The Daleks: Doctor Who: Season 1

Goldby

Grob

Long

Then the Doctor realises he has left behind a TARDIS component in the city stranding them on Skaro forever unless Barbara and Ian persuade the pacifist Thals to join their expedition back to the Dalek city and destroy the Daleks. Their fate is in the hands of the Thals while the radiation dependent Daleks decide to unleash a megatron bomb to destroy their enemies and the make the surface of the planet inhabitable for only their species.

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The Daleks DETAILS:

The Daleks REVIEWS



Goldby

They make their debut here, good gosh they must have been creepy and totally frightening to the kiddies back in '63 / 64.

Frightening but fascinating. Guess that's why they've never been killed off because they look so unique and original as opposed to any alien creatures featured before or since in the whole Sci-fi universe! We don't see them until episode 2 and pow! What an entrance. The Tardis crew was on top form, Ian's brave and heroic, Barbara motherly and comforting and Susan, scatty and scared but Hartnell steals the show, when this guy was on in his early days he's on! Whether his crotchety ways or his barely veiled attempts to manipulate everyone into doing what he wants, he's the perfect anti hero..and his speech at the end…what a pity he lost his marbles toward the end of his time on the show.

The Thals are noble but boring, the sets were great and everything was still so new and creepy. Maybe 7 episodes was stretching the storyline a bit, like the budget which resorted to cardboard cut out daleks to feature more than four of them. But no denying everybody gives their all almost as though they knew they probably wouldn't keep going after a 52 episode run and wanted to make something really memorable. 8/10



Grob

And now we have the reason that this whole damn show has survived so long; the Daleks are here! This sure put the WOW factor into the program in 1963 with kids going mental and putting rubbish bins over their heads and yelling exterminate at everything. Raymond Cusak's design of the daleks is 100% why they are so popular (and NOT Terry Nation's bland writing) and its not hard to see why - there isn't a damn thing like them anywhere else. And for the first (and only time) they are portrayed as four thinking, paranoid, scheming, nasty little bastards. Honestly, you won't see this again until Daleks In Manhattan (which, coincidentally also featured four paranoid, scheming, nasty little bastards.) I never get tired of seeing the Daleks here. They look and sound unreal.

On the production-side, this is a real treat cos there are quite a few locations to get through (plus the interior of the Tardis) and the designers do an admirable job here with the space available. The petrified forest looks great and the Dalek city looks a lot bigger than it is. We even get a lake full of amateur theatre reviewers - sorry; mutations. The model of the Dalek city looks good and episode one features the very first alien ever featured in Dr Who - the Magnatron Beast.

Our regular cast are still finding their feet with their new roles just as the characters they are portraying are finding out about each other. The Doctor is a bit of a prick here - sabotaging his ship by removing the fluid link just to take a look at the city. And then losing the fluid link in the Dalek city and making the Thals fight the Daleks and get killed just so he can get the damn thing back. Like I said; what a prick. He gets everyone into this mess, and then looks the other way as he makes people pay the ultimate sacrifice by getting him out of it. And he doesn't even give a shit! Susan is a bit wet here with her whining about going to the Tardis all by herself to get the Aspirins (she seemed a lot braver in the first episode of An Unearthly Child when she didn't give a toss about walking home in the dark and maybe being picked off by a rapist.) Babs and Ian are both dependable representing the viewers at home.

This is my favourite dalek story. Sure, its long. In fact its overly long. The Thal characters are pretty one-dimensional and their characters are dictated by the course of the action and plot of the stories needs, but hey. Its just one of those "comfort stories" for me. You can put it on, watch a couple of episodes, wander off somewhere, download copious amounts of porn from the 'net, come back and can still slot yourself easily into the plot regardless of how much you've missed.

Probably like "An Unearthly Child" I like it more after its been remastered, restored and vid-fired within an inch of its life. Oh, and its got that female Thal in it whom I'd like to bend over one of the polystyrene rocks, part her beef curtains and give a big serving of salami to. 7.5 outta 10 for me. I enjoy it, but its a tad long, but not boring.

Question for you gents; have either of you seen the Peter Cushing version of this? I have it and tried to watch it but its just so.........................kitsch (or however you say it.) And I want to kill Roberta Tovey



Long

Much like Grob's view of an Unearthly Child - I have to give this one a high score as I think this is the reason we still have Dr Who today.

Can anyone else think of any pop culture icons from 1964 that are still going strong today? After The Beatles and The Stones, I can't think of many... maybe James Bond? It's pretty elite company... I also can't think of any non core, recurring creation from a TV series that is still so loved... maybe The Joker? But even The Beatles, The Stones, James Bond and The Joker have undergone some pretty major face lifts over the years... but not the Daleks!

They are an amazing creation. When you sit and think about it, they shouldn't work - they're too big and clunky for starters - but they are a cornerstone of the creativity associated with the show.

The story itself is probably a bit slow... but a lot of stories prior to season 12 suffered from that. It does hold up well though, creating the first "alternate world" in the whoniverse - complete with back story and rival tribes... all of which still hold true today. Yeah dialogue is clunky, acting is a bit tacky and sets are cardboady... but that only adds to the strength of the Daleks... despite all this, they still become a legend!

9/10

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