Day 156 — June 5th 2021
Day of the Daleks Episodes Three and Four
Day of the Daleks — Episode Three
Ooh, I’m a right sucker for a dystopian future. Give me something in the vein of 1984 and I’m a happy man. I think that’s why I enjoy The Macra Terror so much, or the pessimistic glimpses we get of Earth during Colony in Space. We spend the entirety of this episode in the future, with the Brig and the present day only showing up as part of the cliffhanger reprise, and I think the episode is all the better for it. Certainly, it’s the best episode of the story so far.
We only really get to see the inside of two buildings and a bit of waste ground outside, but I feel like I totally know this world inside out. I understand the politics, I know what they’re trying to do, and I’m more invested in this than I have been in many of the other situations the series has presented us with recently.
I can’t help wondering if Louis Marks was more invested in this part of the story, too, because the whole thing feels better here. The dialogue is sharper and more entertaining, and there appears to be more investment in the characters and situation. The Daleks have been used sparingly so far, barely straying from their control room, and they’re involved in some great scene-setting for this world of the future;
The Controller: ‘We will reach the targets on the next work period.’
Dalek: ‘For the next work period, target figures will be increased by ten percent.’
The Controller: ‘But that’s impossible! If we push the workers any further,
they will die.’
Dalek: ‘Only the weak will die. Inefficient workers slow down production. Obey the Daleks.’
They’re not the only ones, though. I really like Doctor Who tearing down the façade as they sip wine with the Controller, and it feels like this moment should be more celebrated as an example of what Doctor Who is all about;
The Controller: ‘There will always be people who need discipline, Doctor.’
Doctor Who: ‘Now that’s an old fashioned point of view, even from my standards.’
The Controller: ‘I can assure you that this planet has never been more efficiently, more economically run. People have never been happier or more prosperous.’
Doctor Who: ‘Then why do you need so many people to keep them under control? Don’t they like being happy and prosperous?’
It’s also telling that Doctor Who laying back and drinking wine feels so much more natural here than it did in Episode One. Here it’s him trying to fit in with the establishment he’s trying to destroy, rather than just being slightly pompous in his own right. Even his dismay when Jo breaks a bottle of wine over an Ogron’s head — ‘Pity, that was rather a good vintage…’ — feels more fun, although again it’s played a little too straight.
I’m wondering if Pertwee has made a conscious choice to tone down the comedy elements of his performance that were so prevalent — and brilliant — in his earliest episodes? There’s so many moments in the last few stories where he comes across as rude and dismissive, when the same lines could have been read as jokes. Either way it’s telling that I really liked his Doctor Who when he was a more comical character than I do now.
Pertwee gets a really good episode when it comes to the dialogue across the board. After the brilliant speech I’ve already quoted, he also gets to describe the Daleks — his ‘bitterest enemies’ — in particularly nice fashion;
Jo: ‘You shouldn’t have spoken to him like that. You don’t know the whole picture.’
Doctor Who: ‘Neither do you, Jo. Neither do you. That man is no more
than a superior slave himself. Humans don’t rule this world any longer.’
Jo: ‘Then, who does?’
Doctor Who: ‘The most evil, ruthless life form in the cosmos. The Daleks.’
I’m afraid at this point it’s time for my quickly-becoming-traditional moan about the updated effects in the special edition of this story. I was hoping to find time this morning to rip the DVD so I could watch the original version, but that didn’t happen so I’ve been stuck with the version on Britbox. Being set entirely in the future this time around, we get plenty of filming at the towers in Brentford which had been cut from the earlier episodes. The location looks great — it’s a bit drab and boring, but that’s sort of the point. We’re in a work camp in the future, not anywhere that’s supposed to be aesthetically pleasing!
The downside to the special edition is that we get another CGI establishing shot, which doesn’t feel like it matched up with the location at all. There’s an attempt to include some of the foliage from the waste ground, but I totally don’t buy this as being the same location. It’s the perfect example of how adding new effects to Old Testament stories needs to be done sympathetically and sparingly.
A load of effects have been added to Doctor Who and Jo’s escape, too (in which we can add another vehicle to Pertwee’s ever-growing list). They’re surrounded by lots of CGI laser beams which feel at odds with the very real — and very well executed — explosions.
There’s one final change here, and it comes during another brilliant cliffhanger. Doctor Who has been strapped to a machine in an attempt to discover whether he’s the same man who kept foiling the Daleks’ plans in the 1960s. The original version included some fairly ropey quality photographs of his previous incarnations, so the decision to replace them with cleaner footage feels sensible. I’ll admit it’s a slightly odd selection of clips to choose, though!
The best episode of the story so far, and an 8/10. I’m hoping it can stick the landing in Episode Four…
Day of the Daleks — Episode Four
One of the key things they wanted to fix with the special edition of this story was the climactic battle between UNIT and the Daleks. In the original version it’s painfully clear that there’s only three Dalek props out on location, so they’ve been augmented here to make it a more powerful force. I think I’m right in saying that they went so far as to have a camera of the right make and model for recording the footage, in the hope of helping it to blend in with the original.
I can’t fault them for that — it’s the kind of attention to detail which I’ve felt has been lacking in some of the other ‘improvements’ they’ve made. But even with the expanded ranks of Daleks and Ogrons it has to be said that the final battle is incredibly underwhelming. It’s UNIT vs the Daleks! That should be something huge — a real event. It’s Doctor Who’s current format going head to head with the creatures which defined it in the previous decade.
As it is, the Brigadier never even gets to see a Dalek — something I’ve never realised before — and even Benton and Yates only fight against them briefly. There’s a brilliant photograph from filming of the UNIT troops fighting their enemy as they emerge from the tunnel, and it’s more exciting than anything which actually made it to screen. It’s a shame.
Indeed, I wonder if they’d have been better off keeping the Daleks in the 22nd century, and just sending back the Ogrons to do battle? Having them as the little-seen puppet masters of the future was an effective tool, but all their threat is eliminated the second they start trundling awkwardly across a stately lawn! I also can’t help but feel that it would have sidestepped the lacklustre battle sequence — the Daleks should be a threat that’s too big for UNIT to handle, after all.
I’ve not said anything about the Daleks making their first appearance in colour, and I have a confession; I think they tend to look a bit rubbish in the 1970s. The props never look more like painted wood than they do in the stories from this decade, and they’ve dispensed with the gorgeous livery they had in the 60s. On screen, in black and white, they looked brilliant — like they really were made of metal. In colour photographs from the time they’re incredibly pleasing, too. The silver and blue really work together. The grey here is so drab, and the gold simply feels like an odd choice.
There’s a photograph taken early on in the production of this story, which shows one of the original props as it’s being transformed for this story, and it still looks so majestic in the original colours. If only they’d kept it that way! As ever, you can read lots more about the props over on the incredible Dalek 63:88 blog.
One person who does look especially nice in this story, though, is Jo Grant. I think this is Katy Manning’s best costume in Doctor Who, and it goes especially well alongside Pertwee’s new outfit. It’s no surprise that when Eaglemoss came to do a Third Doctor Who set they based it on the look she’s sporting here.
As for the story itself… this final episode introduces so many brilliant ideas. The guerrillas going back in time to kill Reginald Styles becoming the event which created their future hell in the first place is great — nine seasons in and time paradoxes are something surprisingly rarely considered in a show all about time travel. Unfortunately it feels like the idea is presented a bit late in the day, so there’s not much time to breathe, or to consider the moral implications.
There’s some nice material with the Controller letting Doctor Who escape and then being ratted out to the Daleks, and it’s nice to see that he gets to go out with some brilliant dialogue;
Dalek: ‘You are a traitor to the Daleks. You must be exterminated!’
The Controller: ‘Who knows? I may have helped to exterminate you.’
I’m going with a 7/10 for this last episode. This is a story I’d like to revisit once the marathon is over, if only so I can sit down properly and watch the original version.
Oh, and one final thing. I like to imagine that the Ogrons only came into all this because of a misunderstanding. The Controller one day told the Gold Dalek that they were having a hell of a lot of trouble with the guerrillas, and the Dalek replied ‘Gorillas, you say? Leave it with me…’
