#also idk if that was actually supposed to be alpha or the trick jamie suspects it to be

[galacticlamps]

This isn’t the only (it isn’t even the first) scene in the episode 7 script that never made it to broadcast, but it’s a good example of the kind of stuff that was also cut in other places too:

A lot of the lines that were cut in scenes that did survive also had the Doctor repeatedly returning to the question of why the Daleks were able to be so confident that he’d help them - and I kinda have to admit I think the script for this particular episode might’ve been stronger than what actually made it onscreen. And maybe my perspective’s inherently biased, since it’s a missing episode and whatever visuals or action sequences seemed worthy of the time they took up back when the episode was being edited down have since become indecipherable audio tracks of daleks yelling, and I’m sure that all was much more impressive when you could actually see it - but I still feel like scenes like this one would’ve given the episode more of an arc. Or I guess technically, they would’ve just better served the arc that’s still in there, albeit I think a little awkwardly underplayed.

Idk, I don’t dislike episode 7, and frankly a lot of stuff happens in it (I don’t think Evil’s too long for the story it tells - I understand people not wanting to watch a mostly missing 7-parter, but personally I do feel like it earns its length), but maybe just because the serial’s so famous for its ending, I sometimes think the last episode feels a little like just waiting for some big epic finale where the daleks start killing each other. And I think emphasizing the fact that the Doctor’s got a mystery to solve, even though he mostly does it from inside a prison cell, would’ve given it just a little more of a foundation to hold its own as an installment - while at the same time making the twist about the dalek factor not working on the Doctor because he’s finally confirmed to be a totally non-human alien carry a bit more impact too