"I never fight against the inevitable, it's a vain occupation. But I would advise you to reconsider what you consider to be inevitable. It is amazing how often apparent defeat can be turned into victory."
Episode 2: The Daleks.
Companions: The 1st Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.
Air Date: Seven episodes. 21st December 1963 to 1st february 1964.
The TARDIS lands on Skaro, a seemingly dead world with high levels of radiation. Seeing a deserted city, the Doctor deliberately sabotages his TARDIS in order to force Ian, Barbara and Susan to explore further. But the city is not as dead as it first appears. The TARDIS crew are captured by sinister metal creatures that silently glide through the corridors and walkways - Daleks!
A fairly lengthy story that was also turned into a popular movie of the 1960's starting Peter Cushing in the title role. It is a shame that the movie actually does a better job of telling this story in 90 minutes than the seven episodes presented here do.
This is the story that first introduces us to the Doctor's archetypal villains, the Daleks. There are some differences in this story the Daleks of later ones. For example, in this story the Daleks can only move on metal using static electricity something they must have learnt to overcome. Either that or the Daleks presented here were of a type no longer used and abandoned on Skaro. The other thing is that rather than exterminate people the Daleks use a type of weapon that paralyses the legs of the target.
As a story goes it isn't a bad one and thrusts the show firmly into the science fiction genre rather than the historical which was what I understand the show to have originally been (to teach children I suppose). A move that has done the show very well over the last fifty years. But with all that I find that the story doesn't lend itself well to seven episodes (just over three hours!) and this is something that haunts the show in my opinion for a good deal of the early episodes.
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