Day Of The Daleks: Doctor Who: Season 9

Goldby

Grob

Long

The Doctor escapes with Jo and journeys back to the past to stop the guerrilla left behind who will actually set off the bomb at Styles house that sets the world war and alternate time line in motion. But to retain their grip on future Earth the daleks follow them to the past to kill Styles themselves.

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Day Of The Daleks DETAILS:

Day Of The Daleks REVIEWS



Goldby

Have fond memories of Day of the daleks. Remember in `83 I first found out from a mate that there were 'other Dr Who's before Tom Baker'. Now had seen a year before this ponce with blonde hair replace Tom Baker somehow, had no idea how this had happened and was still convinced 'ol Tom would come back. Until I was shown this mag, a 20th anniversary special, that clearly showed that Tom wasn't the only Dr Who but there were 3 other guys before him! I couldn't believe how often my new childhood hero had been changing his face over twenty years! Anyway suffice to say I warmed up to the blonde ponce, now there was an explanation, and was even sad to see him disappear albeit temporarily as the current series ended.

The next week repeats were back and remember being astounded when Day Of The Daleks came on! Had just read about these early Dr Who's now they were showing one of them! Nostalgia has made day of the daleks a favourite, but it's also pretty good in story terms. Why? Firstly the over used Master isn't in it, second the daleks are shown for the first time in colour, third it's only 4 parts long and fourth the regular and supporting cast are all comfortable, memorable and gel nicely. Oh and fifth Terry Nation didn't write it! It's a good idea of a future twisted timeline, and how time can be manipulated, in this instance by the daleks. Time plots being rare that time in the show.

Minimal use of the daleks is perfect it maintains the threat, especially as it's obvious now there's only 3 of them in the story, which detracts from the "invasion force" scenes at the end. The Ogrons are convincingly menacing and the whole thing has a slight weirdness about it, and you wonder how the Doctor ever did without Jo. Her knickers abound in this one! What colour Grob? Nice touches were the Brigadier; shining in his second last outright intelligent appearance, the atmospheric train tunnel setting and the Controller in the future who is very good despite his overuse of makeup. A good start to season nine 10/10



Grob

Freaking awesome Day of the daleks. Tonnes of high concepts like the whole timey-wimey "if you kill your maternal grandmother does that mean you won't therefore be alive to kill her so therefore she will be alive and so will you but you'll kill her so you won't etc etc" Its also a nice (if unintentional) sequel to The Dalek Invasion of Earth, after all the daleks tell the Doctor "We have invaded Earth again." And amazingly it only took three daleks to do it! Well, two green ones to do all the work and a gold one to boss them around. Paul Bernard does his best to hide the fact he only has three daleks to work with and unfortunately it ends up with...well, three of them. However, he has a heap of other great camera work; slow dissolves from one scene to another, fast close ups and other things that many directors before him never tried.

The Ogrons make great dalek henchmen - they're big, strong and don't do any thinking. Pop a badge number on their chest and they could be bouncing outside Metro every Friday night. There is a tonne of great character work here as well. Finally someone decided to give Yates a personality transplant - so now he is an utter creep who likes to stitch up Benton at meal times. The Brig is great and commanding and Benton still has the intelligence of a fridge magnet. Doesn't Pertwee put the grog away in this one? Any excuse to get into the wine, sherry, port and whiskey for this incarnation. Also, he mentions he belongs to a gentleman's club. I wonder which one and what went on there? We get to see up Jo's mini skirt three times in this one. Her little beaver must get a good workout.

The guest cast are all great too. The guerrillas actually have personalities and are well written and acted so its obvious from the start that Terry Nation didn't write this one. Aubrey Woods is just fantastic as the Controller - really reaching some depth and emotion that was lacking in a lot of the Pertwees. Even the minor characters have something to offer; from the rat fink security guard who replaces the Controller to poor old Sir Reginald and his faithful house keeper.

And finally I gotta mention that day of the daleks is the only story that retains the "sting" of the closing title music over the reprise of the following episode. And its also the first episode to feature a flashback sequence. There ya go.10/10.



Long

You just beat me to it… I thought I was going to get to open the batting for once!!

Well day of the daleks has a lot of nostalgic value for me too… I believe my earliest memory of Who is seeing the final scene in episode one sometime in the late 70s, and thinking how scary and threatening it looked!

It wasn't till many years later that I actually watched the story properly - and yes, there is a lot to like about it (other than Jo's knickers, which I'm sure Grob will cover shortly!!).

As Goldby said, 4 parts, colour Daleks, Ogrons and a well paced and interesting plot all go towards making this work well. Also there's the comfortable feel of the regulars - and the only time that a lot of the regulars got to see Daleks! The Doctor is really starting to build his own bank of traits by now too… not only do we have more Venusian Karate, but I'm sure Pertwee would have to be the most "eating and drinkingest" Doctor! And cultured too - here we get him sipping fine wine while pigging out on cheese! All of which is good fun, and mixing that fun and comfortable feeling with the threat of the Daleks from the future only highlights the threat more.

However, there is one thing that lets day of the daleks down a bit for me… and that's the ending. I know it's a "timey wimey" thing, but how is Shura going back in time to stop the thing that he's about to do, to stop the thing that caused the Daleks to take over? In the end it all works out ok with his explosion actually blowing up Daleks and having no such an effect on Styles that he knows he must make the peace conference a success (another peace conference??? How many of these things do they have!!) - but still, if he hadn't gone back to stop the thing that he did himself, then he would never been there, and the thing he did would never have happened… or something… oh shit, I still enjoyed it a lot!!

8/10

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