Doctor Who - The Daleks [VHS]

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VHS Movie Reviews of Doctor Who - The Daleks [VHS]

Movie Review: Don't EX-TER-MIN-ATE! this one...
Summary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: Unwilling Adventurers
Summary: 5 Stars

In retrospect, "The Daleks" is helped by its seven-episode length. Half an hour goes by before we even see a Dalek and an hour before we see a Thal, and those are the first two alien races the show ever gave us. But there's something even better in their place: sets. Even though it's confined to studio, Skaro is a thoroughly alien world. The establishing shots are overexposed, making everything look "white and ashy". There's also a creepy alien corpse and a pristine flower (that, naturally, the Doctor ignores). When we finally get to the Dalek city, the doorways are weird and angular. Tristram Cary's unnerving score further sets the mood.

While Skaro looks more impressive than you'd expect from the story's 1963 vintage, here's a TARDIS crew completely at odds with each other. William Hartnell's Doctor is as selfish as he ever got, sabotaging his own ship just so he can lure the others down to the city. After Ian and Barbara (who calls herself an "unwilling adventurer") demand food, he takes them to his food machine... and doesn't offer them a thing. When he learns that Skaro's air is poisonous, he's ready to run back to the TARDIS and take off... leaving the missing Barbara behind. He's a childish old man, and, thanks to a daring script, is on death's door 20 minutes later.

Although the story takes seven episodes to tell, each individual episode is built entirely around one key concept. Though all of the third episode is devoted to "The Escape", for example (events which in the show's later years could be compressed to eight minutes), it's very carefully done. There's innocence, for example, when no-one realizes that the Daleks are monitoring their cell. The Daleks' interrogation of the Doctor is creepy, as the ailing Doctor is forced to kneel in a pool of harsh white light, with the Daleks willing to let him die since they can't spare anti-radiation drugs.

Once the TARDIS crew escapes, the Thals (withheld from view until the third episode) take over the story. We're told the natural history of Skaro -- a war waged with neutron bombs which ended thousands of years in civilization in a single. The Dals, the philosopher-kings, became twisted creatures living in metal shells, dependent on static electricity. The warmongering Thals became tall, elegant farmers, whose onscreen presence is even more imposing thanks to shrewd direction -- when Susan meets the story's first Thal, Alydon, he appears to be ten feet tall, until we see he's just standing on a ledge.

The story's moral centerpiece is the debate about pacifism versus non-violence. How far will the Thals go to keep their core values while fighting off the Daleks? The Daleks, merely paranoid in the first episodes (killing the Thals' pacifist leader, wrongly believing him to be a spy), quickly become ruthless when they realize that they'll have to flood Skaro with more radiation in order to survive... even though all the Thals will die. Most of episodes four and five are concerned with Ian's attempts to teach the Thals that "some things are worth preserving". On the flip side of that argument is the Doctor (and a vengeful Barbara), who merely want to turn the Thals into disposable shock troops, so the Doctor can retrieve his lost equipment from the city and leave the Thals to chance. It's a long argument, and a risky one, and, in the end, neither side is right, and he Thals' death toll mounts quickly. However, Ian's plan (stealth and intelligence, not violence) wins the day.

It's been said that the final "Doctor Who" TV story, 1989's "Survival", featured a "harsh" repudiation of Ian's morality. I don't think this a good idea, or even an accurate one. More important by 1989 was the realization that Susan didn't have to be a screaming teen afraid of walking alone outdoors. On the whole, Ian's morality remains intact under today's scrutiny; the Thals would have all died, without it. Even so, we're not meant to applaud Ian's simulated kidnapping of a Thal woman. At any rate, Hartnell's Doctor was not a pacifist, and without the human element of Ian and Barbara, would never have become the hero the series later needed him to be. When the Dalek plan is halted, a dying Dalek approaches the Doctor for mercy: "Stop our power from wasting." His response? "Even if I wanted to, I don't know how."

The story ends with an extended dialogue, as the Thals mourn their dead and the Doctor, a hero at least, offers benedictions (with a grim warning of "other wars to fight"). There aren't too many light moments in the story (apart from the exchange where Ian finally nails the Doctor for getting his last name wrong), but it's all very pleasant at the end, and we even learn a little more about the Doctor's past.

You could believe, from watching "The Daleks", that "Doctor Who" was built to a careful master plan. Each character (even Susan) was allowed room to grow and regress, early on. By the show's third season, the creation process was more haphazard, with things made up as they went along -- witness the Daleks' descent into comedy villains. However, "The Daleks", in spite of being only the second show, is quite possibly as good as "Doctor Who" gets.

Movie Review: This episode should be exterminated
Summary: 2 Stars

For starters, the Daleks are awfully talky, which kind of minimizes the effect (not to mention that they are a bit hard to understand what with the Dalek voices and 1960's era sound quality). Susan, again, is frequently hysterical, which just seems odd for a character who is supposed to be so brave and who has traveled throughout time and space. The Thals (...) are too one-dimensional to hold one's attention for this many episodes, even taking into account that Doctor Who was, at the time, a children's program.

The one truly interesting part of this set is the fairly in-depth look at how the Daleks function. At least we get an acknowledgement about the Daleks' mobility issues and weaknesses and a sense of what makes them work. Unfortunately, the humans are far less interesting, especially the Thals, although the romantic tension between Barbara and one of the blonde Thal he-man is sort of interesting as well, although not nearly as interesting as watching the white shirts and dresses of all the characters stay perfectly white as they tramp through the mud and the swamp over the course of several days, suffering through the early stages of radiation poisoning without a dry cleaner in sight.

These episodes gain a little in impressiveness when you realize they were done around the same time that Star Trek was taking off in the states, and the comparison is fun to watch, although here there is something to be said for the usually annoying American habit of wrapping everything up in one tidy hour. This story arc deserves more than an hour, but could have easily been finished in 4 episodes. Instead, it just drags on. Get it for the historical value, but don't expect to be riveted.

Movie Review: The most evil creatures ever in the universe!
Summary: 5 Stars

This was the good Doctor's first of many encounters with his arch-enemies, the Daleks. This was the second Doctor Who adventure, and it would be something that would solidify the show's popularity for years to come.

It is in this adventure that TARDIS crew land on a eerily deserted planet, a planet that had gone through a devastating neutronic war between the two races, the Thaals and the Daals. Soon they are being affected by the radiation fallout, are captured by the Daleks, they make their escape and meet the Thaal people. Soon a final battle is engaged, and the Thaals are victorious over the Daleks.

I enjoyed this adventure, for it is a prime example of intelligent writing and powerful acting. This story is very multi-layered as it serves as a sort of social allegory for what could happen as a result of the use of nuclear weapons for war. In addition, it serves up a fair amount of drama in regards to how far can one stay the course of pacifism before taking action. Some other great points are the Thaals themselves, the males in particular, the wardrobe makes them look as if they are part of the Kevin Sorbo Appreciation Society. but seriously, this is a great adventure and very essential for any Doctor Who fan.

Movie Review: One of the Best of the Hartnell Era
Summary: 4 Stars

Summary of Doctor Who - The Daleks [VHS]

General Video

• Genres > Horror
• Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Television > BBC > Genres > Science Fiction
• TV Series > Doctor Who > All Titles
• General William Hartnell
• Patrick Troughton
• Jon Pertwee
• Tom Baker
• Peter Davison
• Colin Baker
• Sylvester McCoy