There’s a chess game motif in this episode that is unsubtle but quite fun. Tegana sees it as a ‘fascinating game of strategy of war’ between two equally-balanced armies. The Khan is obviously Marco’s ruler, hence Tegana’s later line ‘Marco, can you save your king?’ Elsewhere, Tegana proves himself a cunning player of games, slipping out of the encampment after hours, then later, offering to brief Marco’s guards, and finally, playing saviour to the group when he promises to ride off in search of water. Sometimes Marco falls for it, sometimes not, but the rivalry between the two men is compelling, and makes for an interesting episode.

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It’s interesting that the opening minutes of this episode play with audience expectations by implying that the TARDIS crew are about to meet the abominable snowmen. Clearly there’s the footprint, which is based on Eric Shipton’s famous photos from the 1951 Himalayas expedition, and then Barbara encounters something hairy and scary that vanishes off into the mountains when she sees it. Given the 1950s interest in yeti, which sparked a Daily Mail-sponsored expedition, a Nigel Kneale BBC serial and a Hammer film, I’m sure a contemporary audience might have been expecting this to go down the route of another ‘monster’ episode. So, when the yeti turns out to be Tegana, it might have been a bit of a let down.

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I think this is an improvement over the previous episode because it’s a bit tighter and there’s a greater attempt to make both the TARDIS and the Doctor more threatening. The lights go dim towards the end, as the TARDIS approaches the brink of disaster, which made me sorry this wasn’t done sooner to add a bit more atmosphere. The Doctor and Susan turning on Ian and Barbara at the start of the episode is genuinely nasty, and Hill’s horrified reaction really sells the danger she and the unconscious Ian are in. It’s a pity this tension dissipates so quickly, as Susan almost immediately changes sides.

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This episode is easy to understand in a modern TV context: it’s the cheap one, the ‘bottle show’ as Star Trek used to call them – just the regular cast and the standard sets. I wonder what they made of it back in 1964. The AI was better than the first Dalek episode, so it can’t have been that badly received.

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‘Can’t you use your brains for right?’ the Doctor asks the Daleks at the start of the episode. It suggests he’s learned an important lesson since The Survivors and this exchange with Ian:

THE DOCTOR: They’re intelligent, anyway. Very intelligent.

IAN: Yes, but how do they use their intelligence? What form does it take?

THE DOCTOR: Oh, as if that matters.

Perhaps he’s started to realise that there is a moral dimension to his travels, and that he does have a responsibility to his fellow travellers. Certainly, from this episode on he starts to change his tune a bit. It’s an interesting theme, although I’m not convinced anyone watching in February 1964 would have remembered a brief dialogue exchange from December 1963. It’s interesting that he’s now ready to use the TARDIS itself as a bargaining tool, revealing its ability to travel in time and space, and promising to explain its ‘philosophy of movement’ if the Daleks halt their plans.

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Most of this episode concerns Ian, Barbara and the Thals’ journey into the mountains behind the Dalek city. The most impressive thing about it is the cave sets, which are excellent: boulders, pebbles and dirt on the ground, and a convincingly uneven, rocky interior that genuinely sells the episode. The lighting is good as well. It’s played well, with virtually no music, and some naturalistic dialogue between Ian, Ganatus and Antodus. There’s also an exchange between Ian and Barbara that is particularly eyebrow-raising if you listen with your eyes shut:

Oh, no, not that way. Now stay still. Give me your other hand. You’ve got to come back. Now, swing. Now this time, face the rock. And reach round with that arm. Reach higher. Can you feel?

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After the talky previous episode, this is much more action-packed. The first half picks up on the themes of pacifism and morality from The Ambush, with a surprisingly intense debate between the TARDIS crew on the right thing to do. The Doctor, as in The Survivors, is uninterested in the ethics of challenging the Thals’ values – ‘This is no time for morals,’ he exclaims. More surprisingly, Barbara backs the Doctor, fearing that if the Thals won’t fight with them, then the Daleks will destroy the time travellers and the Thals alike. This is a new development given that so far Barbara and Ian have pretty much been in agreement. Ian expresses the view that it’s wrong to ask the Thals to die for the sake of the TARDIS fluid link: ‘I’m not having anyone’s death on my conscience.’

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The first half of this episode picks up where The Escape left off. It’s exactly the kind of thing we’re going to see a lot of in the future with the regulars pretending to be prisoners, and the baddies cutting through doors with blowtorches. It’s done reasonably well, but it’s very routine and mainly noteworthy because the Daleks start using ‘exterminate!’ as a catchphrase.

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Having spent the previous episode introducing the conniving, duplicitous Daleks, Terry Nation now introduces the other inhabitants of this planet: the Thals. Susan goes a bit overboard when she encounters Alydon outside the TARDIS. ‘You’re perfect!’ she squees, as the storm subsides and this blonde Adonis is bathed in radioactive sunlight. The first half of the episode largely focuses on the Thals. They turn out to be a race of farmers, eking out a subsistence living from the poisoned soil. As there’s been a prolonged drought, they’ve been forced to abandon their farms and are planning to approach the Daleks for assistance.

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The most significant thing about this episode is that it introduces the Daleks: the first and most enduring monsters the Doctor ever encounters (I like that in the 21st Century series they also waited until episode 6 for the Daleks). That’s remarkable: they got it right first time. A lot of effort goes in to making them seem like more than robots. They’re constantly moving, rolling back and forth or side to side, twitching their protuberances, which suggests a kind of barely controlled nervous energy. Even in this first appearance we get lots of point of view shots, reinforcing the message that there is something intelligent watching from inside the case. The Dalek actors and the director have obviously given some thought to how to make these metal creatures seem alive, so that Barbara’s speculation that there is something inside them makes sense (Susan’s hysterical giggle at this point is deeply unsettling).

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