'Evil of the Daleks' was intended to be the final ever Dalek story so that the creatures could be extracted from the Doctor Who universe and exploited by Terry Nation in their own TV series. The story therefore supposedly culminated in the final destruction of the Dalek race in a climactic battle scene.



For six of the seven episodes of this epic, the production used only four props. The two side-bolted skirts return, plus the original '63 skirt. A high-screwed-box shoulder section which had gone missing during 'Power of the Daleks' has re-appeared for 'Evil' joining its matching counterpart. The refurbed film-style DIoE1 shoulders return as usual, and the distinctive neck repair can be seen too. To these three a fourth prop was added...

The new Dalek provided was extremely distinctive. Unlike any Dalek before or since, the skirt of this prop was narrowed at the rear. Because normal Daleks are too wide for a standard door and a real house was to be used in location filming for the first time, this would seem a logical precaution to take when building a new prop. The narrow skirt only afforded one single column of hemispheres on the back face instead of the usual two. Additionally the shoulder section has oddly-space slats and featured the unusually fine shoulder mesh seen on the likes of the gold Dalek in the second film. Aside from the unique skirt, the prop has everything else in common with a film-style Dalek. Even with its modified rear panel, the telltale bad hemisphere alignment can be seen.

For episode seven only, a fifth prop was used which was, generally speaking, the film-style prop which first appears in 'Power' with its distinctive extruded gun, particular collar screw configuration, and other damage which confirms it to be the same prop.

With 'Curse of the Daleks' having been made relatively recently some researchers have linked both this "thin" Dalek and the episode-seven film-style Dalek to the props built for that play. This seems to hang largely on two factors: The aforementioned hemisphere alignment and some promotional 'Curse' photographs apparently showing a Dalek with a very short arm. A short arm can be seen in 'Evil' (pictured left).

The first idea is focussed on the assumption that any prop with a film-style skirt must therefore be a film prop, which is undermined by the fact that between the spring of 1965 and spring of 1966 we know Shawcraft provided nearly two dozen new skirts, all of which had this same misalignment. The idea that the hemisphere problem was an embarrassing error limited to a one-off batch simply holds no water, as it was repeated so many times. Therefore any newly appearing props with film-type characteristics are as likely as anything to be new builds.

The evidence of the short-arm Dalek in 'Evil' can be weighed against the fact that the lower collar of this prop is not of 'Curse' appearance. So on the one hand you have an easily-replaceable (or recessed) arm which hints at 'Curse' origin and on the other you have much less easily-replaceable lower collar which says this is not a 'Curse' prop!

On the strength of these factors, the sometimes-hypothesised massive influx of stage and film props into the mix would seem to be at best an exaggeration and at worse, a false assumption. All evidence points to continued recycling of the TV props throughout the 60s, with the addition of one new film-styled 'hero' Dalek in 'Power of the Daleks' and one new thin-Dalek made for 'Evil', also with film-type appearance.

The thin-Dalek has been dubbed the 'Wilkie' Dalek after it passed into the hands of Bernard Wilkie, however the prop which his son Martin Wilkie now owns (and which has appeared in exhibitions) is not the complete 'thin' prop as it was created for 'Evil'. The 'Wilkie' prop today consists of the thin skirt, plus the refurbed DIoE1 film-type-gunbox shoulder section with its distinctive 'sagging' collar. This shoulder-section is pictured here in a publicity shot in late '67 along with a prop consisting of the film-type shoulder section first seen in 'Power' plus the neck section from 'Invasion' with is distinctive repair. Also of note in other photos from this sequence is the fact that several of the eye-discs are badly damaged and the larger ones have all but fallen off.

Along with the mixed collection of five Daleks there was of course the giant Dalek Emperor which first featured in this story. It was in his throne room that the final battle took place which lead to the destruction of the Dalek race. For this end battle lightweight props were used in conjunction with model shots of toy Daleks. The final battle scenes were the only time all five Daleks were used together. The plot required some Daleks to have black domes and, rather than switch to different domes, it appears that they were painted in studio as required (right). Another interesting point to note is that 'Evil' contained the the first use of a pupil on the Daleks' eye (above left). 

As mentioned above this was due to be the last Dalek story, and it wasn't until five years later that this decision would be reversed. Often during the life of the Dalek props they would be loaned out for charity work and public appearances adding to their poor state.

Interestingly the narrow-collared shoulder which was missing from 'Evil' was in a terrible state of repair when it was photographed in November 67. This picture on the right, taken four months after 'Evil' shows how the lower collar is broken and three of the slats at the back are damaged or missing. The shoulders are paired up with the film-style skirt which only appeared in the final episode of 'Evil'.

Although the Daleks were essentially gone from Doctor Who, they still made the occasional fleeting screen appearance such as on the TARDIS screen in 'The Wheel in Space' (showing a clip from episode two of 'Evil of the Daleks') but more significantly at the climax of 'The War Games'. 

For studio recording in February of 1969 they assembled a dishevelled prop which featured many of the more interesting components from Dalek history. The whole top half is the same as in the above 1967 photo-call, with its sorry-looking head now missing lights and the badly-damaged eye-discs having fallen off , leaving only two discs remaining. The neck is showing its unique repair, first seen in 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' whilst the shoulders are the film-style set which first appeared in 'Power'. Finally the lower half is the unique "thin" skirt made for 'Evil'.

And so on that tattered note the Daleks bowed out of the 60s and the black and white era that had been their heyday. In various mixed forms the ragged army had finally come to be represented by a single oddball in Troughton's swansong. And so, save for a very odd fleeting moment in 'The Mind of Evil', the Daleks were left out of Doctor Who for many years...