I've recently watched The Armageddon Factor and Destiny of the Daleks. The Armageddon Factor is easily two episodes too long and is overall a lackluster end to the Key to Time "saga". Outside of an entertainingly over the top side villain in the Marshal, a clever time loop trick by the Doctor and a weird timelord named Drax there isn't much to this serial, a mediocre end to a mostly mediocre set of stories.
It definitely feels like an artificial extension once Drax appears. If not when the Doctor, acting as if he figured Astra out as being the 6th piece, later acts as if he's genuinely clueless again. The time loop and first part prevailing, the story does go downhill - complete with ending that renders the point of the season pointless. Never mind the logistics of a segment being limited to one point in space and time (not solved until the 2005 revival introduced "fixed point in time" as an umbrella catch-all.)
The two Guardians were introduced well and come across like the ultimate chess players, using the universe's creatures as pawns.
Destiny of the Daleks feels like someone was hired to write the most generic Classic Who Dalek story possible.
Which is doubly sad as the writer of "Destiny" created them in 1963!
The Daleks are in a war they can't win,
On the surface, it's a cool idea. The problem is, the Daleks now have to be devolved into robot creatures to make it work - and is even told outright in the script - as opposed to finding a way of having a species being beaten by a computer be smarter in other ways. Or Nation was more interested in continuing "Survivors", "Blake's 7", and other shows he created or was involved in...
so they dig up (literally) Davros to help them.
Which retroactively ruins the strong ending of "Genesis", but somehow feels germane and relevant - this is a positive in a story that's a huge mixed bag.
The Doctor and newly regenerated (for no actual reason) Romana II
An event offscreen, but is handled as if the makers detested the show they were working on and turned into a lampoon. Later stories took this scene's concept of casual change and gave it new depth since, once lampooned, how does the show make itself credible again so that the audience will take it seriously too? The Rani gloats to the Doctor how she can change her appearance whenever she likes (being a biochemist) whereas he's stuck (inability to control, for whatever reasons).
Why otherwise say the show was lampooning itself? The dumb joke about their not climbing inclines or stairs, which was also used in "The Chase", and even Pertwee-era stories had antigravity discs (used in limited and budget-friendly conditions.) By "Revelation of the Daleks", they could finally hover of their own accord and "Remembrance" took an idea handled plainly and made it one of the best-ever cliffhangers. The novelization does the scene wonders as well.
randomly show up on Skarro and interfere with these events.
Especially as the Randomizer was only recently installed and for the reason of keeping the Black Guardian guessing! It goes back to the show lampooning itself. Spoiler alert, the next story takes place on modern day Earth. Even nonfiction making-of books made snide jokes about why the Black Guardian didn't just hang around near either planet instead? (He sorta does, look up Turlough's introductory story.
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Its not a bad story by any means, but outside of introducing Romana II it is a completely by the numbers story. Nothing particularly new is done with The Daleks and Davros, it just feels like a generic Classic who Dalek story. Davros also looks bad, the mask has not held up to time, and the replacement actor isn't very good at the role. Overall this is an ok story, better then the last one but almost impressive in how standard it is.
The mask is "good enough" and was probably made out of thin material to allow facial expressions and wasn't stored in ideal conditions.
The fact that a lot of "Destiny" is redone as a part of "Resurrection" (which takes similar ideas, repackages the Movellan was in past-tense, and then does what "Destiny" could have spent more time on instead - but with a more appropriate tone) only shows how flimsy "Destiny" is.
With these two stories done I only need to watch two more 4th Doctor stories to be finished with his era, The Creature from the Pit and Nightmare of Eden. I'll probably get to them before too long.
Cool! Looking forward to your takes on them!
