Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks (1966) - Written Review

The Power of the Daleks has gone down in Doctor Who history as one of the show's most iconic stories. Kind of ironic then that it's also one of Doctor Who's missing serials from the 1960s, and hasn't actually been seen in over 50 years. For its half-century birthday in November 2016 though, the BBC released The Power of the Daleks on DVD, brought to life with animation, akin to several missing episodes on prior releases. With the whole story missing, as opposed to two or three parts, the animation team had to really up their game with this release, and as for the result...well, we have to ask two questions really: is Power of the Daleks as good as its reputation suggests? And does the recreation bring the story to life after 50 years away?

The story continues on from The Tenth Planet, with The Doctor having just regenerated in the TARDIS in front of his companions Ben and Polly. As the three of them get to grips with this strange new Doctor, the TARDIS arrives on the planet Vulcan - no, not that Vulcan - and the TARDIS crew are taken in by an Earth colony. From there, The Doctor and his companions realise that all is not as it seems with the people there, and events begin to escalate with their scientist finds a capsule containing three Daleks...

If there's one criticism to make about Power of the Daleks right out of the gate, it's that it fulfils a lot of Doctor Who tropes - an isolated base under siege, a cast of supporting characters with their own agendas and The Doctor trying to stop events from growing out of control. It's formulaic, but almost intentionally so. The real selling point of this story is the Daleks themselves - a group of hyper-intelligent, manipulative killing machines that will stop at nothing to get what they want. David Whitaker's script presents the Daleks at their most evil, and in a whole new light from Terry Nation's previous work with them. 

The Daleks are the standouts of the story, and sadly that means that Patrick Troughton is rather underused in his very first story. His performance is a lot less excitable and energetic compared to many of his other episodes, and the script at points doesn't seem to know what to do with him as a character. There was clearly a lot of anticipation behind the scenes as to how this new lead for the programme would turn out, and thus the Daleks seem to have been pushed centre-stage to make sure that the audience focuses on them rather than their new leading man. While Troughton would go on to do great things with the part later, it is a bit annoying that the first post-regeneration story doesn't settle this new Doctor properly, and I can imagine viewers at the time still weren't sure whether they liked Troughton or not by the end of this story.

Regardless, the rest of the cast are generally good, with the actor playing Lesterson going very over-the-top towards the end of the story. The characters are all archetypes, but again, the Daleks are the selling point of this story.

The animation, however, is a real let down for Power of the Daleks. Various techniques have been used to cut down the budget, and all are very clearly visible. Aside from obvious continuity errors, the animation is very stilted with little character movement or interaction, often causing the story to drag more than it should. Any big action scenes are severely under-animated with characters very awkwardly "running" or "falling", and one can't help but notice that the animation team only has a certain set of Patrick Troughton facial expressions. Some characters barely move at all, and others often end up looking very jerky. Clearly a lot of these errors could have been fixed, had the animation team been given more time - although apparently the BBC rushed this release for a November date, as opposed to giving them the extra three months they'd previously been allocated to sort everything out.

A particularly bizarre decision on the part of either the animation team or the BBC is to animate Power of the Daleks in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, as opposed to the 4:3 standard of the time. When comparing any surviving clips of photos to this new animation, it's very difficult to see the recreation when it's had to be "shot" completely differently. While I'm sure this gives the impression of it being brand-new animation, it betrays the point of this release - to recreate a lost Doctor Who story.

With these problems fixed, I'd be very happy to see more releases like this, but nevertheless its disappointing to see what was my most requested missing Doctor Who story to be animated quite poorly in comparison to previous releases. This is the latest BBC-licensed animated reconstruction of a missing episode, and compared with say, The Moonbase, The Ice Warriors or The Tenth Planet, Power is nowhere near as good.

The restrictions of this new animation also means that I can't really comment a lot on the production aspects of Power of the Daleks, or even much on the acting. There are aspects of the animation that do show off quite nicely though - particularly the TARDIS console and the Dalek models, which are the most "lifelike" of all the animation. Long story short: give the animation team more time in the future BBC. They clearly need it.

As for the DVD itself, the BBC have delivered some fairly good special features, even if none really capture me personally, and the upcoming Blu-ray release for whatever reason comes with a colourised version of the animation, because...I really don't know. The DVD artwork annoyingly doesn't quite match previous releases, although the Blu-ray comes in a steelbook case with a very nice piece of retro artwork on the front. The story is also available for download on BBC store, so there's several different ways of watching Power of the Daleks should you wish.

Overall, this release of Power of the Daleks is definitely a let-down, and feels like a rushed release from the BBC to try and capitalise on a 50th anniversary of a story that I'm sure fans would have waited an extra several months for had it been better. The story itself isn't perfect either, and overall while I can't call it bad, Power of the Daleks sadly isn't that great either. A solid story with a slightly botched animation, I give Power a 7/10.