah, well, I don't know what that means.
Me: It's a big Dalek in a giant tank.
Hannah: I don't remember that. I don't know the difference between the Emperor Dalek and Dalek Commanders or whatever they're called.

The Emperor reveals the Daleks' real motive for identifying the Human Factor: it enabled them to identify the Dalek Factor, and now they want the Doctor to spread it throughout Earth's history.

Hannah: What, and make humans want to kill each other? Why? That's just silly. Surely the Daleks will want to come along and do all the killing themselves. I don't get what their plan would achieve.

Episode 7

Hannah doesn't understand why the Daleks have successfully infected Maxtible with the Dalek Factor but it hasn't worked on the Doctor.

Hannah: So it affects Daleks and humans? But it doesn't affect Time Lords?
Me: Correct.
Hannah: That's very silly. Dalek and human DNA isn't anything similar.
Me: Maybe the Dalek Factor and the Human Factor are two sides of the same coin? Like a shorthand for good and evil? It's not like there's a Time Lord Factor.
Hannah: Hmmm. It's very questionable.
Me: If there is such a thing as a Time Lord Factor, the Doctor has certainly never had it.

Waterfield is shot by a Dalek while saving the Doctor's life, but manages to stay alive long enough to make the Doctor promise he'll look after Victoria.

Hannah: They usually die instantly. No one gets to die slowly when they're shot by a Dalek. How many times has the Doctor been shot by a Dalek?
Me: It happened to Tennant once, but I think that's the only time. He takes a fatal blast and then regenerates into the same body.
Hannah: Oh yeah, his cheat. So technically he's number ten and eleven.
Me: Well, no; he did regenerate but he didn't change, so he's still the same Doctor. His cells regenerated and he used up a life, but he kept the same form.

I decide not to point out that the unnumbered John Hurt incarnation means that the tenth Doctor actually represents his eleventh and twelfth lives. Let's deal with one can of worms at a time.

Hannah: Why can't every Doctor decide to do that?
Me: Well, for a start, it would mean they'd need to find a lot of actors who look exactly like William Hartnell; and secondly, he only managed it that time because of that trick with his severed hand. If every Doctor chopped off their own hand immediately after regeneration and kept it stored on the TARDIS, maybe they could do that. Besides, he would still lose a life and run out of regenerations just as quickly, so it's not really worth mutilating yourself.
Hannah: It grows back.
Me: It still hurts, and it wouldn't prolong your life at all.
Hannah: But at least you could make a decision about whether you want to be you; it must be a horrible thing to know that you've got to die and become someone else. You've got all the memories, but all of your feelings and emotions and attitudes are different.
Me: He would also need to carry his severed hand around in a big tank everywhere he goes, just in case he dies.
Hannah: He could fix it up to be some kind of lanyard. Does it have to be a whole hand? Could it just be a pinky finger round his neck?
Me: No, it couldn't.
Hannah: If they try to destroy the hand, does it regenerate?
Me: No.

It's fun to imagine how various Doctor Who stories might have played out if the Doctor had been carrying his severed hand around with him; it could be tricky getting through customs at Gatwick Airport in The Faceless Ones, for a start. (Although it would certainly give a whole new meaning to the term "hand luggage".) Back on Skaro, the Doctor has started a civil war and the infected Daleks are turning against the Emperor.

Hannah: Does the Emperor have guns?
Me: I don't think so.
Hannah: What an oversight.

There's still one member of the guest cast who hasn't been killed or turned into a Dalek yet, but this is soon remedied when Maxtible throws Kemel over the edge of a cliff.

Hannah: No! How could he possibly be strong enough to kill him?
Me: You're really upset, aren't you?
Hannah: Yes! He was such a lovely guy. They could easily have just taken him home, or kept him along... I suppose they didn't want to bother taking anyone back. They thought "oh shit, the Doctor can't actually take him back to Victorian London."
Me: Canterbury.
Hannah: "We're stuck with Victoria; we can't kill her off because that would just be mean. Kill everybody else off."
Me: So you think Kemel would have made a good companion?
Hannah: No, of course not! He doesn't talk! It would be a bit tedious for the actor to have to stand around every week and not talk. Companions are there to pose questions for the Doctor to explain to the audience.
Me: He'd be a sight more interesting than some of the companions that do talk.
Hannah: So he died, Maxtible got turned into a Dalek, and Waterfield had to die, just so that the only one left was Victoria because she's young and fit and able to be a companion.
Me: When did you realise Victoria was going to be the next companion?
Hannah: I had suspicions when they left the house and it blew up. Then I was pretty sure as soon as her dad died.

As Skaro burns, the Doctor declares that this is "the final end" of the Daleks.

Hannah: What happens to the human Daleks, then? They're not all dead; some of them are still alive. We know that the Daleks come back and they're just as evil as before, so did the Human Factor help at all? Or did all the Human Factor Daleks die?
Me: Well, in retrospect we do know that, but in 1967 this was intended to be the last Dalek story ever. It's supposed to be a proper swansong.
Hannah: Oh, okay.
Me: They didn't want to keep paying Terry Nation every time they wanted to use the Doctor's main enemies, so they decided to write the Daleks out of the series and promote the Cybermen as the main antagonists instead because they were solely owned by the BBC. So that's the last time you'll be seeing the Daleks for a while.

The Score

Hannah: I don't know how I feel about this story. It's quite a long one for the amount of stuff that happens in it.
Me: You reckon? I think there's maybe one episode of padding in the middle, where Jamie is running around the Dalek version of Fun House to rescue Victoria, but other than that I think it's pretty tight.
Hannah: There's a lot of weird stuff in it, but it's not as loose and flappy as some others have been. I enjoyed it all; some of it was a little difficult to get my head around, but nowhere near as taxing as some other ones. I think the only problem is the fact that it's held in a Victorian house which is so big that somehow there are people living in the house that haven't seen the Daleks. And they came to Earth because Maxtible happened to create a time portal with some mirrors. Very dodgy science. It's a good, interesting story but it hangs on a lot of loose threads. I liked it, but why did everyone have to die?
Me: Because it's Doctor Who.
Hannah: The thing is, though, I really like the three little Daleks. They've very cute.

8/10

Me: This is considered one of the all-time great Dalek stories, by the way.
Hannah: It was very, very good, but it wasn't stunning for the full seven episodes.

The Power of the Daleks

Episode 1

All six episodes of this story are missing. This could potentially cause us even more problems than usual; for one thing, it's going to be difficult for Hannah to form an opinion of the new Doctor when she can't even see how he's playing the role. Actually, it's even worse than that; Patrick Troughton's first eleven episodes are all missing, so we won't get to see him in action until halfway through his third adventure. Hopefully it won't harm her first impressions too much.

But there's a silver lining: uniquely, this entire story has been animated, so at least there's going to be some movement to help her engage with it. But for once, the missing episodes aren't Hannah's biggest concern; there's something else troubling her.

Hannah: I've changed my mind. I don't want it to happen.

In spite of Hannah's objections the new, younger Doctor recovers from his post-regeneration hangover and starts to adjust to his new body.

Hannah: In the last episode the Doctor seemed like he was expecting it to happen, and knew all the signs and what it would involve and all that; it feels like this wasn't his first, like he's already had more regenerations than people think.
Me: That's actually something that's hinted at in at least one later story, but the current continuity is now adamant that Hartnell was unambiguously the first Doctor.
Hannah: Oh yeah, because they've done the whole numbers thing.

For some reason, his trousers appear to have regenerated as well.

Hannah: Oh. That doesn't happen in later ones. Why did his clothes change when he regenerated? That never happens in the modern era, because the whole point is that he picks out the new wardrobe.
Me: He's picking up the shirt and bow tie and jacket.
Hannah: But he's got different trousers?
Me: Yeah, I think we're supposed to just gloss over that bit.
Hannah: So the TARDIS is what helps him regenerate?
Me: Well, that's what they're saying here. The concept was only invented last week so they haven't established the "rules" yet, or even explained anything about it.
Hannah: They're calling it a "renewal" here.
Me: Yes, they won't coin the term "regeneration" for a very long time.

In an effort to get his bearings, the Doctor starts looking for his 500-year diary.

Hannah: Well, he should already know everything. Each Doctor knows what the previous Doctor knew, because they're the same person, but they don't necessarily understand why they feel things about things, because they're also different people; they have different personalities and different emotions and different reactions to things. So he knows that he wrote a diary, but he won't necessarily know what his reasons were for writing the diary and what he was feeling when he wrote it. It's like he can know who Ben and Polly are, but not really understand what the other Doctor felt for them.
Me: He's not Adrian Mole, it's just a record of things that have happened to him. His memory's not all there yet.
Hannah: Ben and Polly seem so lost and bewildered. It's so unfair that the Doctor has just changed and left them uncertain about their situation with no answers or explanation. What if this new Doctor doesn't like them and wants to get rid of them? It must be awful, not knowing if the person who's in complete control of your life is going to kick you out.

The TARDIS arrives on the planet Vulcan, so the Doctor grabs his stovepipe hat and goes out to explore.

Hannah: He looks stupid.
Me: He doesn't have it very long. Only a couple of stories.
Hannah: He just looks like a silly person, not a respectable old man anymore. Although Hartnell's hat was a bit weird.
Me: This Doctor is going to be a bit experimental for the first couple of stories. They're still trying things out at the moment, and then sometime around the third or fourth story it all comes together and he starts to crystallise into the Doctor he's going to be for the rest of his tenure. Like Hartnell, I suppose.
Hannah: He's starting off very uncommunicative. Ignoring his companions is something the first Doctor often did, but this goes a little further than that; he has no answers for them at all, and barely acknowledges them. He just does what he wants. He's also obnoxiously playing the recorder at them, which takes him beyond Hartnell's attitude. Obviously without seeing the actual episodes I can't tell how facially communicative he is, though. Maybe it's too early to compare the two.

The plot, in which the Doctor infiltrates a human colony by pretending to be an official Earth Examiner, is taking a back seat for the moment; Hannah is far too interested in the actions of the new Doctor. In fact she's completely forgotten the story title until the Doctor discovers that the colonists have recovered an alien capsule from the nearby mercury swamps, and recognises a familiar piece of metal. When he comes back later to sneak into the capsule, the tension starts to grow.

Hannah: Come on, get to the cliffhanger!
Me: What makes you think there's about to be a cliffhanger?
Hannah: Because you can't just call the story "Something of the Daleks" and then not have any Daleks. We're going to have some peril.

The Daleks are dormant and covered in cobwebs, but our heroes catch a glimpse of a Dalek mutant scurrying across the floor.

Hannah: Nice. It's a loose Dalek. A wet one.

Episode 2

Hannah: The music for this story is amazing.

She seems to be warming to the new Doctor, too.

Hannah: He talks to himself; I like it. I mean, the first one used to talk to himself, but in the same way that anyone else would, whereas this one's actually asking himself questions. I also like his animated eyebrows; I'm not looking forward to seeing him for real, in case they're not as impressive.

Meanwhile, the colony's chief scientist Lesterson has begun his experiments to revive the inactive Daleks.

Me: Have you noticed the double meaning in the title yet?
Hannah: What, the fact that the Daleks need power to make them work again, and also that they're powerful beings? Yes! Obviously. But if the armour casing is their life support, and they had no power, surely the Dalek inside must be dead?
Me: Not necessarily. Maybe they just go dormant.
Hannah: You think they can hibernate for hundreds of years?
Me: I don't know how their biology works, but we've certainly never seen a Dalek eat anything.

Lesterson only succeeds in giving one of the Daleks just enough power to exterminate his assistant Resno. (And no, Hannah doesn't recognise Edward Kelsey's voice from either The Archers or Danger Mouse, although the leap from Resno to Joe Grundy isn't exactly an intuitive one.)

Hannah: He should have been much more cautious. Why would you switch anything on without a protective screen - at the very least - if you had no idea whatsoever of what it could do? He could easily have killed everyone in the room, even if it wasn't a gun-wielding robot shell for an insane alien race.

It's not long before she's back to admiring the soundtrack again.

Hannah: I really do like the music. It might just be that I'm able to concentrate on it more because there's less to look at.

The Doctor plays the recorder while he considers his next move.

Hannah: Not this music.

The tension escalates even further when the Doctor comes face-to-eyestalk with the reactivated Dalek. Unfortunately nobody listens to his warnings because, as Hannah elegantly puts it, he's "a real weirdo who's only just woken up and doesn't know how to talk to people."

Hannah: Does it recognise him because the Daleks are time travellers and they've seen his face before, or is it because they can tell he's not human? They don't always recognise him in the future.
Me: Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; it's completely inconsistent every time they meet a new Doctor. It usually depends on whatever suits the story, or makes for a good dramatic moment.
Hannah: Depends on which group of Daleks and what software they've got installed. Does the armour recognise him, or is there a live Dalek inside that recognises him? Maybe they're from a future story that we haven't seen yet and that's why they recognise him as Troughton. Unless they're able to detect his bio-signature or something.
Me: They might be time-travelling and recognise him from another encounter, but the real reason is that it's supposed to be the convincer for the audience - and for Ben and Polly - that this new man is still the Doctor.

And then the Dalek breaks its silence by repeatedly chanting "I AM YOUR SER-VANT" at the colonists, drowning out the Doctor's frantic protests.

Me: That's one of my favourite cliffhangers. Possibly the best and most effective ever.
Hannah: It's good. Is the Dalek just pretending to be subservient in order to gain trust and access to things so that it can wake its brethren, or has it genuinely woken up a little bit brain-damaged and is legitimately doing as it's told?

Episode 3

Despite the Doctor's objections, Lesterson assures the governor that the Dalek's intelligence is no cause for concern.

Hannah: Yes, because there's never any reason to be concerned about something with artificial intelligence, if that's what you think a Dalek is. It's never known to be wrong.
Me: Maybe he missed The War Machines when it was broadcast.

Hannah is warming to the new Doctor far more quickly than she did with his predecessor.

Hannah: I like him. He's cheeky.
Me: You're liking him more than you thought you would?
Hannah: Yeah. Even though I can't see the real him.
Me: Do you feel like you're getting the essence of him, though?
Hannah: Yeah. Slightly. He's less angry and irritable than before. Even when he's worried or annoyed, he doesn't snap at people in the same way. He comes across as distracted, childish or self-involved - talking to himself more and impulsively doing what he wants without talking to his companions - but you can see that he's intelligent and constantly thinking. He's clever, like before, but perhaps less arrogant about it. Can't wait to see him properly and see if this is a fair assessment.

But there's far more to this story than the debut of the new Doctor.

Me: How do you rate this as a Dalek story?
Hannah: I like it a lot. But there's not a lot of Dalek; it's just a lot of threat of Dalek.
Me: That's what's so good about it, though; it keeps ramping up the tension. You know that this ticking time-bomb is going to go off at some point.
Hannah: I don't know whether or not they're actually going to turn up, or if it's just going to be six episodes of the Doctor trying to get them to stop being so stupid and listen to him even though there's no reason they should listen to him because he's just a random person. It's a really difficult position to be in.
Me: I don't want to influence you, but this is possibly my favourite Dalek story.
Hannah: It is very good; the story has a good pace, and the threat of the Daleks has been steadily increased and become more complex. I like the way there are two threads of story happening at the same time. It's not a purely Dalek story, so it's not all the same stuff again. We all know how powerful and scary the Daleks are, so to have them dangled as a threat like this works so well. We can have another story happening, and also the introduction of this new Doctor, with the Daleks as a hook, as we get settled in. It doesn't waste them, and it looks like it's going to get even better.

Speaking of which, the Dalek very nearly blows it when Lesterson has the nerve to compare it to a human.

Hannah: He is pretending now, I'm very sure of it. He was going to say "Daleks are better."
Me: That's the other interesting thing about this story; it not only shows how clever and cunning they can be, but also that they're capable of reigning themselves in and putting on a pretence when it serves a better purpose. They don't just go in screaming and shouting and trying to get their way, they're capable of calculating and biding their time until they know how to manipulate and use people. I think this story is the Daleks at their most clever and interesting.
Hannah: Yeah, they're not all rage. And they're even offering to help people and make things better for them, knowing that they'll keep them around because they're so helpful. I love that little stumble, because that just proves everything. You couldn't have been sure whether they were damaged or they were faking it, and then it was just "We're bett-- I mean, we're different to humans, la la la, would you like us to make a better meteor shield?"

Any lingering doubts she might have about the Dalek's motives die like flies in the winter when the other two Daleks are reactivated, and the three of them unite to chant "We will get our power!" in front of a worried Lesterson.

Hannah: They'll make anything a chant, won't they?

Episode 4

The Daleks have seemingly forgotten their bluff (and Lesterson's presence) and continue chanting.

Hannah: They haven't noticed him standing there?
Me: I think they're getting caught up in the moment. They're very excitable little creatures.
Hannah: Wow. I thought Daleks were clever.

There's the odd moment of light relief amidst the growing tension; Hannah finds the servile Dalek's enquiry "Do I bring liquid for your visitors?" amusing enough, but she prefers the sight of the Doctor nervously shielding himself with a chair. Then the stakes rise yet again when he realises that the Daleks have been secretly reproducing themselves.

Hannah: Where's your chair now, Doctor? You're going to need a whole dining set.

The colonists are all far too preoccupied with their own internal power struggles to notice or care about the impending bloodbath.

Hannah: I still find it surprising how astute the Daleks are, noticing that there's all this politics going on and using it to their advantage while they're going along with the flow.

The final scene sees the Daleks reproducing themselves on a massive scale with an industrial production line. Hannah was expecting them to assemble their army by building one Dalek at a time, so it comes as quite a shock to see that they've managed to produce hundreds overnight.

Hannah: Show us the vat of little baby Daleks or something. Have they got a TARDIS-style ship? Is it bigger on the inside? You can't tell how big the capsule is, but it appears to be big enough to have a Dalek factory inside it.
Me: Look, there's your vat of baby mutants.
Hannah: Awww! This is really interesting.
Me: The production process, or the scene itself?
Hannah: All of it.
Me: It would be great to see this for real. Although maybe it wouldn't be quite as impressive as it looks here.
Hannah: Every single one of these episodes has had a decent cliffhanger. Now this one is basically telling us that everyone is even more royally screwed than we thought.

Episode 5

The Doctor spends most of this episode locked in a prison cell, which he eventually escapes by using a glass of water to mimic the sound of the sonic key.

Hannah: Interesting mechanism, and I love it when the Doctor identifies a thing and knows how it works, and does something weird or clever to solve it or fix it or open it. Hartnell did it, and now Troughton does it. The Doctor always remains clever and perceptive, no matter what else changes. He's perceptive of objects and systems, anyway; not necessarily perceptive of people and their feelings.

Meanwhile, in his absence, Polly is trying to convince the colony about the Daleks.

Hannah: Ben and Polly had never seen the Daleks. The Doctor must have told them a lot off-camera.

As Lesterson starts to realise he's made a mistake and runs around desperately trying to stop the damage he's done, Hannah begins to feel sorry for him.

Hannah: I want to see what this actor looks like, being hysterical all the time.

There's a very interesting moment when a Dalek innocently asks why human beings kill each other, to which it doesn't get a reply. Then, in the next scene, another Dalek explains to the scientists that they're building a static electricity converter and nearly makes another slip-up before biting its tongue: "With static power, the Daleks will be twice as... useful."

Hannah: (laughing) That's my favourite bit ever.

The episode ends with the assembled Daleks chanting over each other ("I want this as a ring-tone") before the Dalek army finally seizes its chance and emerges from the capsule to engage in full-scale slaughter. 

Hannah: It's so good! This story is excellent. There are so many scenes that I wish so intensely we could watch for real. The in-depth view of the Dalek production, the extreme emotion of the characters, the dark, mysterious rebel meeting with Bragen in the corner, the Doctor defending himself with a chair...

Episode 6

Hannah: So much suspense and intrigue.

I haven't seen Hannah so engrossed in a sixties story since... well, ever.

Hannah: I just had a weird feeling.
Me: What's that?
Hannah: I forgot that this is an acted television show. This feels so good that it's like an animated show with good voice acting.
Me: Like the David Tennant animations?
Hannah: I never watched them.
Me: No, me neither.

Then the slaughter begins. She's thoroughly unimpressed with the colony's military tactics as waves of guards are sent to their deaths, and it doesn't help that the animation is a little more horrifying than she was expecting.

Hannah: So this children's show; would it really have panned across a pile of dead bodies?
Me: It wouldn't be the worst thing they've shown so far.
Hannah: That's true.
Me: I think they must have done; I can't think of anything else they would have shown during that sequence.
Hannah: I know. It just feels horrible. We already saw them all die, there's no need to do that. It's dramatic, but it feels unnecessary for a children's show.

Meanwhile, Lesterson has finally had a nervous breakdown.

Hannah: He's really gone a bit bonkers. I want to see his real face!

Despite having brought it on himself, Hannah is genuinely upset when he goes completely mad and finds himself exterminated by the creatures he resurrected. The Doctor finally manages to defeat the Daleks by overloading their power supply, and once again, the significance of the title is not lost on Hannah. 

Hannah: Fried Dalek!

For some reason, she's incredibly disappointed that we don't get a final close-up of the twitching tendril of a dying Dalek mutant. When Ben tries to get the Doctor to admit he knew what he was doing, the Doctor responds by playing his recorder.

Hannah: Yes, he's a very irritating man sometimes.

As the Doctor, Ben and Polly leave, they find the remains of a melted Dalek outside the TARDIS.

Hannah: Still waiting for them to do something.

She finally gets her wish as the TARDIS dematerialises and the Dalek raises its eye-stalk to watch.

Hannah: Yay. I'm glad they did do something. Yeah, the Doctor's a very annoying man sometimes. He may get through and do what he intends to do, but he does it in a way that infuriates everyone around him. He may or may not be joking, he may or may not have done stuff by accident, and in the end it was all okay - maybe if he'd had another ten seconds he could have done something that didn't destroy the place - but he's just so casual about everything. It really pisses people off. But it makes him a good character; you can't have a character who's perfect. It would just be boring, watching someone going round the universe fixing everything. Instead we've got a guy who's a bit weird, goes around trying to do some stuff, plays with a banana and cuts a grapefruit in half, plays his recorder... he seems to be choosing things to irritate people on purpose. What did Hartnell do that annoyed people? He didn't play musical instruments.
Me: He abducted them.
Hannah: No, I mean a day-to-day thing that he would do. He called people the wrong name out of forgetfulness, but he didn't play the recorder rather than speak.

The Score

Hannah: It's the dog's bollocks.
Me: Eloquence, thy name is Hannah.
Hannah: It's an excellent story with excellent characters. It has perfect pacing and a perfect balance of politics and action. Obviously we can't really judge on the actual action because we can't see it, so let's assume that the animation is a good interpretation of what was happening on-screen.
Me: I believe the animators were working from original camera scripts.
Hannah: Yeah. I mean you can try your hardest but you won't get exactly the same kind of atmosphere, especially when it comes to faces; animated faces are emotive, but not in quite the same way as real faces would be. So, on balance, I suppose the animation could be taken to be as good as the real thing; some bits are probably done better, some bits have probably ended up worse. Either way, the whole thing is just excellent.

10/10

Hannah: I like it even more than The Savages.
Me: You're scored two stories 10 out of 10 so far, and between those two stories not a single one of the ten episodes has existed.
Hannah: Maybe I like animation better than real life.
Me: The other one wasn't animated.
Hannah: Oh. Well, I like a well-written story. I think that seems to be my criteria for the better stories; one where I don't find the plotholes quite so obvious. It needs to have a good story arc, it needs to build tension really well, and yes, the camerawork and acting have got a lot to do with that, but if it's got a good base to start with, then you can work with it. Even the best cast can't work with a rubbish script and a rubbish story. So I think both of those were really good, thought-provoking stories. How does the Whoniverse feel about it?
Me: The what?
Hannah: Whovians. In their Whoniverse.
Me: It made the top 20 the last Doctor Who Magazine poll, out of 241 stories.
Hannah: Good. I really like Troughton a lot more than I thought I would, even though I haven't seen him yet. I thought he would just be old and annoying, dressed like a tramp.
Me: Why old and annoying?
Hannah: I don't know; I just never really thought I'd like any of the old Doctors, because I thought they'd be completely different to the modern way of doing things. I liked Hartnell, and I was happy to be wrong, and now I'm happy to be wrong about Troughton as well.
Me: You may be interested to know that Patrick Troughton is the Doctor that Matt Smith took the most inspiration from.
Hannah: He's fun without being irritating, and I'm looking forward to seeing the kinds of things he does. If he can be this calm and casual in an intense situation, I'd like to see how he gets on when they're not under such pressure. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him. And I'm glad, because I know he's your favourite and I wouldn't have wanted to carry on under the incorrect belief that he was rubbish.

Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.

Me: It's time to watch the second Peter Cushing film.
Hannah: (unmoved) Is it.
Me: If it's any consolation, I don't think you'll hate it as much as the first one.
Hannah: I only thought the first one was boring because we'd already seen the story. (pause) Have we already seen the story for this one?
Me: I'm afraid so. Just as Dr. Who and the Daleks was a remake of the first Dalek story, The Daleks, this is a remake of the second Dalek story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Hannah: It's interesting to see the remakes, because it's coming from a completely different view; it's exactly the same story, but the characters are actually different people. But it feels like a waste of time. It feels like they've been lazy by taking a story and premise that's already been written, making the Doctor human, and then putting some big names in it and make a big money-making film out of it.
Me: Speaking of big names, Peter Cushing is probably the biggest name ever to have played the character. It's between him and Jon Hurt.
Hannah: Exactly; they've made a load of money just by copying it and making it slightly different. I wish they could come up with their own story. But, at the same time, I'm very interested in the fact that it is exactly the same story, because we get to see it from a different point of view. Same thing but different.
Me: And Susan is still about 10 or 11 years old, so obviously she doesn't get married off to some random freedom fighter at the end of this one.
Hannah: Are they going to be back in the middle of a field with Romans charging at them, like at the end of the last film?
Me: No. Otherwise it would be a remake of The Romans.

What we get instead is a pre-credits sequence with policeman Tom Campbell being assaulted by some jewellery thieves and then walking dazedly into the nearest police box.

Me: Do you recognise this actor yet?
Hannah: He looks familiar. (uncertainly) Is it Bernard Cribbins?
Me: Yes. We can watch his episode of Fawlty Towers later if you need to cleanse your palate after this.
Hannah: I recognised someone! And he's a semi-regular in the David Tennant era, so he's been in Doctor Who twice.
Me: If you count this, yes.
Hannah: You keep saying it counts because we're watching it!
Me: It still counts as part of the franchise. Just not as part of the TV continuity.

Once again, the opening credits provide us with the full sixties psychedelic light show.

Hannah: Did Terry Nation get paid for this?
Me: The Daleks are his creation, and they're also re-writing his original TV serial. I wouldn't be surprised if he was paid more than the screenwriter.
Hannah: The background is mesmerising. It looks like loads of different watercolours going down a sink. I like them a lot, they're completely different to the first lot. Still colourful, but a lot more reserved. I would even say beautiful.

Back to business, and it's time to ease Hannah back into the uncomfortably canon-free world of the films. So we have the human scientist Dr. Who, his granddaughter Susan, and their ship Tardis. Oh, and this time he's brought his niece Louise along for the ride.

Hannah: Hmm. He's got another member of the family involved. What year have they picked up Cribbins from?
Me: Present day, I assume. 1966.
Hannah: So can he control his ship, then? If they're planning to get to 2150?
Me: Looks like it.
Hannah: He's very Doctor-y sometimes. Just sometimes. Other times it just seems weird.
Me: That's only because you're not used to it, though.
Hannah: Are you suggesting I should fully accept him and embrace him as a Doctor?
Me: No, but when your mind is so invested in the television continuity, these films are a bit of an acquired taste.

The broad strokes of the plot are played out in more or less the exact same way as we've seen before so Hannah doesn't say much about the story itself, preferring instead to comment on the significant differences. Most obviously, the locations and special effects have benefited from the more cinematic budget, and it shows; one of the most unconvincing effects from the original serial, the Dalek saucer, now looks downright satisfactory.

Hannah: That's cool! That's very swish. I can't even see the strings. Wait, yes, I can.
Me: Only in close-up.
Hannah: Yeah. That's quite a nice design. Did we see them in the original?
Me: Not looking as good as that.
Hannah: They look like saucers. Basic saucers.

The costume budget has increased, too. I'm still trying to make up my mind whether or not that's a good thing.

Hannah: Did the Robomen have uniforms before?
Me: No, they were just men with headsets on. They certainly didn't have this kinky ensemble.
Hannah: They look like Stormtroopers in gimp suits. Did they have those whips in the original?
Me: Nope.
Hannah: So they've got black PVC suits and whips. Everyone must be getting really hot and sweaty in those.

Hannah seems to enjoy playing "spot the difference" with the plot and approves that a lot of extraneous material has been removed in order to cut the running time down from two and half hours to 80 minutes, finding it a lot pacier and more exciting. In fact, the odd grievance aside ("The music's far too chirpy"), she's responding to the sequel much more favourably than its predecessor.

Hannah: I like it better than the last film because it's not using the same two corridors over and over again. This is a lot less confusing.
Me: Yes, I've always thought this film was a lot tighter and better-paced than the first one. It's also a lot more accessible because it's not made solely for kids this time.
Hannah: Well there's a lot more terror, death and enslavement in this one.

Actually, it's a strange compromise; we see an escaped prisoner falling from the third floor of a ruined building and violently landing head-first on a pile of bricks but seconds later he's somehow back on his feet with no harm done, at least until he's unceremoniously exterminated.

Hannah: He's not even bleeding.
Me: I suppose you can't really show serious head trauma or blood in a film like this.
Hannah: That's why it's quite helpful that the Daleks have ray weapons that don't do anything to you.
Me: Oh yes, very family-friendly. They just illuminate your entire skeleton when they kill you.
Hannah: It's creepy, but not gory. Anyway, they don't do that yet.
Me: No, we have to wait until the seventies for that. But yes, it probably explains why their guns are only shooting smoke here.
Hannah: These people are quite lucky, being able to outrun the Daleks and avoid their shooting. What's the range on those guns?
Me: About twelve and a half metres.
Hannah: Is it really?
Me: I have no idea.
Hannah: Oooh, some of the Daleks have twiddle hands! Are they like Mr Potato Heads? They have interchangeable arms for whatever they need to do?
Me: Maybe. I used to have a Terminator 2 action figure like that.

Hannah is clearly annoyed that the occasional slapstick humour from the first film is back on the agenda, but thankfully it's not too obnoxious here; replacing Roy Castle with Bernard Cribbins has gone a long way to tone it down. After an amusing moment when Dr. Who and his friends escape from the Dalek cell, Hannah grudgingly admits that the comedy isn't too bad this time around.

Hannah: Okay, that is funny. And I like how only one of them actually broke out of the cell but they're all going to be robotised anyway.

The black marketeer in this version is played by Philip Madoc, easily one of the most striking and impressive actors ever to appear in Doctor Who. Even Hannah recognises him, a bit.

Me: He's most well-known for playing the German U-boat captain in an episode of Dad's Army, the one who prompts Captain Mainwaring's famous line "Don't tell him, Pike!". He also appears four times in the actual Doctor Who series, so you'll be seeing more of him later.
Hannah: He looks older here. When was that episode of Dad's Army made?
Me: 1973.
Hannah: Well, he looks much older here; I suppose the hat in Dad's Army hides the receding hairline. He is creepy, though. He's very good. You know who he reminds me of?
Me: No. Do you?
Hannah: I can't remember his name. Moriarty from Sherlock.
Me: Really? Andrew Scott?
Hannah: Yes. Same kind of hair, same kind of look on his face.
Me: If you say so.

Susan and her friend Wyler (standing in for Barbara and Jenny from the TV serial) are taken in by two women who will eventually betray them to the Daleks, a plot thread that Hannah remembers as a "very poignant part" of the original story. She gives a little pitying whimper.

Hannah: Oh, they don't seem suspicious or evil at all! It's annoying that I know how the story goes.
Me: Well, maybe this will be different.
Hannah: Unlikely, though, isn't it?

Sure enough, Susan and Wyler try to make their escape in the night, only to find the Daleks standing immediately outside the door like a group of Jehovah's witnesses.

Hannah: They're just waiting patiently at the door, waiting for them to wake up and try to escape.
Me: Daleks are like vampires; they can't come in unless you invite them.
Hannah: Or they can't manage the doorstep.

At the mining operation in Bedfordshire, Dr. Who is planning to deflect the Daleks' bomb on its trajectory to the Earth's core so that the explosion will trigger the polarities of the magnetic poles, causing a massive magnetic surge pinpointed at the mine shaft. Hannah makes another distressed noise.

Me: What?
Hannah: It just sounds like bollocks to me.
Me: This is science!
Hannah: Bollocks science. Talking of bollocks, I take it the Daleks' pet isn't in this?
Me: No, you'll be pleased to hear that the Slyther didn't make the final cut this time.
Hannah: I don't think it even made the script, right?
Me: Not as far as I know.
Hannah: Good choice.

I sometimes forget just how wonderfully nerdy she can be about Doctor Who. She even knows about Dalek units of time measurement.

Hannah: Ah, it says "rels"!
Me: Why are you grinning?
Hannah: Because it's a Dalek thing!
Me: And it originates from this film; it doesn't turn up in the TV series until the David Tennant era, 40 years later.
Hannah: Oh, that's disappointing.
Me: Why?
Hannah: Because it's not canon.
Me: Not at this point, but it's been canonised now.
Hannah: (looking at the dial) So there are 50 rels in a Dalek minute?
Me: Yes, I think officially it's supposed to be about 1.2 seconds, although really it depends on the editing and how much suspense they're going for at the time.

Once the adventure is over, Dr. Who agrees to take Tom back to a few minutes before the robbery took place so that he can catch the criminals in the act.

Hannah: Surely he should see his previous self?

As the credits roll, it's time to tell Hannah the good news.

Me: You'll be pleased to know that there aren't any more of these.
Hannah: (disappointed) Aww.
Me: What do you mean, "aww"? You hated the last film with a passion.
Hannah: I liked this one.
Me: There was an option to make another film based on the third Dalek story, The Chase, but Dalekmania had pretty much passed by the summer of 1966 and this one was much less successful at the box office than the first.
Hannah: That's a shame; this one was much better.

The Score

Me: Do you feel like giving it a score?
Hannah: I liked it better than the first one. It had more clever and funny bits, less slapstick, and obviously it all looks prettier than the original.
Me: Yes, post-apocalyptic war-torn London looks absolutely delightful.
Hannah: But there wasn't as much character development. I don't feel like I know who Louise is, at all.
Me: Nobody does.
Hannah: She seemed completely pointless; I don't remember her saying anything or doing anything. They never explain where she's from, and you don't find out anything about her. Also, it skipped the bit where they went back to the TARDIS.
Me: I don't think a montage of everyone driving back to London from Bedfordshire would have been the most exciting way to end the film.
Hannah: But it was nicely paced; they tightened it up and got rid of a few things that I thought were really bad, like the Slyther. The story was already good so they couldn't ruin it much, and things were explained much more clearly. So it's an improvement over the original in some ways, but obviously not better overall. It was just good, but not great.

7/10

I decide to try the same charm tactic as last time.

Me: Thank you for watching it with me.
Hannah: You're welcome, this time. Even if the science was horrendous.

The Daleks' Master Plan

I don't want Hannah to feel intimidated by the length of this story before we even get started, so I'm hoping to keep it a secret for as long as possible.

Hannah: How long is this story?

Damn.

Me: I think it's a mistake to think too much about how long each story is. Audiences at the time wouldn't have known how many episodes it would be, they had no idea when each one would begin or end...
Hannah: Fine, fine. It doesn't matter.
Me: Alright then, full disclosure...
Hannah: Is this the one with seven or eight episodes?
Me: Er, no...
Hannah: Longer than that?
Me: It's twelve episodes.
Hannah: And how many of them still exist?
Me: Three.

Her reaction tells me everything I need to know about how much she's looking forward to this.

Me: Let's just take it one episode at a time. This story is directed by your favourite director.
Hannah: I don't have a favourite director.
Me: You liked Douglas Camfield.
Hannah: Oh, yeah. The one who does good directing.
Me: That's the one.

The Nightmare Begins [Episode 1]

Hannah: Oh look, it's the jungle again. These aren't the same people from before, are they?
Me: No, they all died.
Hannah: I was wondering if this was a flashback.
Me: So you're assuming this is following on from "Mission to the Unknown"?
Hannah: Yeah, it's a jungle planet. Although it's not clear how much time has passed.

We are indeed back on Kembel.

Hannah: Why has the TARDIS come here, exactly when and where it was needed? It could have turned up two weeks later when it's all happened and everybody's dead.
Me: This takes place a few months after the cutaway episode we saw.
Hannah: But the Doctor is still in time to help.
Me: He's not in time to help any of the people who died last time.
Hannah: He's still in time to help the solar system.
Me: It's already been established that the TARDIS is sentient, so the popular theory is that it just takes him wherever he needs to be.
Hannah: But surely it knows that right now it needs to help Steven get better, so where he needs to be is somewhere near a hospital. It's a time and space machine, so the TARDIS can decide to take them here after Steven's better and the Doctor would still be there in time to help before anything happens.

Despite being familiar (ish) with the Brigadier from future Doctor Who stories, she fails to recognise Nicholas Courtney as the actor playing Bret Vyon, although admittedly it's tricky when you can't see any movement. Besides, she's more concerned about the Doctor's new companion, Katarina.

Hannah: Why did they choose her?
Me: Why not her?
Hannah: She was only introduced in the last episode; she looked after Vicki and then she ended up in the TARDIS by mistake, and now suddenly she's been kidnapped from her time and thinks she's dead. It's a very interesting way to acquire a companion, however long she's there for.
Me: It's a bit different, isn't it?
Hannah: She also has absolutely no idea what's going on. She thinks this is the afterlife.
Me: Vicki was originally going to be in this story, but when they wrote her out last week they needed to write someone else in quickly. That's why they had to build up Katarina's part, so that she could come on board.
Hannah: I wonder how long she's going to last. She's probably going to walk off-screen right now and turn into a Varga plant.
Me: Do you not think that would seem a bit strange, introducing her as a new companion in the previous story just to write her out in this one?

She finds it slightly predictable that Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System is evil and allied with the Daleks, but still considers it a fun development even if his motives aren't immediately clear.

Hannah: What could he possibly gain from an alliance with the Daleks that he hasn't already got from being emperor of the solar system?
Me: He wants to be emperor of the universe.
Hannah: Oh.

Day of Armageddon [Episode 2]

I explain to Hannah that episodes 1-5 & 7 are written by Terry Nation, and episodes 6 & 8-12 are written by Dennis Spooner.

Hannah: So is this all going to be a bit random and weird and disjointed?
Me: I couldn't possibly comment. We'll just have to see what you make of it.
Hannah: So far it's been okay.
Me: It's been very coherent so far, I'll grant you, but there's still a long way to go.

Luckily, we've come to the first of our three existing episodes (the others being episodes 5 and 10).

Hannah: So where did they find this one?
Me: I'm not sure, but the other two episodes were found in the basement of a Mormon church.
Hannah: Very odd.

The delegates from "Mission to the Unknown" are back; Hannah finds the concept of Dalek collaborators as incongruous as she did last time, so it comes as something of a relief to her when the Daleks declare their plan to eliminate Chen once he's served his purpose.

Hannah: See, I told you! They don't do allies.
Me: Nobody does. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans... you can't trust any of them.
Hannah: Chen has got the weirdest kind of six-pack nipple shirt going on. Like a cat.
Me: Some eye-witness accounts claim that his skin was painted blue on-set, although there's no reference to it in the script and according to other sources he's actually brown.
Hannah: Huh. Shame you can't tell in black and white. Why is one of the delegates bouncing around in a body suit?
Me: I thought you liked alien movement choreography.
Hannah: I do. Maybe he's from a planet that has much higher gravity, so he feels all weightless and bouncy here.
Me: And if this episode hadn't been recovered in 2004 we'd never have known. Makes you wonder what other visual flourishes we'll never find out about.

Katarina, meanwhile, is having the ultimate "fish out of water" experience; one minute she's living in Ancient Troy, the next she's running around a jungle planet full of Daleks and homicidal plants. Luckily she's taking it all in her stride, which is just as well because the Doctor and Bret are having another disagreement.

Hannah: They both have valid points to make, there's no need for them to be mean to each other. Meanwhile Katarina is just walking along, listening to them argue and thinking "the afterlife's not quite what they said it would be."
Me: Bless her. She really has no idea what's going on.
Hannah: Have I mentioned that Bret looks like a Thunderbird?
Me: You haven't.
Hannah: I don't mean one of the spaceships, I mean a member of the Thunderbirds team. He doesn't look like a giant cargo ship or a rocket or a little yellow submarine. It's the big sash, basically. It's just the big sash.

She's thoroughly unconvinced when the Doctor manages to create a diversion and makes off with the taranium core that powers the Dalek's ultimate weapon, the Time Destructor ("Like they'd leave that behind? Really?!"). But all things considered, she's enjoying this story so far; she likes the pacing and the dialogue, and the tension escalates when Bret decides that the Doctor isn't going to make it back and prepares Mavic Chen's spaceship for takeoff, with Steven and Katarina in tow.

Hannah: Katarina is a very interesting companion, but she's not particularly useful. Bret is useful, though. Maybe the Doctor will keep him, even though they argue a lot.

Devil's Planet [Episode 3]

The cliffhanger is unceremoniously resolved when the Doctor catches up to his companions in the nick of time.

Hannah: Oh, he did make it. That's a disappointing cliffhanger. I really thought they were going to leave without him and he was going to spend the next episode trying to find them again, but instead he gets there and they're all leaving together. Bit anticlimactic.

When our heroes find Marc Cory's tape recording from "Mission to the Unknown" she appreciates the attempt at some continuity, even if it's far too late to be remotely useful because the recording just confirms everything they've already discovered for themselves. Eventually, her attention turns to more pressing matters.

Hannah: Why is Steven wearing a corduroy jacket? At the end of the last story he was wearing Greek armour and at some point he's changed into a very dapper suit.

While Hannah ponders this and the other big questions raised by this story (like whether or not Daleks have skeletons) the stolen ship crashes on a prison planet, appositely named Desperus.

Hannah: Because it's the planet of desperation.
Me: Yes, you may have noticed that Terry Nation likes to give his planets some very unimaginative names. The one with the oceans is called Marinus, the desert planet is called Aridius - even though it wasn't originally a desert when the natives lived there - and the home of the Mechanoids is called Mechanus.
Hannah: I like the theme of having a penal colony on a whole planet. So many good stories use it, although they probably came after this. Shame it's just a brief plot point. And I know Steven was an astronaut, but he's about 1,600 years out of his time and he's still trying to backseat drive.

The episode concludes with one of the convicts breaking into the ship and taking Katarina hostage.

Hannah: Oh no! How did one of them get in? They should have just electrocuted everyone on the planet's surface. Now they've distressed the poor young girl.

The Traitors [Episode 4]

Fortunately one of the most memorable moments of this story still survives as a short clip, and Hannah watches in shock as Katarina sacrifices herself by opening the airlock and ejecting herself and her captor into space.

Hannah: Oooh. She did that to herself? On purpose?
Me: I think that's what we're supposed to assume, yes.
Hannah: She didn't last many episodes then.

The Doctor delivers a moving speech, which Hannah seems to accept as a fitting eulogy...

Hannah: Aw, that's really s-- oh, was there really any need to do that?

...and is spoiled only by the sight of Katarina's corpse drifting through space.

Hannah: This is terrifying for a children's show! A young woman is held hostage and then kills herself. Oh well, it moved the plot along. And was very sad.
Me: The first ever companion death.
Hannah: It's the year 4000. Technically Ian and Barbara are dead.
Me: That was originally going to be Vicki, before she ended up being written out in the previous story.
Hannah: Vicki wouldn't have killed herself.

In fact this episode is turning into a bit of a bloodbath. When Sara Kingdom turns up and shoots Bret dead, Hannah is stunned.

Hannah: Oh, now he dies! He was quite helpful and good. There's a lot of death this episode, lots of child-friendly shooting murders. The Doctor and Steven are very lucky to have gotten out of every situation so far.

Counter Plot [Episode 5]

The Doctor and Steven attempt to escape from Sara by taking refuge in a room where an experiment is taking place; Hannah immediately notices the capsule of white mice in the centre of the room.

Hannah: Maybe they're designing a new world.
Me: Well... let's come back to that later.
Hannah: I'm making a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference.
Me: I know.

The experiment involves transporting the mice to another planet, as well as anyone else who happens to be unlucky enough to wander into the room at the critical moment. Hannah is appalled at this oversight in the plant's health and safety policy.

Hannah: Why didn't they check the room, whoever's doing this experiment? Why did they leave it open? Why on earth wouldn't they lock the door? No scientist would leave that door unlocked.

Even more unsettling are the close-ups of everyone's faces, contorted in pain and bathed in white light.

Hannah: That's incredibly creepy!
Me: What, the effect?
Hannah: Yes. I don't like it.
Me: It's only light.
Hannah: His face went completely white except for two black eyes and a grimace!

Next we see our heroes being transmitted through space; once again, the "special" effects aren't quite up to Hannah's standards.

Hannah: They're on trampolines! That's just weird! What was their direction for that sequence? "Keep a straight face and jump up and down on this trampoline, and I'll film you in slow motion." So they've been "molecularly disseminated"?
Me: Apparently.
Hannah: Is that like the Star Trek transporter beam?
Me: How would I know? I don't watch Star Trek.
Hannah: You get broken down into nothing, transported and then reassembled.
Me: Pretty much.
Hannah: Which is impossible. And God only knows what that kind of experiment would do to the taranium.

Terry Nation's gift for imaginative planet names continues when the Doctor, Steven, Sara and the mice are reconstituted on a planet covered in swamps, conveniently named Mira.

Hannah: That would be the best kind of set to design. Loads of plants and dry ice everywhere. Maybe they saved some money and used the plants from the Kembel set.

Elsewhere the actor Maurice Browning, playing Chen's co-conspirator Karlton, seems to be making a strong impression.

Hannah: He's... very interesting.
Me: Why?
Hannah: He enunciates in a particular manner. He feels like someone who does a lot of stage work.

There's a very funny moment when the Daleks come across the mice and assume that these mysterious white creatures must be hostile; Hannah loves this, but is devastated when the inevitable happens and the small furry threat is exterminated.

Hannah: No, not the mice! Poor mice.

The Daleks seem to be under the impression that the mice may possess the secret of pan-dimensional travel.

Me: Douglas Adams would have been thirteen when this episode was broadcast, and would most likely have watched it. So who knows, maybe this is where he got the idea of pan-dimensional mice in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Hannah: Possibly. But these aren't pan-dimensional beings, they're Earth beings that were transported pan-dimensionally.
Me: Yes, but it's easy to see how you might arrive at that idea after watching this episode.

As Sara starts to believe the Doctor and Steven's story and realises that Chen is not the diligent leader he appears to be, Hannah is impressed with the Doctor's people skills.

Hannah: That's the nicest he's been in a while.

She's almost speechless when Sara reveals that Bret Vyon was her brother and that she committed fratricide in the line of duty.

Hannah: Wow. She really was brainwashed. Did you say this was by the director I liked?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: I can tell. Not just static shots. Interesting zooms.

As the credits roll, we find that George Pollock has a lot to answer for.

Hannah: "Special photographic transparencies"?
Me: That'll be the special effects when they were disseminated.
Hannah: So he's to blame.

Coronas of the Sun [Episode 6]

Hannah is still enjoying Mavic Chen, but his alliance with the Daleks doesn't seem to be running entirely smoothly.

Hannah: Daleks seem to panic a lot.
Me: They're just very passionate about what they do.

The Doctor commandeers an enemy ship for the second time so far in this adventure (presumably risk assessment isn't a huge priority for the Daleks or their allies) and sets about creating a fake taranium core. Steven suggests using the ship's "gravity force" as a power source.

Hannah: How does that work? How can you have something that generates enough gravitational force to convert it into some kind of useful energy?

Nevertheless, Steven takes it upon himself to attempt some DIY and wires up the taranium to the ship, with some fairly incomprehensible results.

Hannah: Is this where he dies?
Me: It would be an interesting way to write out a companion, wouldn't it? Accidentally electrocuting himself in the middle of the story as he tampers with some wiring.
Hannah: This is very strange science, even by Doctor Who standards. Steven has been electrocuted, but it's a special kind of electrocuted and it somehow gives him special powers of invincibility and muteness.

Fortunately the Doctor has managed to cobble together the fake taranium core, and our heroes make their escape in the TARDIS after handing the replica over to the enemy. Everything appears to be wrapped up nicely... but there's still six episodes to go.

Hannah: So... it's only halfway through this story, but they're back in the TARDIS and going somewhere random?
Me: Yes?
Hannah: With another person who didn't really want to be there. How will the story continue now that they've gone somewhere else?

Oh boy...

The Feast of Steven [Episode 7]

As you may have guessed from the episode title...

Me: It's a Christmas episode!
Hannah: Is that why we're drinking mulled wine?
Me: I just thought it would add a bit of atmosphere.
Hannah: Can we skip this one?
Me: Well, technically yes, because although it's episode 7 it's not really part of the story as such. It was designed to function as a one-off standalone episode, a piece of light entertainment for Christmas Day that families can watch without being thrown into the middle of a fairly grim 12-part story, and then the main plot picks up again in episode 8. And it's very visual, so it's probably not a good one to watch as a reconstruction. But let's persevere.

And so, once Hannah has gotten over her incredulity that the polluted atmosphere in 1960s Liverpool is apparently far more toxic than any alien planet we've seen thus far, we settle down to watch the only episode to be shown on Christmas Day before they became a regular thing in 2005.

The Doctor identifies a man at the police station as the merchant from the marketplace at Jaffa; this is met with a nonplussed "what" from Hannah, until I point out that it's the same actor from The Crusade.

Hannah: Why would they do that? Could they not find any other ways of having light entertainment on Christmas Day? They had to have a fourth-wall joke?
Me: Yes, this episode is the Deadpool of its time. It's supposed to be a whimsical comedy, so try not to think about it too much.

After spending half an episode in present-day England, it's time for some frolics in a 1920s Hollywood film studio. That's what the captions and still images are telling us, anyway. Mostly we can just hear screaming.

Hannah: Well, this is light and entertaining. If I couldn't see what was happening I'd think someone had just discovered a mutilated body.

This particular vignette turns into a series of comedy capers as our heroes wander through the production of various silent films, including a Charlie Chaplin film and an homage to the Keystone Cops. Unfortunately it's all so visual that it's often very difficult to make out what's going on.

Hannah: This is awful. It's just screaming.
Me: It only seems that way because we can't see what's happening.
Hannah: Even if we could, it's still just screaming.
Me: Yes, farcical comedy doesn't really work without the pictures.
Hannah: I could probably make films or TV. You just need to get loads of people to scream and shout.

There's just time for the Doctor to have a quick chat with another famous person before departing, although unfortunately it's about 20 years too early to hear a rendition of "White Christmas".

Hannah: That was supposed to be Bing Crosby?
Me: A very anachronistic Bing Crosby, yes. He wouldn't actually have been there at that time, and nothing he said actually matches up with his real life.
Hannah: This episode doesn't feel very Christmassy. I like that they were randomly on Earth on Christmas Day earlier, though. That was nice.

The episode famously (and controversially) ends with the Doctor turning to the camera and wishing all the viewers at home a Merry Christmas. This appears to be the crowning touch for Hannah.

Hannah: What a stupid episode!
Me: Now that's how you break a fourth wall.
Hannah: It's silly. Well, the whole thing's silly. So they accidentally land somewhere where it's Christmas, then they land somewhere else where it isn't Christmas, and then they decide it's Christmas. I thought there was the rule of thirds? Everything works better in three parts. I know it's only 23 minutes but they just did half and half.
Me: Would it surprise you to learn that--
Hannah: It was written last minute?
Me: Of all the 97 missing episodes, this is the one I most want to be recovered.
Hannah: What, not The Myth Makers?
Me: That would have been my first choice for a whole story, but for individual episodes it's got to be this one. Firstly, it's utterly unique, so it would be one of the most interesting ones to have back. Secondly, it's one of the episodes that loses the most from not being able to see what's going on. Thirdly, it's always nice to have a Christmas special. And I really want to see Hartnell addressing the camera.
Hannah: I don't mind it existing...
Me: Well, it doesn't.
Hannah: No, I mean at first I thought it was stupid to shoehorn it into the middle of a story, but if they want to appeal to their audience I understand they need to fit something in, so that they know there aren't children screaming for their lives on Christmas Day.
Me: To be fair it's a bit awkward having to do it in the middle of a 12-part story, but I think they've pulled it off about as well as could be expected.
Hannah: And it's a bit weird because they've got a companion who... well she's not even a companion, she's someone who's got accidentally caught up with them.
Me: That's pretty much all companions.
Hannah: Yeah, but I mean she was against them. She wanted to kill them. She killed Bret, her own brother, but apparently now it's fine and they decide to have a Christmas drink together.
Me: She's remorseful.
Hannah: It's a bit weird.
Me: Unfortunately this is the only missing episode that we know will never be recovered. When this story was sold overseas there was no reason to include an episode that had no bearing on the rest of the plot and could only be shown at Christmas, so no copies were ever made, which means this is the only episode that is definitely lost forever.
Hannah: That's a shame.

Hannah agrees that this episode should be judged on its own terms, without any bearing on her evaluation of the overall story.

Hannah: When I do a review of this whole story, I'm not going to include this one. Do you want it to have its own individual score?
Me: Go ahead.
Hannah: I like the idea of them being on a film set, and I like the idea of them getting into trouble with the police because they've got a police box and it's all funny and confused. But from what we can hear it sounds very chaotic, and I don't like that kind of direction where everything's all over the place and people are screaming. So it's kind of middle-of-the-road. There's no story, it doesn't go anywhere...
Me: It's not supposed to, it's just a bit of inconsequential entertainment for Christmas. Like "Voyage of the Damned".
Hannah: That one had a beginning, a middle and an end.
Me: Yeah, but none of them were particularly satisfying.
Hannah: I'd only give this a 5.

Volcano [Episode 8]

The one-episode digression into festive surrealism is over and it's back to business as usual. The TARDIS materialises in the middle of a cricket match.

Hannah: Are they in the middle of Lord's?
Me: It's the Oval.
Hannah: Did they get the commentators of the day to do this?
Me: No, they seem to have missed that particular trick.
Hannah: Pity. I like it when they do that.

The cricket commentators appear to be completely unfazed by this, carrying on as normal and checking to see if anything like this has ever happened in the game before. Three episodes after the incident with the mice, there seems to be a pattern emerging.

Me: Do you feel like we've had this particular déjà vu experience somewhere before?
Hannah: I was going to say, it feels like another Douglas Adams thing.
Me: The mice were a bit more of a stretch, and the similarity didn't go much further than a vague idea, but this scene is almost identical in tone and content to the opening of Life, the Universe and Everything. The protagonist suddenly materialising at a famous cricket venue, played for surreal sci-fi humour and with the commentators taking it all in their stride. It's so similar... can it be a coincidence? Who knows?
Hannah: Probably not. Oh, I wish we could ask him. "Are you a plagiarist?"
Me: It may not even have been consciously done; it might have just been one of those things you see on TV and it just makes such an impression on you and sticks in your mind until you start writing something 15 years later.
Hannah: By the way, how can the Doctor have lived in the sixties for so long and not know what cricket is?

Meanwhile, the Daleks (remember the Daleks?) have discovered the counterfeit taranium, after a fair bit of posturing and the ruthless extermination of one of the delegates. Even Chen seems horrified.

Hannah: These political bits are necessary and help build on how evil the Daleks are, but it's starting to slow the pace of the episode.

When Daleks deploy their own time machine to give chase and we see the TARDIS being pursued through time and space (again), Hannah notices that the sequence of events isn't quite matching up.

Hannah: Someone's following them though space and time, but the Daleks haven't left yet. Maybe it's the Monk, and he was able to fix the TARDIS after all. Went on a serious diet and managed to fit inside.

Yes, it's the meddling Monk, last seen stranded in Saxon Northumbria at the end of The Time Meddler.

Hannah: I don't like being right!
Me: Why?
Hannah: Because it's boring! It's actually a really good surprise and I'm sorry I ruined it for myself. I thought he was just a one-off character before. I really want to know how he managed to fix his TARDIS; he says he bypassed the stolen piece, but with what? What materials? Rocks?

Last week's episode was broadcast on Christmas Day, so of course this week's episode was broadcast on New Year's Day. After the Doctor beats the Monk again and finally manages to depart, our next stop is the New Year celebrations in London.

Hannah: The Christmas one was shoehorned in to be Christmassy but it's even worse putting this into the middle of an episode.
Me: Surely it's no more intrusive than the cricket match scene?
Hannah: This has turned into another episode of The Chase.

Hannah was pleased to see the Monk again, even if it was only for one episode.

Hannah: I like that he just inconveniently pops up while the Doctor's already in the middle of another adventure. But does he survive the volcano planet? Are we ever going to see him again?
Me: He does turn up again in the Paul McGann audio adventures, played by Graeme Garden.
Hannah: I'll take that as a "no."

Golden Death [Episode 9]

The Daleks' time machine is finally up and running.

Hannah: I used to have a PC game that made those sounds.

Mavic Chen also seems to be in good health.

Hannah: He looks a lot darker!
Me: I think he's in shadow.
Hannah: Are you sure? I think they used a different paint this episode.
Me: It's hard to tell from the stills. Maybe he's got a tan from being out in the sun on Mira. Or it's high blood pressure from his alliance with the Daleks.

As in The Chase, Hannah questions why the Daleks can't materialise a few minutes before the TARDIS if they're giving chase in a time machine. Still, at least the new location tickles her fancy.

Hannah: Hmmm. Ancient Egypt. Is this the only glimpse of Egypt we get to see in the series? A brief stop-off in the middle of a story?
Me: What would you prefer?
Hannah: A whole six-part story. An Egyptian historical.
Me: I suppose it is the most obvious period that they haven't done yet.
Hannah: World War One?
Me: Probably too recent at this point to do as a straight historical. Besides, four episodes of the Battle of the Somme would have been a bit gloomy for a family show on Saturday evenings.

She's visibly upset when some Egyptians confront the Daleks; the result is predictably one-sided.

Hannah: It's stupid if they think they can attack big unknown metal boxes.
Me: It's around the 27th century BC. They're not that advanced.
Hannah: Ancient Egyptians were very intelligent. They were one of the first to use penicillin.
Me: That doesn't make them qualified to deal with homicidal war machines from the 40th century.

She's pleasantly surprised when the Monk turns up again, also in hot pursuit of the Doctor. Unfortunately he runs into Chen instead and gets coerced into teaming up with the Daleks.

Hannah: He's funny.
Me: Yeah, I love the Monk.
Hannah: Why is he still wearing his habit? He was only wearing it as a disguise last time because he was hiding in a monastery.
Me: Maybe--
Hannah: Don't! Don't.
Me: What?
Hannah: You were going to say maybe it's a habit.
Me: I was going to say maybe he likes it.

The Egyptian guards aren't much better at dealing with Steven and Sara than they are against the Daleks.

Hannah: Oh, I want Ian to come and do his little neck pinch! The guards are rubbish. One was asleep, and these can't see or hear someone sneaking up on them. They've got no peripheral vision.

As Steven and Sara search for the Doctor in one of the tombs, the cliffhanger sees a bandaged figure emerging from a sarcophagus.

Hannah: Er... no. I don't think so. There's not a mummy coming to life. That's just silly.
Me: Is that really the least realistic thing you've seen over the last nine episodes?
Hannah: Yes.

Escape Switch [Episode 10]

Me: This is the 100th episode, you know.
Hannah: Whoop-de-doo.

The mystery of the mummy doesn't keep Hannah guessing for very long.

Hannah: It's just the Monk tied up.
Me: To be fair, the children in the audience might have believed that it could be an actual mummy.
Hannah: He's fun. I like the way he continues to be a meddler, even when he's not messing around with time; he's trying to be sly and clever, but really just saving himself all the time.

Chen seems to be getting a little too complacent about his affiliation with the Daleks, and Hannah is amazed when he manages to get away with hitting one of them without being exterminated on the spot. Elsewhere, her faith in the intelligence of the Egyptians is restored when they overhear Chen's voice on the loudspeaker system.

Hannah: It's a lot more interesting than in The Aztecs. The Aztecs mostly took it for granted that Barbara was a god, but the Egyptians here don't just blindly assume that they're hearing the voice of the gods; they're suspicious because it doesn't fit in with their ideas of what their gods are like.

That said, the sight of a horde of Daleks wiping out the indigenous population clearly strikes a nerve.

Hannah: They can't possibly hurt the Daleks at all, this is sad! They're people who have absolutely no idea and they just get obliterated. It's not fair.

She soon cheers up when Hartnell fluffs Chen's name and calls him "Magic Chen", but when the Doctor finally hands over the real taranium core, she can't help but feel like the plot has been treading water for a while now.

Hannah: They've had to do a slow handover thing again to get the plot moving; nothing has changed in the last four episodes, except now they've got the real material after a bit of messing around.

The Monk somehow manages to returns to his TARDIS without realising that the Doctor has changed its shape to look like a police box ("Funny, but unbelievable"), or that the Doctor has stolen the directional unit from his ship and removed its ability to steer. When he ends up on an ice planet and realises he's now lost in time and space, Hannah has nothing but sympathy for him.

Hannah: Poor Monk.

But she's thrilled to see the Doctor installing the directional unit into his own TARDIS.

Hannah: Is this the point at which he can start controlling the TARDIS?
Me: Wait and see. Obviously he needs the Monk's directional unit to work, otherwise he won't be able to get back to Kembel.
Hannah: Yes. But is it a one-off? Does it overheat? Or is this where the TARDIS gets "fixed"?

The Abandoned Planet [Episode 11]

Hannah is excited to see the progression of the overall Doctor Who story and is hoping that this is the point at which the Doctor gains control of the TARDIS, so it comes as rather a disappointment when the directional unit burns out after making the trip to Kembel.

Hannah: Oh, so it's still broken! They're still lost. I like how they threw the Monk in again, because they needed a plausible reason for the Doctor to be able to go to a specific time and place just this once; he'd never be able to get back to Kembel if he hadn't cannibalised part of the Monk's ship. But they threw that in and then instantly took it away again. It was just dangling that little bit of hope that he'd finally get a working TARDIS.

She isn't the slightest bit interested that one of the delegates is Bryan Mosley, the actor who played Alf Roberts in Coronation Street, but she's delighted to see so many non-humanoid aliens on display.

Hannah: Aw, I like the chimney pot.
Me: You're very racist, aren't you?
Hannah: I like the space delegates. Basically I just like to see alien races being depicted. I like to see the level of imagination that the creators have. I'm just saying he looks like a stove.

Shortly after landing, Steven and Sara somehow manage to get separated from the Doctor in their search for the Dalek base. As before, Hannah is very impressed with the jungle set.

Hannah: It's a very noisy jungle.
Me: Why, because they're usually so quiet?
Hannah: No. I just like how realistic it is.

When Steven and Sara note the strange lack of Varga plants this time around, and eventually find the Dalek base completely deserted, Hannah is intrigued enough to postulate a theory.

Hannah: Hmmm. Maybe they've accidentally come too far into the future, and they're too late because it's already happened.
Me: Well the weapon is called the Time Destructor, so if it had already been activated I think you would probably have noticed.

Steven and Sara come across Mavic Chen, who appears to be finally losing his grip on reality after being betrayed by the Daleks. He insists to the other delegates that Sara is still loyal to him.

Hannah: Hmmm. I don't know if he really believes that, does he?
Me: It could be true, for all you know.
Hannah: Yeah, but... I hope not. I was starting to sort of like her a little bit.
Me: Starting to? After seven episodes?
Hannah: I never really liked her. She was loyal to a corrupt regime and she killed her own brother; she just doesn't seem like a nice person. She's made bad decisions.
Me: Well, in the service she was conditioned to be unquestioningly obedient...
Hannah: Exactly, that's why I don't like her.
Me: ...but she's changed since she met the Doctor.
Hannah: Yeah. So now you're left wondering whether she has actually reformed, or just going along with it because she sees it as her best option to get back to Earth and protect everyone. But she must realise that Mavic Chen is one of the baddies. She can't be that stupid.

They release Chen, reasoning that they can only defeat the Daleks with his help. He apparently dies when his ship explodes, only to turn up again in time for the cliffhanger so that he can force Steven and Sara into a Dalek bunker at gunpoint.

Hannah: I didn't think he would die that easily. Why did he fake his own death?
Me: Maybe he wanted to take them by surprise?
Hannah: Well it was certainly very surprising, I'll give him that.

Destruction of Time [Episode 12]

Me: Nearly there.
Hannah: It's slow going, watching something that doesn't exist.
Me: It's okay, we're on the final stretch now.

Now that we're on the home straight, it's time to see if Hannah has warmed to the Doctor's new travelling companion.

Me: So do you like Sara now?
Hannah: No! I don't know whose side she's on. Also she killed her brother.
Me: You wouldn't welcome her as the new companion, then?
Hannah: No, which is a shame because she's clearly going to be.
Me: I think she already is, isn't she?
Hannah: Yes. I don't welcome her.

Steven, Sara and Chen are accompanied by a Dalek escort and a very moody soundtrack.

Hannah: I like that music.
Me: Good.
Hannah: It's very nice music, it's like one of the sci-fi fantasy games I've played. Very atmospheric. Doesn't go with this scene, though.

Chen, who has been getting increasingly hysterical since the last episode, is now so completely unhinged that he believes he's still allied with the Daleks, in spite of all their unsubtle attempts to clarify the situation. As if his mental state weren't obvious enough, his triumphant hysterical screaming provides a vital clue.

Hannah: He's proper mad, isn't he?
Me: He is now, yeah.
Hannah: Has something happened to him, or has he suddenly realised he's out of his depth and he's just floundering?
Me: I don't know, he must have been a bit unbalanced in the first place but I think something inside him just snapped when the Daleks betrayed him earlier.
Hannah: I want to see a colour picture of him. See if he really is blue.

Not that it matters; the Daleks are just as troubled by Chen's behaviour as we are, and he's abruptly exterminated.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has taken the Time Destructor and activated it. The Daleks don't dare open fire in case it destroys the weapon, rendering them pretty much helpless.

Hannah: If only they had hands or something. That would be really helpful for them to stop people doing things.

It occurs to Hannah that, twelve episodes into the story, we still haven't been told what the Time Destructor actually does.

Hannah: What does it do? Erases something from all of time and space?
Me: You may find out soon.
Hannah: Or is it just a big threat that never gets explained, because it never actually turns on fully?

The Doctor urges his companions to make their escape, but Sara insists on staying behind. Suddenly the effect of the Time Destructor becomes all too apparent.

Hannah: Oh, is she getting old? So it's not a destroyer of time, it's a destroyer with time. It's a weapon that uses time.
Me: It just ages them to death, essentially.
Hannah: Ages everything to death. So all living matter on the planet will be destroyed. Oh well, that's good, Sara is probably going to die. Unless he can reverse it somehow. Does that mean the Doctor ages a lot? He's the one that's carrying it. If the Doctor is able to withstand it, he must have actually aged.
Me: He is ageing, it's just not visible because he ages much more slowly.
Hannah: And if everything around him has aged enough to actually rot away, he must be hundreds of years older by now. But it's not ageing everything evenly. All the plants have been eroded into dust, but the Doctor and Sara are still alive and able to move.
Me: Maybe the plants have extremely short life cycles on Kembel.

The taranium core finally burns itself out, but not before we see Sara gradually ageing to death.

Hannah: Oh, that's a nasty way to go. I've seen similar before and it's horrible.

As the Doctor and Steven mourn the loss of Bret, Katarina and Sara throughout their adventure, Hannah reflects on their Pyrrhic victory.

Hannah: They don't know how far it's affected. The entire universe could be destroyed. They haven't even checked--

Her critique of their efforts is interrupted by the credits.

Hannah: That's not an ending! They've just seen that everything has been obliterated as far as the eye can see, and they haven't even bothered to check that the Daleks around the corner are actually dead, whether or not the Earth was destroyed, anything! They're just thinking "it's probably fine, let's leave." What about beyond that to the next planet, or across the universe? If the Time Destructor is strong enough to destroy things like that, how far did the destruction go?
Me: Either way, it's a bit late for them to do anything about it now.
Hannah: The whole story has suddenly plummeted in my estimation. It didn't have an ending. Why is there a switch that reverses the direction, if both settings seem to destroy everything? It destroys by speeding up time and it also destroys by reversing time. Why did the fuel cell last such a short time? The Daleks intended to use it to destroy the entire solar system, so either they got their maths wrong and they would never have been able to do it, or that's exactly what they've just done by activating it on Kembel, in which case this is not a happy ending at all.
Me: It's obviously not a happy ending.
Hannah: Well, no, because they've just listed all the people that died and it's horrible, but at what point in Doctor Who does the Doctor ever think "Earth is destroyed, let's move on"? That means the entirety of the solar system at that time period ceases to exist. Which he never mentions again. The solar system is dead.
Me: Well, clearly it isn't.
Hannah: In which case their weapon was shit and was never going to work anyway if the fuel cell wasn't going to last long enough to destroy the whole solar system. And also they never explained why the Varga plants were missing.

The Score

Hannah: It wasn't awful.
Me: That doesn't sound like a recommendation.
Hannah: There were good bits. I do like a lot of it, particularly the world-building and the evil villain, and the return of the Monk, but at the same time it had some failings. There are lots of odd little bits that don't make sense; the plot holes bring it down a little, and I feel it was a weak ending. I liked its scope, but it could have been so much better.

7/10

Hannah: It would have been an 8 if it wasn't for the massive plot holes and the bad ending.