Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks (1979)

Date(s) of Broadcast: 1 September 1979 - 22 September 1979
Number of Episodes: 4
Average Episode Running Times: 25 mins
Format: colour
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: BBC
Production: Graham Williams
Production Unit Manager: John Nathan-Turner

SCRIPT
Script: Terry Nation
Story Editors: Douglas Adams

DIRECTION
Director: Ken Grieve

PHOTOGRAPHY
Studio Lighting: John Dixon
Film Camera: Philip Law, Kevin Rowley, Fred Hamilton

EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION
Film Editor: Dick Allen

MUSIC
Title Music: Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Title Music Arranger: Delia Derbyshire
Incidental Music: Dudley Simpson

SOUND
Studio Sound: Clive Gifford
Special Sound: Dick Mills

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Cecile Hay-Arthur
Costumes: June Hudson

VISUAL EFFECTS
Visual Effects: Peter Logan

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Designer: Ken Ledsham

MISCELLANEOUS
Production Assistant: Henry Foster
Assistant Floor Managers: David Tilley, Anthony Root

CAST
Tom Baker (The Doctor)
Lalla Ward (Romana)
Tim Barlow (Engineer Tyssan)
Peter Straker (Commander Sharrel)
Suzanne Danielle (Agella)
Tony Osoba (Lan)
Mike Mungarvan, Cy Town (Dalek operators)
Roy Skelton, David Gooderson (Dalek voices - uncredited)
David Gooderson (Davros)
Penny Casdagli (Jall)
David Yip (Veldan)
Cassandra (Movellan guard)
Roy Skelton (voice of K-9 - uncredited)
Maggy Armitage (tall Romana - uncredited)
Yvonne Gallager (voluptuous Romana - uncredited)
Lee Richards (alien Romana - uncredited)
Toby Byrne, Tony Starr (Dalek extras - uncredited)
Sue Crossland (double for Romana - uncredited)
Mark Boyden, Toby Byrne, Malcolm Clarke, Peter Coleclough, Venicia Day, Sue Dorning, Harold Gasnier, Sandra Kneller, Tara Lightborne, David Lockner, Susan Lyle, Chris Marx, Leroy Mitchell, Hazel O'Mara, Margaret Pilleau, Denise Potter, Marcus Powell, Clinton Price, Leslie Rae, Sharon Richardson, Gito Santana, Errol M Shaker, Tony Starr, Lewis St Juste, Ron Tarr, Erroll Turner,
Julian Woods, Huntley Young (prisoners - uncredited)
Bruce Callender, Inga Daly, Wilson M George, Chrissi Hewett, Ken Kajadhar, Tawny Sands (Movellans - uncredited)

PLOT SUMMARY

After Romana regenrates, she and The Doctor arrive on the planet Skaro where they encounter a group of Movellans, a race of robots, who are trying to prevent the Daleks from finding Davros. The two races have been at war for a very long time, but as they are both slaves to logic, their struggle has reached an impasse and the Daleks hope that Davros will introduce random elements into their nature that will give them an advantage, while the Movellans hope to use The Doctor for the same purpose.

Douglas Adams' season as script editor got off to a terrible start with this forgettable Dalek story. Nation has some neat ideas but fails to realise them effectively, resulting in a rather simple minded runaround. Davros should never have been resurrected as he would later come to dominate the Dalek stories and here he's simply nowehere as effective as he had been in Genesis of the Daleks (1975). Very poor all round.

UK
Television Distributor: BBC
Video Distributor:BBC Video

1979
September
1: UK - Part One television broadcast (on BBC1)
8: UK - Part Two television broadcast (on BBC1)
15: UK - Part Three television broadcast (on BBC1)
22: UK - Part Four television broadcast (on BBC1)

BOOKS

Doctor Who: The Television Companion pp.362-366
credits, synopsis, review (by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker)

KEYWORDS

aliens, time travel

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008