Saturday 21 December 1963

The Daleks

Captures and Escapes and Reversals

Taranium Core, Episode 1
Sunday 16 August 2026

Doctor Who has only barely got started when the writer of Episode Five shows up and decides to take the show in a whole different direction. That writer was Terry Nation, and that episode, or possibly the one after that, will change the world forever.

Notes and links

500 Year Diary has already discussed one Terry Nation story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in Season 2, Episode 1: Daleks Daleks released on 27 April 2025. This episode was part of our season The Second Coming, which looked at how Doctor Who monsters are changed in all kinds of ways by the process of removing them from their original context and making them one of the show’s ongoing concerns.

In that episode of 500YD Season 2, Simon remembers watching an episode of Homicide when he was at university. This was a well-known Australian police procedural on the Seven Network, which ran from 1964 to 1977.

The first scene of Doctor Who shot on location appeared in Part 2 of The Reign of Terror, Guests of Madame Guillotine. In it, the Doctor walks along a country lane in long shot. He’s played by Brian Proudfoot, who also appeared as a different character in The Reign of Terror, as an Aridian in The Chase, as Tigellinus in The Romans, and as the Doctor again in The Space Museum. Edmund Warwick played Darrius in The Keys of Marinus, doubled for Hartnell in a scene from The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and played his robot replica in The Chase.

Donald Wilson was the Head of Serials at the BBC when the show was being created. In 1971, he claimed to have come up with the name.

The Masters of Luxor was a Doctor Who script written by Anthony Coburn (who wrote An Unearthly Child), which never made it to production. Even though David Whitaker gave up on the script, some less discerning people saw fit to release it into an unsuspecting world in the form of both a script book and the inevitable Big Finish adaptation.

Here on 500 Year Diary, we like to suggest that in the last three episodes of The Daleks, our heroes are bravely heading into the Dalek City to fetch some more episodes. We get this from Kieran Hodgson’s video Bad Doctor Who Impressions: The Daleks.

Simon has been reading the biography of David Whitaker, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television (2023) by Simon Guerrier.

Peter and Nathan both recognise that The Daleks was very much inspired by both the book (1895) and the film (1960) of H G Wells, The Time Machine.

Flight Through Entirety discussed The Daleks in Episode 2: Horribly Blond(e), released on Sunday 15 June 2014.

And finally, Nathan recklessly spoils an important reveal from the Series 3 Finale of Blakes 7, Terminal, by Terry Nation.

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Nathan is on Bluesky at @nathanbottomley.com, Simon is @simonmoore.bsky.social, and Todd is @toddbeilby.bsky.social. The 500 Year Diary theme was composed by Cameron Lam.

500 Year Diary shares a social media presence with Flight Through Entirety, which means you can follow us on Bluesky and Mastodon, as well as on X and Facebook. Our website is at 500yeardiary.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on Apple Podcasts, or we’ll invite you round to dinner and then leap out at you from behind a pillar brandishing an egg whisk. When you least expect it.

And more

You can find links to all of the podcasts we’re involved in on our podcasts page. But here’s where we’re up to right now.

In the most recent episode of Startling Barbara Bain, we said goodbye to Victor, Paul, David, and that huge beautiful set, while watching the alarmingly mediocre final episode of Season 1 of Space: 1999 — The Last Enemy.

In the most recent episode of The Three Handed Game, the Annette Andre experience continues with an episode of The New Avengers called House of Cards, in which Miss Andre’s Suzy Miller finds out that her husband is (1) a Cold War sleeper agent, and soon afterwards, (2) dead.

On Untitled Star Trek Project, Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford watched a brilliant episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks called Where Pleasant Fountains Lie, in which the Chief Engineer’s mother comes aboard the Cerritos, determined to make sure that her son loses his virginity, so that he will be forced to take his rightful place as King of the Planet Hysperia. Things don’t quite go according to plan.

Recorded on Sunday 24 May 2026 · Download Captures and Escapes and Reversals (66.7 MB)
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Transcript for Captures and Escapes and Reversals