Saturday 5 November 1966

The Power of the Daleks

A big week for beginnings this week, with a new Doctor, a new origin story for the Daleks, and a whole new approach to defeating the bad guys. Oh, and a new podcast to discuss them all on. So let’s welcome Patrick Troughton to the studio floor, as we discuss The Power of the Daleks.

Notes and links

The most recent Blu-ray release of The Power of the Daleks was the Special Edition in 2020, which includes a compilation of all the surviving footage, including material shot on an 8mm film camera pointing at a TV screen. This material was also included on the Lost in Time DVD release way back in 2004.

Simon also mentions a site which chronicles the upsetting history of Doctor Who’s missing episodes. It’s called The Destruction of Time, and it’s well worth reading, if a bit dispiriting at times.

The Omnirumour was a series of rumours arising during 2013 that as many as 90 missing Doctor Who episodes had been found and were ready for return to the BBC Archives, possibly as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. This didn’t happen, obviously, but we did at least get nine episodes: five episodes of The Enemy of the World and four of The Web of Fear.

Let’s continue the tradition: here is Elizabeth Sandifer’s essay on this story, which (inevitably) discusses the importance of mercury to the new Doctor’s character.

Nathan and Brendan refer to Kieran Hodgson’s Bad Doctor Who Impressions version of The Daleks, which is something you should go and watch immediately.

James very thoughtfully plugs Brendan and Richard’s new podcast about The Avengers, called The Three-Handed Game, in which they are joined by old friend of the podcast Steven B to discuss episodes from different eras in the history of the show.

At the end of the episode, Simon recounts the story of the gradual revelation of The Power of the Daleks throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s. Among the things he mentions are Peter Haining’s Doctor Who: A Celebration (1983), the Radio Times Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special (also 1983), The Making of Doctor Who by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks (2nd edition, 1976), an edition of DreamWatch Bulletin (possibly issue 121 in December 1993) announcing the upcoming publication of the telesnaps in Doctor Who Magazine, and the discovery of some clips from this story in an Australian TV Show called Perspective: C for Computer.

Flight Through Entirety discussed The Power of the Daleks in Episode 11: Bum Wetting.

Follow us

Nathan is on X as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, James is @ohjamessellwood, and Simon is @simonmoore72. The 500 Year Diary theme was composed by Cameron Lam.

For now at least, 500 Year Diary shares a social media presence with Flight Through Entirety. So you can follow us on Mastodon and Bluesky, as well as on X and Facebook. Our website is at 500yeardiary.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on Apple Podcasts, or we’ll write next week’s shownotes in a completely incomprehensible acrostic code.

And more

You can find links to all of the podcasts we’re involved in on our podcasts page. But here’s a summary of where we’re up to right now.

Flight Through Entirety will be back at Christmas in July to discuss The Return of Doctor Mysterio, and we’ll be covering Peter Capaldi’s final year on the show after that, concluding with Twice Upon a Time at Christmas.

The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire will be back a couple of days after the screening of the first two episodes of Season 1 of the Ncuti Gatwa Era on 11 May. In the meantime, you can hear our hot takes on the four episodes we’ve seen of Doctor Who’s second RTD era.

There’s also Startling Barbara Bain, our Space: 1999 commentary podcast. We’ve covered the first four episodes of Series 1; Episode 5 should be out in the next couple of weeks.

Maximum Power will be back later in the year to talk about the final series of Blakes 7.

And finally there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. This week, we said farewell to Star Trek: Enterprise by watching that universally acknowledged Star Trek war crime, These Are the Voyages….