Doctor Who, season 4 continues …

The Power of the Daleks is another one of those early Doctor Who adventures that is missing from the BBC archives.

In order to watch the serial, I’ve discovered the “Loose Cannon” reconstructed version.  This version employs the audio of the story matched against telesnap (still images), descriptive text captions, existing footage where available, and sometimes a little added pieces of CGI/animation.

The first episode of The Power of the Daleks is a bit of an eerie episode – made all the more so by Patrick Troughton’s skillfully crafted performance.

Watching him in these first two episodes makes you quite understand what Colin Baker was trying to do in his first story.  We have a character of contradictions, both fervently sure in his own mind, but completely unsure in appearance.  He’s not one to give anything away.

Having Polly accept the new Doctor, and Ben effectively rejecting him, is a clever use of the companion characters – something that can’t ever happen when there’s only one companion.

As you watch and listen to Troughton, you’re kind of caught up in his performance.  You’re left with mixed emotions.  You love the idea that the character has “evolved” into something new, you miss that there’s no Hartnell around, at times you really disliked the 2nd Doctor (even the 1st Doctor’s grumpiness was never this hard on his companions), but at others he brings out the best – like when he’s pretending to be the Examiner.

The first two episodes of The Power of the Daleks don’t dwell too heavily on the story over the regular characters, something that Hartnell’s last few adventures learned that worked so well.  By not undermining or hiding the regular characters away, we get the chance to explore with them – rather than have them just as distant observers.

The discovery of the Daleks is almost incidental, with the whole shuttle and experiments thing acting as little more than a backdrop at this early stage of the story.  As a six-parter, they have time to do that.

The cliffhanger to the second episode, though, must be one of the creepiest cliffhangers the show has ever had.  The Dalek ranting and then almost screaming “I am your servant” as though it’s a battlecry to extermination is just surreal, and a perfect one to phase into the title music.

Next time … The Power of the Daleks continues