'Destiny of the Daleks' is renowned for its bizarre mish-mash of props, all in the poorest state they had been so far. As mentioned before, when the NSC props were built the BBC then had a 'pool' of props to work with. 'Destiny'  went to town in exploiting this and ended up with a real mixed bag, however it still managed to produce a skirt never seen before!

Four Daleks were used in 'Destiny', and all existing props were checked for their condition. The lead Dalek was a complete NSC prop converted to become a fully working Dalek. This was left in its dark grey 'Genesis' colour. The 'Dalek Invasion of Earth' skirt and refurbished original shoulder section made up the second Dalek. The third was made up of NSC skirt (with signs of a split between panels) and film shoulders. The fourth was a mix of original Shawcraft dome, NSC shoulders and new, very odd, skirt. More of which later.

By now only one original neck bin was left in use, the other three were from NSC props. The necks and domes varied in position greatly between the three props, and possibly even swapped around. These props were painted a light grey colour with black trimmings. The complete NSC prop and the prop with the film style shoulders were given new lights. The film style shouldered prop also had black rings placed around its lights. All props were given a new eyestalk although there is a variance in shades of the eyerings on each.

'Destiny' also showed first use of the small antennae added to the top of the domes. It seems more likely though that the "antennae" were actually part of a new pivot system for turning the domes.

This was the first story that no skirt from an original prop appeared. In addition the original shoulders with the thinner collar (under the boxes) also didn't appear. It is understood that in the preparation for the making of the story it was discovered that these parts were too poor to use, and so were cut up to produce moulds for the vacuum form SFX props that appeared later in the story. Certainly the original skirt didn't appear again, but the shoulder section did reappear in 'The Five Doctors' which begs the question of just how much was cut up, if at all? 

As mentioned above one of the Daleks was given a new skirt. It was of very different design to the usual skirt. Viewed from side on it looked more symmetrical than normal. i.e. The angle of the front part of the skirt was now repeated on the back as opposed to the much steeper normal rear. The hemis are larger and very erratically spaced. The precise origin of this skirt is unknown, but has been suggested that it came from an exhibition prop. It was itself in quite a state as some vacuum formed hemis were clearly stuck to the one of the back panels. The fact that it was patched up itself suggests it wasn't a new build. The use of this skirt seems even more bizarre when you consider that the film skirt was still around somewhere at this time! Although not used in 'Destiny' it reappears for 'The Five Doctors'. So why wasn't it used in Destiny? It is possible that the skirt along with the original Shawcraft shoulders, also not being used, were being used at an exhibition and therefore unavailable. More on this 'oddball' Dalek is below.

Used firstly on location the props looked fairly good, but on return were found to be in a bad way again, so they were once again refurbished. At this point three of the Daleks were requested for 'guest' appearances on other BBC shows, and once again came back in a poor state only this time there was no time to repair them for the studio recordings. Hence the poor state of the props in studio.

As mentioned earlier use was made of several vacuum formed Daleks. These were extremely crude hollow props that were used to boost the numbers and to blow up on location. Being hollow the operators literally hoisted them up and walked with them in the same was the the Dalek hovered over Camber Sands way back in 'The Chase'. This led to the props rocking badly and looked very poor in the finished serial. Three of these were salvaged for studio use and can be seen in the background in one of the scenes.

The life of the 'Oddball' can be easily traced due to it's strange look. A new picture has cropped up (left, with thanks to Mark Kelly) showing the prop in June 1978. This is more than a year earlier than its screen debut, and adds credence to the story that the skirt was made for promotional and exhibition use. It was obviously paired with an NSC top half at this point. As previously pointed out there was a pool of props for the BBC to use after 'Planet' and possibly one of the NSC skirts had become damaged and this odd skirt was a replacement to complete a full prop? After its 'Destiny' outing its next appearances were at the Madame Tussauds display, the 20th anniversary event at Longleat and on the rear cover of the Radio Times anniversary special. It wasn't quite in its 'Destiny' guise though as the refurbed original shoulders (with the four bolts around the oval) and original neck bin (in a very high position) had replaced the NSC shoulders and neck. This time it was painted mainly blue with silver studs, black shoulder collars, and a black oval.

Jumping forward in time to follow the life of this prop: It appeared in the following serial 'Resurrection of the Daleks' and also, fleetingly, in 'Revelation of the Daleks' it then spent some time at the original Blackpool exhibition (right) looking very worse for wear!  It came up for auction in 1986 in aid of Children in Need and raised several thousand pounds. It had been refurbished for the sale and whilst looking neater, it had lost some of original features. The oval was now larger, more than likely to cover up the four bolts, and it now had a smaller eyeball. This probably came from an exhibition Dalek, more than likely from Blackpool, which had closed the previous year. It came up for auction again in Bristol in 2003. It was still looking the same as in 1986 although it was now missing all but one of its hemis. It was withdrawn by the seller but not before some good pictures were able to be taken. 2005 saw the Dalek come up for auction yet again, this time refurbished back to the blue/silver it had been some 13 years earlier at the Tussauds exhibition. The oval was now reduced back to normal size and the bolts again were on show. This time it was sold for £30,000! (With thanks to Chris Balcombe for the pictures from 2003)

Before the 'Dalek Invasion of Earth' skirt was to appear on TV again, it appeared, quite bizarrely, as Davros' chair for the 20th Anniversary event at Longleat. The event featured a group of monsters and the TARDIS for attendees to have their picture taken with and in the mix was the odd-looking Davros sunken into this Shawcraft skirt. It can be identified by the unique triple-bolt set on both sides. Perhaps this highlights more than anything just how the props were used between TV adventures, and why they came back in the poor condition they did.

As noted above the thin collared original shoulders did not appear in 'Destiny'. It did however reappear in 1980 in an edition of 'Pebble Mill'. Peter Davison had just taken on the role of Doctor Who and as part of the promotion several monsters featured including a Dalek. Its appearance was very strange and battered, looking (as speculated above) as if it had been away at an exhibition, which does neatly explain why it didn't appear in 'Destiny'. The skirt and neck were NSC, the dome appears to be an original although now sporting the lights with the black ring around. The shoulders were the most interesting part. As established, these were the original thin collared shoulders, although now they had fewer slats and looked as if they had been through the wars in the two or three years since they were last seen with Bob Holmes! The whole prop was rather sad and comical looking but despite that the top half was seen again in the very next story that required a Dalek.

The Daleks ended the 70s on a bit of a whimper and not exactly in the best condition. It would again be four years before a Dalek was seen in the show, and it was in the main part a prop that hadn't been seen since 'Genesis'...

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