1. The Dalek Invasion of Earth was broadcast from 21st November (the week of Doctor Who's first anniversary) to 26th December 1964. It marked the second appearance of the Daleks and thus the first time an enemy re-appeared in the series.
But it's origins go back to the February of that year, less than a month after the broadcast of the final episode of the Dalek's debut serial. As they had proved to be so popular, Verity Lambert and story editor David Lambert approached Daleks creator Terry Nation with the idea of bringing the pepper-pot shaped foes back - even though their final and ultimate demise had just been witnessed at the end of their first adventure!
On March 17th 1964, Nation was commissioned to write a sequel in which the Daleks invade Earth, which was provisionally scheduled to be the final serial of Doctor Who's first season.
2. Nation's initial working title for this new story was "The Daleks", as at that time their debut adventure was known as "The Mutants". The title change for the first Dalek adventure would come many years later, after a brief spell of being referred to as "The Dead Planet", courtesy of the Radio Times. Nation went through several other working titles for this new adventure, including "The Daleks (II)", "The Invaders", "Daleks Threaten Earth" and "The Daleks in Europe" before settling on, for now, "The Return Of The Daleks".
Incidentally, this story has also at times been called "World's End" (which is the title of the first episode), most notably in the frontispiece of its novelisation, and again by the 1973 Radio Times 10th anniversary special (and several lists that copied it).
3. After it was decided that there would be a break in transmission following The Reign Of Terror, and Planet Of Giants would open season two, what was still being referred to as "The Return Of The Daleks" was scheduled to be the second story of Doctor Who's second season. Around this time Lambert and Whitaker had become concerned about the composition of their regular cast, and considered writing out Barbara in order to reduce the cast size.
However, Carole Ann Ford felt that Susan was not being properly developed as a character and had grown unhappy on Doctor Who. Ford had made suggestions about her characters development, such as Susan having a crush on Ian, but they had fallen on deaf ears. It reached the point where Ford's husband, who was acting as her agent, unsuccessfully attempted to have her released from her contract prematurely. With this in mind, Lambert and Whitaker decided to drop the idea of writing out Barbara and replace Susan with another teenaged girl, with the change occurring in "The Return Of The Daleks", so on July 30th 1964 Nation was approached to add an exit scenario for Susan, which he incorporated into his script for episode six.
4. Nation included in his scripts the character of a teenage rebel named Saida, an English girl of Indian descent (who was revealed as Dortmun's daughter after his death). Saida stowed away aboard the TARDIS at the story's conclusion, becoming the new companion. Subsequently, this character evolved into the Caucasian Jenny, one of several changes made to the serial prior to recording.
On August 17th 1964, Verity Lambert selected Pamela Franklin to play Jenny, but as contract negotiations with the main cast had hit a temporary roadblock, and with the future of Doctor Who currently in doubt, Lambert elected to proceed with the elimination of Susan from the series in "The Return Of The Daleks", but asked Nation to reduce the importance of Jenny in the scripts, with the character no longer joining the TARDIS crew.
The diminished role would eventually be played by Ann Davies, and with the eventual negotiation of acceptable contracts for William Hartnell, William Russell and Jacqueline Hill, Susan's replacement would now be introduced in the serial following "The Return Of The Daleks".
5. When it came for "The Return Of The Daleks" to go before the camera, the props department encountered a sizeable Dalek-shaped problem.
After production had finished on "The Daleks", two of the four Dalek casings made were donated to Barnardo's children's home in Stepney, with the thought at the time being that they probably wouldn't be needed ever again. But six Dalek casings would indeed be needed for this new adventure (with two of them to be 'different' to the others, to show the varying levels of authority amongst the Daleks), but with only two in storage the production could not afford to produce four new ones, so Designer Spencer Chapman had to approach Barnardos and ask for their Daleks back!
Temporarily, of course. They were returned again to Barnardos after this serial was completed.
6. By the time episode one was recorded on September 18th 1964, the serial had been renamed "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth", and was to be the very first serial of Doctor Who to make extensive use of location filming, with London being chosen as the primary backdrop.
Location filming took place in various parts of the city including extensive sequences at Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Bridge, Albert Embankment and The Royal Albert Hall, moving on to Kensington and the Albert Memorial with scenes involving the Dalek roadblock being filmed at Wembley. These scenes were shot in the early hours of Sunday mornings. Other location scenes were filmed at the abandoned Wood Lane (Central line) tube station in West London and river sequences both shot besides the River Thames at St Katharine Docks in Wapping and at Kew Railway Bridge.
The mine scenes were the first of oh-so-many Doctor Who scenes to be filmed in a quarry, using the disused John's Hole Quarry at Stone, Kent.
7. William Hartnell is absent from episode four, bar a single shot in the reprise from episode three. The Doctor appears briefly at the beginning of the episode with Hartnell's stand-in, Edmund Warwick, shot from behind, groaning and falling over.
This is because Hartnell was injured while filming the battle at the Dalek saucer in episode three. He fell off the ramp of the Dalek flying saucer, down which he was being carried by Richard McNeff (Baker), when McNeff suddenly collapsed. Hartnell hit a metal camera stand, landing awkwardly on his spine. Although he was temporarily paralysed he recovered sufficiently to continue the recording, but it was decided he should have the following week off to recover from the bruised back he had sustained.
His stand-in, Edmund Warwick, went on to appear as the First Doctor's robotic double in the later 1965 Dalek serial, The Chase.
8. Although they had used "exterminated" in episode four of the debut adventure, it was during the final episode of "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" that the word destined to become the Daleks' catchphrase was uttered for the first time - "Exterminate!". It was used, of course, on a regular basis to refer to the killing of individuals, furthering their parallels with Nazism, established in their debut, which was so influential to Nation's original script.
During this story they even go so far as to refer to the killings as a "final solution", a phrase associated with Nazism (and Katie Hopkins).
9. Not only would "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" see Carole Ann Ford depart the series, but it was also the end of David Whitaker's time as the programme's original story editor (although he was already committed to writing the next serial in production, The Rescue).
Whitaker continued to contribute scripts to Doctor Who, and also helped write the screenplay for both Dalek films produced by Milton Subotsky in association with Aaru Pictures. As with Dr Who And The Daleks (the big-screen version of The Daleks), the Aaru adaptation of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, titled Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, starred Peter Cushing as human scientist Dr Who and Roberta Tovey as Susan, with the roles of Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright being replaced by the new characters Louise (Jill Curzon) and Tom Campbell (played by none other than Bernard "Wilfred Mott" Cribbins). It premiered on July 22nd, 1966.
10. Although the Daleks had been very popular after their initial outing, the fortuitous scheduling of "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" during November and December 1964 incited a surge of Dalek-related hype throughout the holiday season. Christmas 1964 saw dozens of items of Dalek (and occasionally Doctor Who) merchandise invade stores. Riding this wave, The Dalek Invasion Of Earth became the series' most successful adventure to date, hitting highs of 12.4 million for both the second and sixth episodes and, more notably, making Doctor Who one of the week's Top Ten television programmes.
Previously
10 Things You Might Not Know About The Three Doctors
10 Things You Might Not Know About The Five Doctors
10 Things You Might Not Know About Doctor Who: The TV Movie
20 Things You Might Not Know About Doctor Who: Series One
10 Things You Might Not Know About The Daleks
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