Day 155 — June 4th 2021
Day of the Daleks Episodes One and Two
Day of the Daleks — Episode One
There’s something about Doctor Who which seems to inspire creativity. Be it artwork, writing or film making, the fandom seems to be more creative than you get elsewhere — and that’s brilliant. Heck, I was inspired to make some fan art for Doctor Who years and years ago, and it led to me spending the better part of the last decade working on official Doctor Who products, from Big Finish to Titan Comics, so I know first hand how inspirational it can be.
What’s impressive is that it can also inspire already great talents to new heights (in my humble opinion, of course). Take Frank Bellamy. Bellamy’s career started in the 1950s, working on weekly comics including famous publications like The Eagle, and he’s something of a standout in that field. Check out his work on TV Century 21’s Thunderbirds strips, for example, and you know you’re looking at a master at work.
But my favourite work by Bellamy comes from the 1970s, and his Doctor Who illustrations for the Radio Times. I’ve already touched on his work briefly — via the gorgeous comic strip of Colony in Space last week — but Day of the Daleks inspired what I think is the absolute pinnacle of his work.
The cover to the issue dated 1st — 7th January 1972 is a work of majesty. I think it’s probably the single greatest Radio Times cover ever produced, and it baffles me that they didn’t have Bellamy providing the covers every week afterwards. There’s lots of brilliant Doctor Who artwork, from the Target Books to the DVD covers, but I think this is probably my single favourite piece. The drama, the composition, the colours… yeah, it’s pretty much perfect. I’ve a set of framed Eurovision-themed Radio Times covers up in my office, but I’d love to get a copy of this issue to join them.
Day of the Daleks saw a massive bump in the ratings — 1.5 million up on the end of the previous series — which is often attributed to the return of the programme’s most famous monsters, but I reckon it’s all down to this stunning piece of work. I’m sure we’ll touch in on Bellamy’s work again — there’s some beautiful pieces I want to share when we reach the start of Tom Baker’s time in the TARDIS — but for me this cover is as important to Doctor Who as any of the televised episodes.
Anyway, enough about the publicity for the serial, and onto the opening episode itself. I’m out of the house today, so watched this one on my phone via BritBox, and I’m a bit disappointed to see that they only have the ‘updated’ version of the story on there complete with re-recorded Dalek voices and new special effects. I’m not averse to watching these versions — I thought the Terror of the Autons updates on the Blu-ray made the story better on the whole — but sadly the updates to this one just aren’t very good.
It feels like an exercise in changing things which didn’t need changing. Take the time travel effects for example. The original version is achieved with a simple overlay on the screen which I think looks pretty effective. In the updated edition, though, they add so many effects on top that it’s a bit distracting. There doesn’t seem to be much attempt to blend these new effects into the original footage, which is a shame when so much care was taken to make the new shots in Terror feel ‘right’.
Then there’s the new CGI shots of the 22nd century which are… well, they’re fully CGI for a start, and I think they look it, too. It’s telling that although you can see a lot of work has gone into them, they already look more dated than the bits of the story from 1972. I understand they were added because of a perceived issue with the shots of ordinary tower blocks in the original, but I think they lack the charm of those other buildings.
I’ve had a quick look on YouTube to refresh my memory of the original shots, and I’m definitely more a fan of those. There’s something more ‘real’ about them — possibly because they are real — and they feel like a more believable view of the future in the Pertwee years than the CGI mess they’ve been replaced with. It’s perhaps because we don’t often get to see inner city tower blocks at this point in Doctor Who’s history. One of the things I enjoyed the most about The Invasion was seeing the series in a very real city setting, but the Pertwee years have mostly been far more provincial which makes the towers here stand out all the more.
And there’s an added bit of fun to the original towers — as Kieran Highman pointed out on Twitter a few years back, the same towers in Brentford appear as the backdrop to the ‘costume reveal’ photos for David Tennant’s Doctor Who. I like to imagine that he and Rose took a trip to the 22nd century themselves…!
There’s one other thing that I think is spoiled by the Special Edition; they remove the ‘no complications’ line from this episode. Yes, I know it’s silly and something that we all laugh and joke about, but it’s one of those ridiculous Doctor Who things that I can’t help but love. As the scene started to play I sat up excited to hear it, and was actually — and bizarrely — sad when they skipped straight past it.
I’ve not really said a lot about the story so far, and that’s because my enjoyment of this one really has been overshadowed by having to watch what I think is an inferior version of the story. I will say that the reveal of the Daleks is slightly strangely done, just revealing one at random half way through the episode. Sure, we all know they’re going to be showing up — their name is in the title and they’re on the Radio Times cover after all! — but I’d have expected something a little more spectacular for their first ‘surprise’ reveal in almost five years.
It’s made up for by the cliffhanger, which is rather nicely done, with a trio of the pepper pots chanting ‘exterminate them!’ in unison, though. I wonder if they’d have been better off holding back their reveal for this moment? It’s here that I will praise something about the special edition, because in fairness the new voices for the Daleks do sound brilliant. I can’t recall how they sounded in the original version, but they don’t feel out of place to me here.
One last thing I want to touch on; Doctor Who himself. He spent much of The Dæmons being a bit haughty and unlikeable, and that seems to have carried on into the new season. There’s something about the way he sits back sipping wine and telling Jo ‘you really ought to try this gorgonzola cheese’ that feels so wrong. It makes him oddly unrelatable to me, and while he’s not actually done anything wrong, it makes me dislike him a bit.
I’m going with a 6/10 for this one — though I suspect we’d be a point or so higher had I been able to watch the original. I’m out of the house all day today and tomorrow, so I think I’m going to be stuck with the special edition for the entire story. I’ll be interested to see if I grow to accept it, or if it’ll hamper my whole experience of this one.
Day of the Daleks — Episode Two
I’ll tell you what, Day of the Daleks is good at cliffhangers. Episode One ended strong, and now Episode Two has followed suit, with Doctor Who brought face-to-face with a Dalek for the first time in years. My one slight criticism is that the direction is occasionally lacking. We get a great zoom in down the tunnel as the Dalek materialises (sadly swathed in a load of added CGI again) and then the credits crash in. I can’t help feeling like it would have been good to have ended on a shot of Doctor Who’s reaction.
Ooh, it’s nice to have the Daleks back though, isn’t it? Before starting on this marathon I was of the opinion that I didn’t particularly care for them, but stories like The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Power of the Daleks are still floating around the top of my ratings (indeed the latter is still my highest-rated story), and there’s a genuine fission of excitement in this episode when the ‘heartbeat’ sound starts up again.
It helps that they’re well written here, too. They get some brilliant cutting remarks and Louis Marks has realised that the trick is to keep their dialogue to a minimum. I love their interactions with the Controller, especially the following two;
Controller: ‘I have to report that we have lost the trace. It was operating only a few moments.’
Dalek: ‘We are not interested in excuses. Find them! Find them! Find them!’Dalek: ‘Anyone using that module will be diverted in the space-time vortex and attracted here.’
Controller: ‘But only if that particular module is used?’
Dalek: ‘It is necessary to know the frequency.’
Controller: ‘But surely no one will use the module? They must realise that we can trace them.’
Dalek: ‘Do not dispute with the Daleks! The function of the human is to obey! Activate the Magnetron!’
God help me, I’ve become a Dalek fan.
The gap between The Evil of the Daleks and Day of the Daleks is the longest the Old Testament ever goes between Dalek stories — Four years and six months exactly — although there’s another gap in the late 1970s which is only around 40 days shorter. It makes me wonder, though, if the return of the Daleks really meant much to the kids watching in 1972? The Target novels were still in their infancy (with only the original three novelisations from the 1960s available at this point, including the first Dalek story) and the likes of Doctor Who Magazine and VHS releases were still around a decade away. If any of my readers were watching at the time I’d love to know what you thought.
But the Daleks aren’t the only monsters in this one — we’ve also got the first appearance of the Ogrons. Cards on the table; I love them. In my ‘three year pitch’ for what I’d do if placed in charge of Doctor Who there’s a return for the Ogrons in my second season. I think they’re brilliant, and what a great idea for kids to latch onto — they’re space gorillas with ray guns.
The design is fantastic on them, too. Everything from the mask to the costume just works, and seeing them stomping around here is great. I think they’re scarier when out ‘in the field’ chasing down their enemies, rather than when they’re being commanded by humans in the future, but luckily we get more of the former than the later.
Something which feels incredibly out of place, mind, is the moment when Doctor Who picks up one of the ray guns and shoots and Ogron on the balcony of the house. Moments before he’s managed to overpower one with his usual Venusian Akido, so it seems entirely out of character for him to suddenly pick up a gun and shoot one without a second thought. It’s perhaps a strange thing — I had no issue with Troughton’s Doctor Who bumping off Ice Warriors with Solar Energy in The Seeds of Death, after all — but somehow the idea of Doctor Who using an actual gun feels wrong.
Oh and it’s only a little thing but I forgot to mention it under Episode One, but the design of the 22nd century guns is brilliant. Walks the line between being futuristic and practical perfectly.
I’m probably also a down on Doctor Who in this one because he’s more than a little rude to Jo again while they’re tied up in the basement. Listening to the lines they could possibly be delivered as some joking banter between best friends, but that’s not how they’re delivered at all. He seems to be fairly patronising of her at all times these days, and that’s a real shame.
There’s one other criticism I have for this episode, and it’s all to do with Jo being transported to the future. She happens to be holding the time machine when it operates and vanishes off into time and space (accompanied, again, by a mess of added CGI effects), and the freedom fighters spell out how much danger she’s in;
Doctor Who: ‘Jo? Jo! Can’t you do anything?’
Anat: ‘No, it’s too late.’
Doctor Who: ‘What’s happened to her?’
Anat: ‘Disintegrated. Dispersed around the time vortex.’
Boaz: ‘If she was lucky.’
Doctor Who: ‘And if she wasn’t?’
Boaz: ‘Re-embodied in the twenty second century.’
Anat: ‘Believe me, she would be better off dead.’
It’s a brilliant line, and even though we know she’ll survive it would have me genuinely concerned for her fate… only before they get to say their line we’re given a shot of Jo arriving in the 22nd century! We already know what’s happened to her. I think it would work ever so slightly better if we were told her situation could be so much worse… and only then do we find out that it is. It’s only a little thing, and it doesn’t overly spoil things, but I think if you want to do a special edition of this story and shop things around a little then moments like this — and adding a reaction shot in the cliffhanger — would have been a better bet than adding in loads of unnecessary CGI effects.
A 7/10 for this one.
