PSAudios 2.5. Eye of the Daleks

"There is no sorrow time heals never, no loss, betrayal beyond repair...”

Soon, it will be time for war.

Into the calm before the battle flies a Star Cruiser helmed by the ambitious Della Tif and his friends... and a Police Box shaped time ship known as the TARDIS. Della is seeking out the ancient Crystal Planet, whose secrets have been lost to the centuries.

Meanwhile the Doctor, Nick and Rob crash land and stumble across his quest for power. But what exactly is the secret of the Crystal Planet?

Who is Choo'Dar, and what is behind her mysterious telepathic abilities?

And are the Doctor and his allies really the first to re-discover the planet?

Soon, it will be time for war.

And not everybody will be returning home.

"Eye of the Daleks" started out as a couple of different pitches, none of which were in anyway similar to the finished script. By the time a synopsis was needed, the story had become the season finale and writer Paul Monk was told that the Daleks would be needed. As it happened he had a Dalek story idea already called "Happiness of the Daleks" but "it just wasn’t epic enough. So I dwelt on the problems for a little while and then the flood gates opened! Soon I had Daleks, Davros, huge great universe ending weapons and our heroes caught up in a war with another species."

There was a quite a big email discussion about who the Daleks would be at war with and it was decided to choose one of the lesser used Who monsters. The PlanetSkaro Audios team pondered on using the Quarks, then someone suggested the Krotons and suddenly that gave writer Paul Monk the big bad weapon that the Daleks would use. Paul explains: "The Krotons were made of crystals and so it made sense that their planet would be too. The Daleks had discovered the planet and were busy making it into a weapon not knowing that their activities would wake the dormant Krotons. Davros was dropped as he didn’t really add anything to the mix and a new set of 3 supporting characters were added. Della Tiff was the son of a very successful galactic governor who just wanted his dad to notice his achievements. He came about as a good ‘way in’ for our characters to get involved in the Dalek story and was probably a very standard megalomaniac until Ant’s performance added to it. Then you had his sidekick, the person who’d go along with him out of loyalty, Fnub."

The genesis of the character of Fnub was quite unique, as Monk explains: "As we’re making audios I saw no reason why he couldn’t be something very alien, so I decided to make him a bee-man. I’d already decided he should speak in a 1950’s hipster slang and remembered a book my house mate once had a book called "Straight From the Fridge, Dad - A Dictionary of Hipster Slang". It made sense that he would be sort of jazzy in his speaking rhythms and what's more jazzy sounding than a bee? Choo’dar was the reluctant third member of the group and I always knew it was going to be her abilities that saved the everyone. In fact the ending was the first thing I had sorted out and was adapted from an earlier pitch. The idea itself was inspired by issues 38 to 40 of Keith Giffen and JM DeMateiss’s Justice League America, where Martian J’onn J’onnz uses a once in a lifetime gift to save his friends."

At around the same time that Heart of the Haniad, Heist! and The Paradise Machine were released, the team reconvened again in Bracknell to record more stories. It would turn out to be the most ambitious session to date with Eye of the Daleks recorded in full, as well as advance scenes for the forthcoming Christmas Spirits and The Curse of Ratanapura. Not only this, but some of the team were also recording Many Happy Returns in secret, as a surprise for producer Si Hunt's birthday.

Some recording problems blighted Eye of the Daleks, with the part of Choo'Dar (played by Ali Pearce, credited as her on-line moniker "Ali Bongo" on the CD sleeve) being of a noticeably lesser recording quality than some of the others, which was a problem as there were many quite intimate scenes required between Rob and Choo'Dar. All the Dalek voices were recorded in advance, and stock music from the TV story "Revelation of the Daleks" was used in the finished production. "Normally I'd shy away from making the source of the music obvious if I re-used it," notes producer Si Hunt. "To avoid it being a distraction. But this time it was a homage. I've always loved the score for Revelation. The production on Eye of the Daleks is one of the ones I'm most proud of."

The appearance of the Daleks was kept as a surprise, and the story was uniquely billed as The Crystal Eye, a decoy title, in the run up to release. On-line "Wanted posters" of the fugitives in Episode 1 were also scattered around the PlanetSkaro forum to stoke up advance interest in the adventure.

"I was a bit surprised by The Doctor's initial lack of fear when it comes to the Daleks (though I suppose that comes from seeing Ecclescake and Tennant s*** themselves whenever they've popped up), but I enjoyed the way he started to lose that towards the end of the episode as he realised he didn't know if he couldn't stop them. I thought it was definitely Paul's best performance as the Doctor so far anyway, and Ali was great (and really different) after her last performance - the relationship with her and Nick was quite touching too." Alex

Just listened and again thought this was excellent. Si's production seems to get better with each story, and really puts you in the moment and allows you to visualise what's going on. The alien planet was suitably eerie and weird sounding, and the incidental music worked really well.

"I love Wayne's Dalek voices as well, like SiHart said, they sound like Michael Wishers...with a bit of Roy Skeleton thrown in. I also loved how the Dalek Supreme sounded like the one from 'Ressurrection', was it meant to be the same one? As the dialogue implied they had met before. And the previous Dalek incidental music was great, I particularly liked the use of the music from Revelation, which has always been one of my favourites. " Martin Penny

"Knowing he's a bit of a method actor, did Pip practice rotating his head through 360 degrees to get into character?" Andrew Curnow

"Is it too late to say how much I enjoyed this? I loved the Dalek voices although there did seem to be a bit of an accent once or twice. But all in all a very good story & really good production values. And Enjoy your Shoes was very emotional." Tim Hawtin

"Listening to this right now - brilliant stuff." Tom Simpson