Day 163: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 1

Like most Dalek stories, the Daleks are hidden for the first episode, in order to build tension for their arrival. This can either lead to the awkwardness of not acknowledging the enemy, or building up the story before the characters begin to get involved. Thankfully, this episode is written by David Whitaker, who is able to clearly define his story whilst building up an element of tension. It's only halfway that the science fiction element begins to seep its way through the script, before that it was a simple piece about trying to find out who has stolen the TARDIS, however slowly but surely, odd moments begin to appear. Hidden rooms and unknown forces guiding the characters, and yet the Doctor and Jamie are kept largely away from this action. But this doesn't matter because both story paths are good, we find out about the villain's plot by watching them, instead of having them explain it to the Doctor, and we get the Doctor and Jamie exploring the world as well, discovering more about the story. Through this, it means that when the Daleks do appear, while it's expected, it still brings with it a certain aura of having another problem to deal with besides the other issues that have been witnessed in this story. But questions still remain, the answers to which we might get sooner than you'd think...