The Evil of the Daleks (Doctor Who serial, 1967)

Evil of the Daleks is a seven-episode serial from the fourth season of the long-standing time travel sci-fi Doctor Who, during the tenure of the "Second Doctor", played (marvellously) by Patrick Troughton.

The Daleks, of course, are alien, fascist robots that wheel around, threaten humans with extermination, and look like a bit like salt and pepper shakers.  They are indeed quite evil.  They were also extremely popular ever since they appeared in only the second ever Doctor Who serial, and by the time of Evil of the Daleks they had already made several appearances.  Evil was actually meant to be their last, although of course, they couldn't stay away for long.

The plot of Evil is actually quite convoluted.  Suffice to say that it takes place both in modern-day (i.e. 1960's) and 1860's Britain, as well as the Dalek homeworld Skaro, and stars a 19th century aristocrat (complete with top hat) obsessed with turning iron to gold, an antiques dealer posing as a Victorian fob who sells suspiciously accurate forgeries, and a mute Turkish strongman with a fez.  Of course, it's marvelously cheesy even for 1960's sci-fi, but Troughton is a fascinating Doctor to watch, and the unusual plot keep things from getting too staid.

Unfortunately, watching the serial is a bit tricky, given that only one of the seven episodes currently exists in full.  Due to the BBC's policy of wiping their video tape archives in the 60's and 70's, a total of 97 early Doctor Who episodes are lost.  What we do have from the first few seasons exists pretty much by accident; the second episode of Evil was a fan-made recording found in a garage sale, according to Wikipedia.

But, in fact, full-length fan-made audio soundtracks exist for every Doctor Who episode.  In addition, we also have "tele-snaps," which are photographs of certain scenes made to put in the actor's portfolios.  Remarkably, Doctor Who fans have stitched these together with the soundtracks to reconstruct the missing episodes.  (The BBC has done this themselves with particularly important episodes.)  These reconstructions can be found online.  I've actually found these pretty watchable.  Where the soundtrack fails to clue us in, a bit of text scrolling will narrate the action.  Quite amusingly, there's even a few live-action shots, with actors who hide their faces, and some just to replace a shot of someone walking down a corridor.

I know this doesn't sound fun to watch, but remember that early sci-fi was filled with inventive premises that were usually quite disappointing in execution.  Consider the Daleks themselves - although the idea of a Nazi robot frightened the heck out of British schoolchildren, actually watching them roll across a floor yelling "Exterminate!" is pretty giggle-inducing.  So with these reconstructions, it was a pleasure to use my imagination to enhance what was on-screen.  Frequently, I would close my eyes, and recreate the scene in my mind, probably making something much better than the BBC could do anyways.

Does that make Evil in the Daleks an essential sci-fi classic?  Well, not really - like I said, the show is still pretty cheesy.  But it's still very cool to see fans add something worthwhile to their beloved franchise.