36) THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS

Farcical and nonsensical storylines mixing together with several detours of the plot, The Evil of the Daleks is utter gibberish at the best of times, but the writing (often Whitaker’s strong point), holds the collapsing papier-mâché of a plot together, at least for half of the episodes. 
   Two episodes too long, several longueurs go underdeveloped, the relationship between The Doctor and Jamie goes through the motions, Maxtible (the epitome of a mad-scientist) is stuck on a broken records exclaiming ‘Gold, gold, gold, I must have it’, and almost every character is super unlikeable. The better of the episodes are the final two when the attention shifts to Skaro, but an impressive immobile Dalek Emperor does very little, and the Dalek/Human factor storylines bridgehead together, far too late in the day. 
   The Dalek/Human factor(s) with all of its iconography, is a more of critique of humans than Daleks; The Evil of the Daleks showcases just how cruel humans can be towards one and other, and the almost identical imagery to the Daleks is striking in nature. One could say, that it’s a tale of two civil wars, where humans and Daleks form an unwanted alliance with each other. A rarity during the Innes Lloyd/Gerry Davis era, most storylines relying on the base-under-siege or monster-attacking-a-remote-group-of-humans storylines to have any impact. Its works well here, despite its obvious flaws.
   Unintentionally funny at times, the child Daleks and the ‘bizarre’ cliffhanger to episode five, and a lapluster, but highly impressive battle sequence in episode seven, don’t make The Evil of the Daleks a grand piece of television, but it’s certainly a competent one. ***