 Originally this story did not feature the Daleks; they were only included because of a desire, by Producer Barry Letts and Script Editor Terrance Dicks, to feature a Dalek story each season so as to cash in on their popularity, Writer Terry Nation also based the story upon a suggested storyline by Terrance Dicks.
Despite being a Dalek story "Death to the Daleks" is mainly remembered for its interesting puzzles The Doctor has to work out in his quest to enter the Exxilon City. Even though it featured some imaginative set designs this story was let down by some of the standard ‘quarry pit’ location work and the problems this created for the Dalek operators.
The story's director was Michael Briant, who had last worked on "The Green Death" for the previous season.
Throughout the Third Doctor’s era, the usual studio schedule had involved two consecutive recording days every fortnight, with each day typically concentrating on completing all scenes from a single episode. However, for this story Michael Briant elected to experiment with this scheme: in order to further decrease wear and tear on the sets (the motivation behind switching from the earlier method of taping one episode every week), he decided to record material set-by-set rather than in story order. Moreover, Michael Briant confined all recording to the second day of each two-day block, with the first day used purely for camera rehearsals.
No new Dalek casings were constructed for this story; indeed, because of the unsatisfactory quality of the new Daleks made for the previous Dalek story, "Planet of the Daleks", most of those used on "Death to the Daleks" were those surviving from the Sixties.
This story marks the first time the Daleks' weapons do not function on screen. The Daleks are later seen to be able to modify their armament relatively quickly, replacing their energy weapons with slug-throwing rifles.
In this story it is established that Daleks move by telekinesis. In previous stories ("The Daleks", "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" and "The Power of the Daleks") they relied on electricity. However, the fact that they cannot operate their energy weapons suggests that they are still reliant on external sources of energy. The Daleks do adapt at times in their history to use other sources of energy, such as that from the Time Vortex in the Tenth Doctor stories "Dalek" and "Army of Ghosts/Doomsday".
This story is the first time Sarah Jane Smith visited a planet other than Earth - The Doctor was intending to take Sarah to the idyllic planet Florana – hence the reason for Sarah wearing a bathing costume at the beginning of the story.
This story is the first time that Sarah encounters the Daleks. She would face them again in the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "Genesis of the Daleks" and also in the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End".
In the credits Dalek Operator Murphy Grumbar's surname was misspelt as ‘Grunbar’ on all episodes.
The incidental music for this story was composed by Carey Blyton and performed by the London Saxophone Quartet.
Bellal is heard to state that 'Exxilon had grown old before life began on other planets'. This makes The Doctor believe that the Exxilons travelled to Earth and taught the Peruvian Incas how to build their temples.
The Doctor is seen to use his sonic screwdriver for various feats of electrical trickery in the Exxilon’s city.
In the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "Pyramids of Mars" Sarah compares the puzzles on Mars to those encountered in the Exxilon’s city.
The Doctor attempts to destroy the Exxilon supercomputer by feeding it illogical paradoxes. This is the same tactic he used against the mad BOSS computer in "The Green Death".
This story marks the last appearance of the TARDIS Console Room until the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "Planet of Evil".
The cliffhanger to Part Three - The Doctor and Bellal walking towards a patterned area on the floor, only for The Doctor to say ‘Stop - don't move!’ - was not originally going to be the cliffhanger. The original cliffhanger was going to be at the scene where The Doctor is trying to deduce the answer to the logic test concerning symbols, when two Daleks appear. Specifically, the cliffhanger would have hinged on the zoom towards the Dalek's gun. This was changed, however, for timing reasons.
In the 1996 computer game "Destiny of the Doctors", the universe has 7,000 wonders, as opposed to 700 according to this story.
"Death to the Daleks" (albeit with an ‘!’ in the title) is also the name of a spin off audio story by Big Finish Productions in their "Dalek Empire" series.
In the Virgin Books' The New Adventures story "The Left-Handed Hummingbird" an Exxilon craft is seen.
The first episode was at one point wiped from the BBC archives. A 525-line NTSC recording was eventually recovered from Canada in 1979 - so enabling a low-quality PAL recording to be made albeit with the opening scene missing. In 1992, this was followed by the recovery of a better-quality 625-line PAL recording from a shipment of episodes returned from Dubai. This was, until it was found, the latest known episode of Doctor Who to be lost.
This is one of two Third Doctor stories (the other being "The Claws of Axos") to still have a 90-minute PAL studio recording tape.
This story was released on video in an omnibus format in July 1987, the first Doctor Who video to be released on just VHS, instead of both VHS and Betamax. This was also the first UK release to be 'budget priced'. As the PAL version of episode one was still missing the NTSC version of this episode was used instead.
An episodic release (with the PAL version of episode one) was released in February 1995, although episode two was slightly edited due to BBC Video mistakenly using a cut version of episode 2 returned from ABC TV in Australia (episodes 3 & 4 were also from ABC TV), instead of the UK master tapes of episodes 2-4.
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The Firsts:
The first time that Sarah Jane Smith encounters the Daleks.
The first time Sarah Jane Smith visits a planet other than Earth.
The first time the Daleks' weapons do not function on screen.
The first Doctor Who story to have a 'budget priced' VHS release in the UK..
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(Position = 112 out of 159)
(Position = 128 out of 200)
