Sunday 10 April 2011

139 The Power of the Daleks: Part Five

EPISODE: The Power of the Daleks: Part Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 139
STORY NUMBER: 030
TRANSMITTED: 03 December 1966
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barr
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks
TELESNAPS: The Power of the Daleks: Part Five

Lesterson flees the Dalek capsule deactivating the power supply and telling Janley what he's seen.Trying to talk to the examiner, he discovers the Doctor has been imprisoned. A Dalek comes out of the capsule and announces they can conserve power causing Lesterson to flee. The Dalek instructs it's compatriots that no more than three of them may be seen together. The Daleks continue their cable laying. Valmar & Kebble are assisting them in connecting it to the capsule while guarding Polly. Lesterson tries to speak to the Doctor in prison but is taken to Bragen where Janley declares him to be mad causing Bragen to have him restrained. Polly tries to convince her captors of the Daleks evil. Hensall returns from the perimeter and discovers what Bragen has been doing in his absence. The Doctor & Quinn escape from the prison. Hensall argues with Bragen and then is gunned down by a Dalek on Bragen's orders. The Doctor & Quinn return to the Lab where they free Polly. Going to the Governor's office they find Hensall dead and are apprehended by Bragen again. In the Capsule the Daleks gather preparing to kill the colonists and announce that "DALEKS CONQUER AND DESTROY!"

Episode 5 of a Dalek story and Hensall is only the second person to be exterminated! What's going wrong? They're going to make up for it in the next episode of course. And we get an explanation for the static electricity stuff that was annoying me last episode! The Daleks are charging themselves up in the ship but the static cables will allow them to travel further without having to return to the ship to recharge. That still doesn't quite fit with their behaviour in The Chase and Dalek Masterplan but it'll do for now.

For a story for which no complete episode exists, lots of bits of Power of the Daleks exist. Two clips have been in the BBC archives for years: a 40 second clip from episode 5, the Daleks Conquer & Destroy sequence from a 1968 edition of Whicker's world and a scene of destruction from episode 6 from a program called Tom Tom, again from 1968. The "Daleks Conquer & Destroy" sequence does allow us to see that our old friend the broken neck ring Dalek is in episode 5! Several more clips have come to light in recent years. In 1995 Restoration Team member Steve Roberts investigated rumours some Dalek footage was shown in an Australian program entitled C for Computer. It emerges that that title is the name of an episode of a show called Perspective and that it did indeed contain Dalek footage from episodes 4 and 5 of Power of the Daleks. In 2001 Andrew Martin, a BBC employee, found a nearly complete trailer for episode 1 attached to the end of a film recording of a different program. In 2005 a BBC program Sunday Past Times showed clips that fans quickly recognised didn't exist. Restoration Team member Paul Vanezies traced these back to a 1966 episode of Tomorrow's World. Finally a number of 8mm film clip of between one and seven seconds are in existence.

Now can we have all 6 episodes found please?

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