The Time Lords intercept the Doctor, Sarah and Harry as they return to the Nerva Beacon, and send them to Skaro in the distant past. They arrive amidst a centuries-long war between the Kaleds and the Thals, when a disfigured Kaled scientist named Davros is about to engineer the creation of the Daleks. Sarah is captured by the Thals and forced to work on a devastating missile, while the Doctor convinces the Kaled government to halt Davros' work. But Nyder, the Kaled head of security, betrays them to Davros, who will stop at nothing to unleash his Daleks upon the universe -- not even the destruction of his own people.

Despite the Daleks' infamy as Doctor Who's premiere monster, creator Terry Nation had furnished them with only cursory origins when they were introduced in 1964's The Daleks. These scripts simply established that the Daleks were the mutant descendants of a race called the Dals, survivors of an atomic war against the planet Skaro's other native race, the Thals. Starting in 1965, Nation and former Doctor Who story editor David Whitaker expanded on these notions in a comic strip running in the TV Century 21 magazine. They revealed that the Daleks were the result of experiments conducted by the scientist Yarvelling, who was now described as a member of the Dalek -- not Dal -- race. However, in a 1973 edition of the Radio Times, Nation's short story We Are The Daleks! instead posited that the Daleks were created on Ameron by scientists from Halldon, who had accelerated the evolution of early man.

Later in 1973, Nation began considering ideas for a new Dalek serial, to form part of Doctor Who's twelfth season. This would be the third straight year in which he had contributed a script to the programme, following Planet Of The Daleks and Death To The Daleks. However, the outgoing production team of producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks deemed Nation's initial notions to be overly derivative of earlier works.

Barry Letts suggested that Terry Nation address the absence of a concrete background for the Daleks

Instead, Letts suggested that Nation address the absence in televised Doctor Who of a concrete background for the Daleks. Nation was enthusiastic about the concept, and crafted a new storyline which veered away from both the TV Century 21 and Radio Times versions of the Daleks' origins, while making an effort not to contradict The Daleks itself. New script editor Robert Holmes was not particularly enamoured of the Daleks, and preferred to develop new monsters rather than rely on old stand-bys. Nonetheless, Letts' excitement about the project convinced him to proceed with it.

The six scripts for “Daleks -- Genesis Of Terror” were commissioned on April 4th, 1974. Nation decided to emphasise the new character of Davros, who would be revealed as the creator of the Daleks. Aware that Dalek dialogue was often very tedious -- both to write and to watch -- Nation envisaged Davros as having aspects of both humans and Daleks, enabling him to act as the monsters' mouthpiece. As such, the base of Davros' travelling machine, his single artificial eye, his electronically-modified voice and even his single hand were all designed to evoke the form of the Daleks themselves, but his speech patterns remained relatively natural. Nation was also keen to depict Davros as surviving the events of the story; this was an effort to avoid the mistake he had made at the climax of The Daleks, in which he had effectively killed off his creations after failing to anticipate their impending popularity.

Nation's scripts went through minor changes during their development. The role of a Kaled officer named General Greiner was subsumed into Ravon, while Sevrin was initially paired with a second Muto named Marrass. The character of Tane was originally called Gitane, Kravos was named Fenatin, and Bettan was male. Nation envisaged the Mutos as much more bestial in appearance, their forms usually hidden beneath their rags. The writer had also intended that Sarah's contraction of radiation poisoning would loom large in the narrative, recalling a similar story strand in The Daleks. The brutal, regressive nature of the war between the Kaleds and the Thals was inspired by the 1936 film Things To Come, while Nation also decided to play up the Nazi allusions which, he now realised, had influenced his original conception of the Daleks.

By the time new producer Philip Hinchcliffe took the reins of Doctor Who, Nation's story had been retitled Genesis Of The Daleks. Like Holmes, Hinchcliffe disliked the Daleks, and he was also eager to move away from the six-part stories which had made up nearly half of all serials during Jon Pertwee's five years as the Doctor. Consequently, Hinchcliffe became determined to make Genesis Of The Daleks a more atmospheric and mature production than the more juvenile science-fiction evoked by previous Dalek stories. This approach met with the approval of director David Maloney, whose last work on Doctor Who had been Planet Of The Daleks two years earlier. It was Maloney who scrapped Nation's version of the Doctor's meeting with the Time Lord -- originally set in a serene garden -- and replaced it with a grisly ambush in no man's land, to Nation's chagrin. Maloney envisaged the scene as an homage to The Seventh Seal, the surrealist 1957 film directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Michael Wisher prepared for the role of Davros by wearing a paper bag over his head during rehearsals

Once again, the Dalek ranks for Genesis Of The Daleks were drawn entirely from existing props: the three casings left over from the Sixties, plus four of the remaining “goon” Daleks which Maloney had had built for Planet Of The Daleks. They were all painted in a grey-and-black colour scheme. One significant piece of new construction was Davros' life-support unit, which was effectively a smaller version of a Dalek base. Maloney originally hoped to cast David Baillie (later Dask in 1977's The Robots Of Death) as Davros. When Baillie proved unavailable, the role instead went to Michael Wisher. Wisher had appeared seven Doctor Who serials dating back to 1970, including three in which he provided Dalek voices. He had just completed work as Magrik for Revenge Of The Cybermen, the previous story in production. To play Davros, Wisher would be hidden beneath a mask, sculpted by John Friedlander from a cast of his face. As such, he prepared for the role by wearing a paper bag over his head during rehearsals, so that he would have to work to convey the emotion of the part purely through dialogue. Wisher emulated the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell to create Davros' memorable voice.

The start of filming for Genesis Of The Daleks marked the resumption of production on Doctor Who after New Year's Day 1975. Material set in the wastelands of Skaro was recorded at Betchworth Quarry in Betchworth, Surrey from January 6th to 9th; the 10th was kept in reserve in case of delays, but does not appear to have been needed. Having struggled with the Daleks on location during the making of Planet Of The Daleks, Maloney intentionally arranged his shots for Genesis Of The Daleks so that the props would appear only in the studio. Next, the scaffolding escape sequence was recorded at the BBC Television Film Studios in Ealing, London on January 13th and 14th. Model shots of the Kaled dome were completed on the 16th at the premises of animators Bob Bura and John Hardwick in Crouch End, London.

Genesis Of The Daleks was taped in three fortnightly studio sessions; as had been standard throughout Doctor Who's twelfth recording block, these took place on Mondays and Tuesdays. Recording began on January 27th and 28th, at BBC Television Centre Studio 1 in White City, London. Episode One was completed on the Monday, together with the Episode Three material set in Command HQ. The Tuesday saw most of Episode Two go before the cameras, alongside Episode Four scenes in the detention room and the adjacent corridor.

The second block, on February 10th and 11th, shifted to TC8. Most of the rest of Episode Three was taped on the Monday, as was the remaining material from Episode Two, set in the rocket silo and the ductwork. Only the sequences in the launch room and the lab remained for the third installment, and these were completed on the Tuesday. Otherwise, the 11th was chiefly devoted to Episode Four, plus Episode Five scenes in the trench and the Thal corridor. By this point, the decision had been made to tone down some of the serial's more overt Nazi-inspired imagery; most notably, actor Peter Miles ceased wearing Nyder's iron cross.

The last two days -- February 24th and 25th -- saw Maloney's team at work in TC6. Episode Five was completed on the Monday, while the Tuesday was dedicated to Episode Six. The recording block then continued on to Terror Of The Zygons, although it was now known that this serial -- originally intended to conclude Season Twelve -- would instead be held over to start Doctor Who's thirteenth season in the autumn. In editing, the third part of Genesis Of The Daleks was found to be overlong, which necessitated a change to its planned cliffhanger. As scripted, this was Davros' declaration that the Daleks would be the ultimate conquerors of the universe. Instead, this material was shifted into Episode Four, with the third installment now ending on the Doctor's electrocution.

Mary Whitehouse decried Genesis Of The Daleks as “tea-time brutality for tots”

On March 29th, the broadcast of Episode Four marked a change to the BBC Saturday night schedule. The Wonderful World Of Disney, which had followed Doctor Who for the past several weeks, had now concluded its run, and the twenty-first season of Dixon Of Dock Green was brought forward from later in the evening to take its place. By that time, however, Genesis Of The Daleks had sparked a resurgence of the criticism Doctor Who had endured in the early Seventies, when stories such as Terror Of The Autons had been denounced for their violent and horrific content. Once again, amongst the programme's most vocal opponents was Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers' And Listeners' Association, who decried Genesis Of The Daleks as “tea-time brutality for tots”. Even Terry Nation himself admitted that, while he felt the serial was well made, he considered it to be inappropriate viewing for his children, Joel and Rebecca.

Despite the furore, Hinchcliffe observed that he had ensured the violence depicted in Genesis Of The Daleks was not of the sort which children could copy and that, ultimately, the responsibility for deciding the suitability of a programme lay with the parents. This was hardly sufficient to mollify Whitehouse and her supporters, however, and Genesis Of The Daleks would not be the last time that Hinchcliffe and Doctor Who would find themselves in her cross hairs...

• Doctor Who Magazine #250, 9th April 1997, “Archive: Genesis Of The Daleks” by Andrew Pixley, Panini UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #8, 1st September 2004, “You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #23, 2016, “Story 78: Genesis Of The Daleks”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1992), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Seventies by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1994), Virgin Publishing.
• In·Vision #4, May 1988, “Production” edited by Justin Richards and Peter Anghelides, Cybermark Services.