10 Doctor Who Episodes We Were WAY Too Harsh On

Updated special edition DVDs of classic Doctor Who episodes are a contentious issue within the fandom. Is there anything to be gained from replacing old, outdated effects with new CGI? Or is doing so simply removing the charm that made those original episodes so good?

But if there’s one episode where this debate is reasonably one-sided in favour of modern DVD effects, it’s Day of the Daleks. An intriguing political thriller involving human rebels travelling back in time to try and assassinate someone – only to cause the very war they’re trying to avoid – the story had all the elements that would make it seem like it was on track to be an early '70s classic.

There is, however, one issue: the entire story builds towards one final confrontation between UNIT and the Daleks – a confrontation that is sadly undercut by the episode’s budget, meaning that there were only three Dalek props available. Hardly an epic battle, is it? Worst of all, one of those was the gold-painted Supreme Dalek, making it impossible for the production team to disguise that the intended “invading army” was, in fact, a trio of Daleks wobbling about a field. The end result was so anticlimactic that it completely overshadowed the rest of the story.

This is where the DVD special edition comes in. While there are many replacement effects and CGI additions, its main selling point is the increase in the Dalek invasion force, giving the final conflict the scale that was intended, and allowing the rest of the episode to shine unencumbered.