N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
After an intermission several weeks longer than the one week that original viewers were afforded, I return to my marathon with The Power of the Daleks.
“Life depends on change and renewal.”
The Doctor,
The Power of the Daleks: Episode 1
Regular viewers of Doctor Who over the years have become accustomed to the new lead actor immediately establishing himself as the Doctor but it’s still startling to discover that this was ever the case.
Despite Polly and Ben (and even the Doctor’s own) doubts as to his identity, Patrick Troughton is just so immediately The Doctor that by the time the serial is half-over, you’ve half-forgotten that there even was a First Doctor. (Which, of course, with no disrespect to all of Peter Capaldi’s predecessors, is how it should be!)
That the Second Doctor’s first story is a belter also helps! Usually on these blog posts, where I’ve made few notes whilst viewing a serial, it’s generally meant a lack of quality or anything interesting to comment on, but with The Power of the Daleks, even watching it in MP3-CD Reconstructed form, it’s so gripping that that’s just not the case. It’s easy to see why this is top of so many people’s missing episodes wishlists.
The story is also unique insomuch as it is the only Second Doctor tale not to include Jamie, which allows for a different Doctor/companion dynamic than we would subsequently become used to (although I did note Polly and Ben managed each to sneak in a week off whilst “captured”).
With a new doctor (with a snazzy new Paris Beau), scheming Daleks, scheming humans and a veritable bloodbath in Episode Six, The Power of the Daleks is a cracking way to begin the Second Doctor’s adventures – one that will take some beating.
“I never talk nonsense … well, hardly never.”
The Doctor,
The Power of the Daleks: Episode 2
Since first watching this back in November 2014, we’ve been treated to both black-and-white and colour animated versions of The Power of the Daleks.
Animation, of course, will never be a substitution for having the real thing, but once you settle into the slightly jerky style adopted here, it becomes a rather nice way to revisit the Second Doctor’s excellent first adventure and belies my comment on The Reign of Terror that I wouldn’t like whole stories to be animated.
Alongside our original encounter with the Daleks, this remains the best the devious pepperpots have been to date.
