The next story in the first run of Fourth Doctor adventures was “Energy of the Daleks”, the want for every companion to have a Dalek story at Big Finish was immediately satisfied with this, Leela’s first encounter with them. It’s was also the first Fourth Doctor story featuring Daleks without Davros, which is interesting. Beyond all that “first time” box-ticking it’s pretty bog-standard Dalek stuff. Let’s take a look!
The story sees The Doctor (Tom Baker) take Leela (Louise Jameson) to a protest in the future year 2025 (this story was released in 2012, though as it turns out the prediction of a protest in London in 2025 was spot on!) but as they walk among the crowd we also see (or hear, rather) a group on a Moonbase, specifically head man Stephen (Alex Lowe) and his team members Lydia (Caroline Keiff) and Kevin (Dan Starkey), where Stephen is hearing Daleks in his head during his sleep and even seemingly transports to the HQ of a group called “GlobeSphere Corporation” to have a meeting with the classic invaders before waking up back on the Moonbase all refreshed, confusing Lydia who last saw his thrashing about in his sleep. Back on Earth The Doctor and Leela see that the protest is against GlobeSphere, who claim to be able to solve the energy crisis via a new method but one in which head protestor Jack Coulson (Mark Benton) claims will cost lives and money to get going. A GlobeSphere private military arrive and arrest people, including Leela, but The Doctor and Jack escape and soon break into the National Gallery where the new energy source is coming from.
The Doctor discovers the energy in question is far too massive for the time period and Jack admits he and Stephen used to be partners but suddenly his friend became less radical and more intelligent before starting up GlobeSphere by himself.. Meanwhile Leela is interrogated by the special guards, which turn out to be Robomen, and end up confessing to The Daleks that she travels with The Doctor. Back on the Moon (love saying that) Stephen pushes ahead with a planned test against Lydia and Kevin’s wishes and soon The Daleks talk to Stephen and congratulate him on helping them exterminate the human race as a Part 1 cliffhanger. The Doctor realises the Daleks must be on a small Time Ship nearby and heads off to save Leela (with Jack still accompanying him) but it may be too late as Leela is taken to be robotised…
It’s a plain but fun enough story, almost a mix of classic Cyberman story “The Invasion” and, well, Daleks. At only two parts though there isn’t a great deal of time to particularly care about any of the new cast, unlike the admittedly probably too long Second Doctor serial…
The Continuity:
The Doctor, Leela, a Dalek, the moon… yep, checks out!
As mentioned, before this Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor had only ever encountered the Daleks twice on TV in “Genesis of the Daleks” and “Destiny of the Daleks”, both of which focused more on Davros than the Daleks themselves, so this was oddly a refreshing Dalek story at the time. Other than that though, not much to talk about. A businessman’s massive and suddenly emerging corporation being a front for his willingly bringing in an alien threat to Earth is the plot of the Second Doctor Cyberman classic “The Invasion”, though in that case the businessman in question wasn’t being controlled and instead was well-aware of what was happening and was just that stupid/greedy.
I also have to mention that in the very next series of Fourth Doctor adventures there is a two part story featuring a businessman and his “Conglomeration” doing a deal with the Daleks under the mistaken impression they could keep them at bay titled “The Dalek Contract / The Final Phase”. It’s hard to be original with The Daleks but that’s being WAY too specific in terms of repeating tropes so quickly!
Overall Thoughts:
Energy of the Daleks is what I’d call “harmless fun”. It’s not in any way original nor are any of the new characters particularly interesting or well realised but it’s a story of The Doctor overcoming his greatest foe without any particular lull in the plot. It’s comfortable, it’s familiar, but you’ll forget about the specifics a few hours after finishing it.
As everyone on the Moonbase apart from Stephen freaks out about the energy (of the Daleks) output The Doctor and Jack sneak onboard the Dalek ship and free Leela before managing to find out what the Daleks are up to this time, namely trying to wipe out humanity by ejecting the moon out of the Earth’s sphere of gravity. You’d think sending the moon into the Earth would be better, but hey-ho, that’s not how it works, I guess! The Doctor and co. use a transmat hidden in Stephen’s office to teleport to Stephen’s bedroom on the Moonbase and soon meet with Lydia and Kevin, who initially arrest and interrogate them but soon have no choice to believe them when the Dalek saucer arrives and starts killing off crew members. Jack is able to get through to his now-advanced-robotised friend Stephen while The Doctor fiddles with some controls for later plot use.
Here’s the vinyl re-release cover… which is pretty much the same but wider!
Stephen helps The Doctor before being exterminated, then after the Daleks reveal they came from the future in their Time Ship to wipe out humanity before they can help stop countless Dalek plots of the future they’re stopped by some sonic-screwdriver-on-nearby-computer technobabble that disables them, and then as they flee in their ship The Doctor reveals that ray that was to deflect the moon has been directed away from Earth and the moon and solely on the Daleks’ ship, which then explodes. Jack mourns Stephen but otherwise everyone else is helped back to Earth for a sort-of happy ending…
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