Death to the Daleks is the third serial of the 11th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 23 February to 16 March 1974.
Sarah Jane is attacked by one of the creatures in the TARDIS, and flees, finding a huge city with a flashing beacon.
At dawn, the Doctor is found by a party of humans from the Marine Space Corps; they take him to their ship, which has been stranded by the power drain.
They are on an expedition to mine "Parrinium" – a mineral abundant only on Exxilon – which can cure and give immunity from a deadly space plague.
Bellal's people seek to complete their ancestors' last, failed act – to destroy the city and ensure their race's survival.
The pair are saved when the Daleks enter and fight the antibodies, and the Doctor and Bellal escape as the city's sabotaged controls begin to malfunction.
On leaving Exxilon, the Daleks intend to fire a plague missile onto the planet, destroying all life and making future landings impossible, so that they will have the only source of Parrinium.
Their true intention for hoarding Parrinium is to blackmail the galactic powers to accept their demands; refusal would mean the deaths of millions.
[citation needed] The incidental music for this serial was composed by Carey Blyton and performed by the London Saxophone Quartet.
Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "A confused story with, for once, too much rather than too little plot.
They wrote that, despite the "small scale" action, "the scripts are still well-written and entertaining, with a good premise and some interesting concepts", and the story overall was "of excellent set pieces and impressive images".
However, Howe and Walker were less impressed with the model shots of the city disintegrating, the Exxilons' character depth, and the incidental music.
[8] Ian Berriman, reviewing the serial for SFX, rated it three out of four stars, describing it as "a perfectly adequate four episodes of generic action-adventure".
Berriman praised the atmospheric direction, Bellal, and felt that the score "effectively conjures an air of the uncanny".
However, he felt that the Daleks were "daft", and criticised the puzzle plot and Jill, the "feeble" sole female character.