Destiny of the Daleks

Have you ever seen a story so of-its-time as "Destiny of the Daleks"? It's funny but, growing up, certain stories always seemed like winners on paper and I always wondered why they were never up for coming out on video! Ha! Now I know why. If there's one thing you can't do with Doctor Who stories it's judge them on the attractiveness of the ingredients within each one. Slinging together the most popular Doctor with the most popular adversaries SHOULD have created the best story, right? Well in fact it almost did with "Genesis", but not so here. Of course, so many other factors influence the success or otherwise of a story.

I once remarked that Doctor Who used its big guns like the Daleks and the Cybermen sparingly, and raised its game whenever it did so. "Destiny" is decidedly unaware of its need to be epic just because the Daleks are back. In fact, it's the other way round. This is unashamedly the start of the Douglas Adams era proper, of cheap and nasty production values (by the look of it, gobbled up that year by "City of Death" and - oh dear - "Shada"). But it's the production that drags the Daleks down to its own level here, as they flap and bump their way around Skaro's now tin foil constructed corridors, pausing occasionally to adjust themselves if required.

Not that "Destiny" is wholly unaware of its status - the Daleks are given sufficient iconical clout as usual, and Terry Nation seems to actually have something to say for a change. But the tone is set from the off - this is the team of the era bringing an adventure to them, rather than taking a vacation to better-produced climes, the previously cited "raising of the game" in honour of our guests. So a threat made out to be one of Doctor Who's most dangerous is begun with a farcical body-swap sequence which spoofs the series almost as much as Crackerjack did around the time of "Genesis". Good job grinning Lalla has arrived, as Mary Tamm had no gift for comedy timing or delivery - the real reason she wasn't as successful as you'd like to think. She probably came along a season or two too late.

The trouble with this is that it's a serious story told flippantly. Human history may be up for grabs in "City of Death", but the idea of an insanely wealthy count come green war-like alien collecting Mona Lisa's suits perfectly the style in which the story is told. "Destiny" sequels one of the most moralistic, gritty and NVLA-unfriendly serials ever, and worse still tries to copy it - from David Gooderson's unimaginative Wisher-aping to the way Davros and the Doctor recount the way they spoke as "men of science" (a phrase which now seems cheap and worthless in the light of this story). It feels all wrong, like laughing at a funeral, especially when "Destiny" has several such funeral-esque moments, the frankly shocking cold-blooded hostage murders for example, or the slightly tragic existence of the Movellans. There's nothing much to laugh about in "Destiny", which is why it's more unfunny than usual when they do.

The moral is not to bring back something utterly unsuitable to what you're doing at the time if you aren't prepared to change it. "Destiny" falls between stools because it has neither the production values to support a story which doesn't rely on comedy, or an enemy that in any way suits the resultant light-heartedness. As with the Sontarans in "Invasion of Time", you just end up with an old favourite being cheapened. It's no wonder the other stories of this season, which invented new concepts more suited to its format, seemed far more acceptable.