It’s a Dalek snuff film…
Part One
Me: Ok, I’d like you to close your eyes during the title sequence -
Sue: Is it called Something of the Daleks?
Pause.
Me: **** it. Yes, the Daleks are in the ****ing title. There, you’ve ruined the surprise.
Sue: What surprise? It’s the bloody title!
Me: I thought it might be more interesting if you didn’t know the Daleks were in it. Oh, sod it. It’s called Death to the Daleks. Are you happy now?
Sue: Ecstatic.
The episode begins…
Sue: So that’s why you wanted me to close my eyes! Terry ****ing Nation!
She sticks her foot in my face.
After an interesting start, which features someone dying of an arrow to the stomach, drowning and acute boredom – all at the same time – we join the Doctor and Sarah as they prepare for a holiday on Florana.
Sue: Is Sarah Jane going to wear that swimsuit for the whole story? It’s definitely one for the dads, this.
Suddenly, the TARDIS suffers a massive power failure…
Sue: It’s the 1970s. Everyone had to put up with power cuts like this back then. This is very topical.
The Doctor and Sarah are plunged into darkness and Sue agrees that this opening scene, which is set in an eerie, echoing TARDIS, is very spooky indeed.
Sue: Of course, technically, there really shouldn’t be any light in this scene at all. But I suppose they’d spend the entire episode bumping into each other, so I can forgive them.
After manually cranking open the TARDIS doors, Sarah decides to change into something a little more comfortable, but before she does, she makes the Doctor solemnly promise that he won’t leave her.
As soon as Sarah’s back is turned, he leaves her.
You might want to hold onto your hats…
Sue: What a ****! What an absolute ****! ****!! ****!!!
If asterisks came in capitals, these would be massive.
Sue: He’s evil! It’s like Jo and the sandwich all over again! Why is he doing this?
The Doctor walks further and further away from the TARDIS…
Sue: I never liked Jon Pertwee.
Sarah exits the TARDIS and this time she is dressed much more conservatively.
Sue: She’s gone from beautiful beach babe to Miss Jean Brodie. I bet all the dads turned off at this point.
Of course, the Doctor is nowhere to be seen…
Sue: **** him! Go back inside the TARDIS, crank the door shut, and just leave him to it. I can’t get over why he lied to her like that. Seriously, why did he do that?
Sarah searches for the Doctor through a landscape of smoke and fog that looks genuinely dangerous and alien. She eventually decides to return to the TARDIS but an Exxilon follows her. It gains entry to the ship and it promptly assaults her.
Sue: This is very disturbing all of a sudden. It’s like a stalk-and-slash film. These POV shots are very graphic, too. It feels very adult. Too adult, probably.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is traversing a narrow ravine as the Exxilons keep their large bulbous eyes on him…
Sue: Are they like the Sand Men in Star Wars? This looks very much like Star Wars, actually. Those funny little creatures with the glowing eyes should jump out and kidnap him.
Me: Utini!
The Doctor spots a hidden tripwire, and when he sets it off, a large boulder comes crashing down.
Sue: It’s turned into 127 Hours now.
Me: No, it just feels like 127 hours.
Sue: The direction is great, though. It’s very different to what we usually get. It’s very creative.
The Doctor eventually hooks up with a Marine Space Corps expedition whose ship has also crash landed due to the power drain. They have come to the planet Exxilon in search of a rare mineral called parrinium.
Sue: It’s Avatar. Again. Doctor Who should sue James Cameron.
They need the parrinium to cure a space plague that is ravaging the outer worlds.
Sue: Terry loves a good disease, doesn’t he?
Just as any hope of rescue looks increasingly unlikely, a spaceship enters the planet’s atmosphere…
Sue: Oh dear, this is not good. Two characters are looking in completely opposite directions at the same thing. Oh, and now another actor (Julian Fox as Peter Hamilton) is looking directly at the camera. I think he’s expecting – or hoping – that the director will say “Cut”.
The Space Marines rush off to meet the approaching ship.
Me: Do you have any idea who might be on that ship?
Sue: Is it the Master? I’m joking! It’s the Daleks. I know, I know!
Sarah decides to investigate a high-tech city, but she is swiftly apprehended by some Exxilons.
Sue: Are they a leper colony?
Sarah is sentenced to death for daring to enter the Exxilons’ holy city.
Sue: They should have put up better signage. How was she supposed to know it was forbidden?
Meanwhile, the spaceship has finally landed and – surprise, surprise – some Daleks come trundling out.
Sue: The Doctor actually looks a bit scared.
They are accompanied by some of the most inappropriate theme music ever devised for a television show. I mean, come on!
Seriously, if you aren’t familiar with it, please listen to it now. I mean, does this really sound like the kind of music that should herald the arrival of the most feared beings in the universe? Really?
Sue: It’s ****ing awful! This can not be Dudley Simpson!
Me: You’re right, it’s Carey Blyton.
Sue: Are you impressed that I knew it wasn’t Dudley?
Me: No. (pause) I am scared, though.
Sue: At least somebody is – that cliffhanger was pants.
Part Two
The Daleks are completely harmless; their weapons have no power.
Sue: Now it’s the Daleks turn to look scared. That’s clever. However, I would like to know where the power is coming from to make their little lights flash on and off when they talk.
The Doctor says, “We are all in this together” and Sue pounces on him.
Sue: I told you he was a Tory.
Four Daleks convene to discuss the Doctor’s suggestion that they form an alliance. Three of the Daleks are incredibly animated by this discussion. One, not so much.
Sue: Did one of the Dalek operators call in sick? And what the **** is this music? Are the Daleks French now?
On their way to a parrinium mine, our heroes are ambushed by the Exxilons (who fortunately couldn’t shoot fish in a barrel), and a Dalek decides to intervene by shouting “Exterminate!” very, very loudly.
Sue: What good is that, sunshine?
The Dalek is quickly surrounded by Exxilons and they beat the living shit out of it. Then they set fire to it and dance around its remains.
Sue: Not having any music in this scene makes it look like a snuff film or a video nasty. This is very disturbing.
Suddenly, an Exxilon shows up who can actually aim, and he manages to kill John Abineri. What a waste. Sue never really got a chance to warm to him like she usually does.
Sue: The guy playing Peter just looked straight down the camera lens again!
She’s right. And once you notice this, you can’t stop noticing Julian Fox stopping to check that the camera is still rolling. It would make for one hell of a drinking game.
Sue: This is the strangest episode of Doctor Who so far. It’s completely mental. I’ve never seen anything like it.
But she hasn’t seen anything yet. Now the Daleks are using a tiny model of the TARDIS for target practice…
Sue: Hang on a minute! Where do they get all the little police box models from? Have they been to our house when I wasn’t looking?
The Daleks arm themselves with machine guns and they take great pleasure in massacring the Exxilons, saving Sarah and the Doctor in the process.
I have to explain to Sue that this is not “the Daleks suddenly coming good”.
Sue: It’s turned into a zombie film, now. The faces on these aliens are very disturbing. You must remember watching this one when you were a boy.
Me: Actually, I don’t. I have no memories of this story at all. However, I vividly remember a clip from this story turning up on an edition of Ask Aspel. Please don’t ask me how or why I remember that, I just do.
Deep in some underground caverns, the Doctor comes face-to-face with a metallic, snake-like creature.
Sue: It’s torch strapped to a hoover attachment. Another ridiculous cliffhanger to add to the collection.
Part Three
Sue: I take it back. It’s a torch strapped to a hoover attachment crossed with that flower from the Pink Floyd film.
Me: It looks like Gypsy from Mystery Science Theater 3000, if you ask me.
Thankfully, Sue is much more forgiving of Bellal and his shiny suit.
Sue: The make-up in this story is pretty good, actually. They are a very believable alien race. I like this little guy. He’s a very nice Gollum.
The Daleks are in hot pursuit and our heroes are forced to escape through a narrow gap between some rocks.
Sue: Colin Baker wouldn’t have stood a chance there.
The Daleks, brilliant technologists that they are, keep their side of the bargain by helping the humans mine the parrinium. They do this by using the Exxilons as slave labour, which doesn’t sound very technologically advanced to us. It also makes the Doctor’s proposed alliance with them seem even more baffling to Sue.
Sue: How do they expect to mine enough stuff to saves millions of lives with a workforce of six?
When the snake-like creatures emerges from a lake to attack the Exxilons, Sue is riveted.
Sue: That was amazing!
Me: What? Really?
Sue: Yes, the guy playing Peter didn’t look at the camera once!
When a Dalek is destroyed by the creature, Sue is amused by its colleagues’ reaction.
Sue: One Dalek just turned to another Dalek as if to say: “We’re ****ed”.
And then…
Sue: Oh no, Peter looked straight at us again. Naughty, naughty.
Me: I think he was supposed to that time.
The Doctor orders Sarah back to the parrinium mine. A moment of tenderness passes between them as the Doctor gently strokes his companion’s face.
Sue: This is a bit full-on, isn’t it? He’s known her for what? A week? He’s overstepping the mark a bit here.
As the Doctor and Bellal attempt to gain entrance to the city, I am rocked by a wave of nostalgia.
Me: This is the bit they showed on Ask Aspel. I just thought you ought to know.
The Doctor is confronted by another puzzle; this time it’s a simple maze on a wall.
Sue: It’s The Cube. Phillip Schofield is going to be on the other side of that door.
The Doctor traces his finger through the maze with ease.
Sue: That didn’t look that difficult. Why did the other contestants die? How many goes did they need before they all died of starvation? They must have been thick.
And then the episode concludes with…
Sue: The worst cliffhanger EVER!
Me: I thought you’d like some nice tiling.
Sue: Not for the ****ing cliffhanger! Jesus!
Part Four
Sue: Is Bellal a new companion? He’d be great. The Doctor really should have a companion that doesn’t look human. It makes him seem a bit xenophobic.
When the Doctor navigates the Tile of Doom with the aid of his sonic screwdriver, Sue isn’t impressed.
Sue: The Doctor is cheating. He isn’t demonstrating his intelligence at all. It just means he owns some very clever technology. Any idiot can use a screwdriver.
The Daleks are right behind them…
Sue: I want to see the Daleks navigate that maze on the wall with their plungers. No, I demand to see that scene!
As the Doctor talks Bellal across the red and white tile, he implores him not to touch the red bit.
Sue: He is touching the red bit! Look!
As the Daleks roll up to the tile, Sue doesn’t fancy their chances.
Sue: The Daleks are completely ****ed here.
A Dalek rolls over the tile and it gets an electric shock for his troubles, a fate it is perfectly happy with.
Sue: Oh.
As the Doctor and Bellal continue to make their way through the city’s tests, Sue can sense a pattern beginning to emerge.
Sue: Is this episode is just one big quiz show?
Meanwhile, as Sarah and Jill plan their next move…
Me: You haven’t said anything at all about Jill.
Sue: What is there to say? She’s very pretty but that’s about it. What has she done? The characters are very two-dimensional in this story. It’s hard to care about any of them.
When Sarah asks Jill how much parrinium they have managed to mine, Sue jumps in, quick as a flash:
Sue: About an ounce.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Bellal have arrived at the next test. Bellal is overwhelmed by an unseen force and he aims a gun at the Doctor.
It’s at this point I am hit in the face by a flying cushion.
Me: What was that for?
Sue: Hypnotism. You get a cushion in the face every time someone is hypnotised in this show from now on.
Me: Oh, crap.
The Doctor declares that the final test will be an assault on their sanity.
Sue: How did he manage to jump to that very specific conclusion?
Right on cue, the Doctor is menaced by some coloured lights.
Sue: This is more like a test of their patience than an assault on their sanity. And you definitely couldn’t get away with this today. Epileptics would have a fit.
As the Doctor recovers from this terrifying ordeal, his hair looks especially defeated.
Sue: This is the least bouffanty I’ve ever seen this Doctor. It suits him.
When the Doctor and Bellal finally reach the city’s control room, Sue appreciates the scale of their achievement.
Sue: It’s like trying to find the exit to Ikea.
The Doctor immediately searches for a way to switch off the city’s brain.
Sue: I’m going to go out on a limb here – the Doctor will reverse the polarity of something or other.
The city decides to deal with the threat by growing some antibodies.
Sue: Are they Cybermen I can see in the background?
Me: I wish.
Meanwhile, a Dalek discovers that Jill has escaped from his custody and it promptly self-destructs out of shame.
Sue: What the hell? Do Daleks always do that when they **** up? The galaxy must be littered with Daleks that have ****ed up.
The Daleks have followed the Doctor to the control room, but the antibodies intercept them. “Evacuate! Evacuate!” scream the Daleks, as the antibodies beat seven shades out of them.
Me: They are evacuating their bowels by the sound of it.
And then, just to top things off, Julian Fox stares at us one more time, for luck.
The Daleks are triumphant and they decide to leave our heroes on Exxilon to die from yet another space plague (!), and as their ship takes off, the Doctor orders everyone to get away from its exhaust blast.
Sue: What exhaust blast? It didn’t even ripple his hair!
But all is not lost. Galloway, who Sue liked the most, on account of him having something approximating a personality, becomes a suicide bomber and he blows himself and the Daleks up. It’s a very moving scene and Sue is on the edge of her seat.
Sue: Whatever you do – DO NOT LOOK AT THE CAMERA!
Thankfully, Julian manages to resist, and as Sue breathes a huge sigh of relief, the special effects department pour acetone all over their model of the city.
Sue: They shouldn’t have done that. It just shows you that it’s carved out of polystyrene. Just blow the bastard up instead.
The Final Score
Sue: It started well. The direction was especially good in the first couple of episodes. Some of the shots were really innovative and I thought I was in for a good one. But the plot was horrendous. And as for the music? It killed it for me. What were they thinking? It was short, though. Short and silly.
5/10
The experiment continues…
Adventures with the Wife – the Podcast
I am going to produce a short audio recording to tie into our upcoming Pertwee retrospective and to celebrate how far we’ve managed to come without killing each other.
And this is where you come in. Yes, you. Especially you.
I am looking for very short audio clip(s) recorded by your kind selves which I can then include in this podcast. These clips could take the form of a question (for Sue or Nicol), or a short statement (I love/despise Adventures with the Wife in Space because…). The more creative among you could even write a song or a poem – it’s entirely up to you!
Please try to include information about who you are at the beginning of your audio clip. So, for example: “Hi, I’m Neil from Durham and I’ll like to ask Sue…” etc. It will make life easier for me when I come to edit it.
To send an mp3 file to me you will either need your own webspace so you can upload it (then send me the address where I can download it), or you can deposit the files via a free online storage service like this or even Soundcloud would do at a pinch. Please send any links to me via the usual contact form.
If you are too shy or (heaven forbid) too incompetent to record anything, please send your question via the normal channels and I’ll do my best to include it in the podcast if I can.
The very best submission will inevitably win one of our new mugs.
The deadline for submissions: Thursday 15th March. That’s only two weeks away so you’ll have to get your skates on!
If you don’t own this story, why not buy it on DVD? If you use the link below, we get a small cut, which will help pay for the site’s running costs. Many thanks for your support (UK residents only).
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“Whatever you do – DO NOT LOOK AT THE CAMERA!”
Classic.
Hello, I just bought three of your mugs. If you’d had one which said, “What a ****! What an absolute ****! ****!! ****!!!” then I would happily have made it a quartet
I’m intriged by Sue’s reaction to the sinister POV shots, stalking aliens and the walking dead. Sounds like it would have earned itself a triple X rating under the old BBFC system – which goes to show, once again, that the production codes for most of the stories in this particular series of Who are quite appropriate: XXX, YYY, ZZZ! “Death” is a story I watched many times when it came out on VHS in the mid-80s, but I quickly tired of it and disregarded it for more than two decades. Then in 2011 I had a sudden twinge of curiosity and watched it again, and really enjoyed it – in spite of the tedious last episode and the dull characters. So I agree with Sue’s rating.
The Discontinuity Guide would vouch for the XXX rating, especially given what they phonetically equate “parrinium” with, oh my…
Tewwee comes back for editing duties after Robert Holmes’ baptism of fire, and just like here, the changeover is immediately obvious. The Monster Of Peladon drinking game; take a swig every time the script goes out of its way to use the word ‘destroy’ instead of ‘kill’.
From certain angles Pertwee is a dead ringer for Mrs Thatch.
Extra points for including a picture of Gypsy. Nice to have a little Doctor Who/MST3K crossover.
“And you definitely couldn’t get away with this today; epileptics would have a fit.”
Brilliant.
I am saying nothing. Except ‘oh dear’. Astute viewers will already have sussed why.
This is one of the few remaining stories that I have never seen! I am looking forward to it coming out on DVD now – sounds like a strange one! I was aware of the awful music and the cliffhanger issues…but there seems to be so much more to love/hate.
Another great entry – loved the references to Julian looking at the camera haha!
Really loved this line however I think my view of the third Doctor is being tainted! “He’s evil! It’s like Jo and the sandwich all over again! Why is he doing this?”
Sue, you’re softening up on Doctor Who. A Hartnell with this many “**** me!” moments would have been 1 or 2 out of 10, especially a Terry ****-ing Nation story.
It’d be incredibly interesting, once this is all over, to get Sue to re-watch “An Unearthly Child” and, without telling her what score she gave it, see what score she gives it a second time round.
This is one I’ve still yet to see, so that music has stunned me. I mean…really?
Great review, though.
“Where do they get all the little police box models from? Have they been to our house when I wasn’t looking?”
Thank you Sue, I have never noticed the actors looking at the camera despite this being one of the first I owned on VHS so was watched with horrific regularity! Loving the website and cannot wait till we get to Colin Baker….!
Ditto!!
It’s the ‘parp parp’ at the end that does it.
Has Sue been subjected to the cliffhangers mockumentary in the Trial box set with Rob Shearman and Nev Fountain yet, or is that tantamount to spoilerage? It’s a lot more entertaining than Terror Of The Vervoids.
For the full-on Jacques Tati Monsieur Dalek’s Holiday experience just twang a thick rubber band any time anyone goes through a door.
The concept of impotent Daleks was a good one, but wasted. I like the idea that Daleks can “wish the ground to open up and swallow them” when they’re really embarrassed! Sadly this just comes across as a fatal tantrum, rather than the chilling fanatical military suicide that was perhaps intended.
A few of us got ahead of ourselves a while back, pondering the gameshow vibe of the Exxilon Fun Palace. The ultimate test before you get to dismantle Philip Scofield’s brain, it seems, is to suffer the indignity of featuring in a naff improvised period TOTP video…
Heigh-ho. A good enough amble and worth a 5, I suppose.
What a class review. I think I prefer the weaker stories because it really allows Sue to vent her spleen.
“Hypnotism. You get a cushion in the face every time someone is hypnotised in this show from now on.”
That had me laughing out loud.
Thanks, really cheered up my day.
That could be a lot of cushions in the face if I remember much about Sarah’s time as a companion…
Speaking of French daleks, has Sue ever seen that youtube video that was going around a few years ago?
Terry Nation loves scenes of aliens testing weapons and doing target practice. He writes like a 13-year-old schoolboy.
Or a 12-year-old Ian Fleming!
It’s still OK for me to like Blake’s 7, right?
That’s the other DTTD drinking game; take a swig when you recognize anything in Terry Nation’s writing that will turn up in some form in B7 later.
It’s not just the writing; look at the MSC logo. They’re fighting for the Federation.
I remember that clip being on Ask Aspel too, it was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on a Dalek. That must have been late ’74, before I started watching the show (I started with Ark In Space ep 1 – I was 4 at the time…).
Used to love the Target novel of this one. The Exxilon city sounded epic! One of those stories where the actual show just couldn’t live up to a child’s imagination.
“The Doctor really should have a companion that doesn’t look human. It makes him look a bit xenophobic.”
Glad to see Sue’s a Frobisher fan
All Hail the Big Talking Bird!
Apropos of nothing, the only Dr Who / Ask Aspel episode I remember was in 1979 when he had Lalla Ward on, and they showed a clip from Creature from the Pit of K-9 first destroying a wolf-weed and then being overwhelmed by them. It’s a pity they didn’t stick some of that interview with Lalla on the Creature DVD.
Those uniforms (as pictured at the top of the page) look a lot like modern-era Star Trek uniforms.
“Any idiot can use a screwdriver.”
Please, please add this to your mug collection.
As it happens I am perversely fond of the music for this story – it stuck in my head like no other score has. Yes, even more so than The Sea Devils! It would be perfect for a drunk Dalek with a limp. And hiccups.
SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE A PUB IN EXILLON COMMON SOUTH:
“Got any shpaaare parrinium, maaaAAATE? I MISHED the last nightSHIIIP back to ShkarOOOOh… [spins dizzily back and forth] …OOh, ooooh… See that – hic – Dok-TOOOR? I exshTERRminated him [waves plunger erratically] loads of times in the SIX-TIIIIIES. Shpaare parrinim – parrimuma – HIC – mum – manumaMANUMAMAHHH!!! – [eyestalk droops] Boll-OOOOCKS. COME ON, maaaAAATTTE?”
“Sue: That didn’t look that difficult. Why did the other contestants die? How many goes did they need before they all died of starvation? They must have been thick.”
The book indicates that they don’t get “goes”. They have one attempt – any wrong turning and the maze disappears – and so presumably does the air, pretty soon…
My childhood memory of this was being bored by all of it EXCEPT the quiz show bit at the end. Back then I was a sucker for unlocking ancient cities and tombs by doing puzzles, and when I first saw this the device didn’t seem hackneyed to me yet.
I’m really fascinated by Sue’s take on Pertwee; he was my second favorite Doctor for a long time but I’m starting to see him in a different light. It might actually be the case that Barry Letts is my second favorite Doctor. In any case, I can’t wait to see how she reacts to the climax of a certain upcoming story.
Barry Letts is your second favourite Doctor?!
Meaning that maybe it’s not the personality of the Third Doctor I like so much as the productions he appeared in.
With Sue loathing Terry Nation this much, I am looking forward to her reaction when she starts watching Blake’s 7.
It’s amazing really: Terry f****ng Nation is really only famous for inventing aliens without legs – certainly not as a decent writer.
Bouffanty Pertwee?
What about the Exillon left wandering around the TARDIS all these years?
Definite low point is the music: the Dalek Kazoo Marching Band (?) with bassoon accompaniment?
I think the only excuse they could possibly have for this is it was left lying around on the shelves from Troughton era, and they need a cheap fill-in after spending most of the budget on the dinosaurs from the last story.
Then again if you thought this was bad, wait until next week………..
Apart from on The Persuaders!, Blakes 7, Survivors, The Outer Limits, The Avengers, the children’s book Rebecca’s World… no, Terry Nation isn’t famous for being a good writer at all.
Sarah left the door open – so unlike the spare Cyberman, Sontaran etc, the injured Exxilon may have left.
And they’re not kazoos, they’re saxomophones…
Apart from that, spot on!
Not denying Nation had some good ideas, but his writing is laboured, slow (even allowing for the changes in pace between 1970 and now) and inconsistent.
Often Nation introduces a major concept that is then dismissed when he gets bored with it: just go back to the first dalek story. The thals are safe outside the city because daleks need the metal surface to move about on: we can then just get rid of that when they need to be on other planets. (with a disc on their backs which is never repeated either)
Lets get a good cliffhanger for the end of Blakes 7 series one: Orac can tell the future and shows the Liberator being blown up. This is a talent he never shows again throughout the entire series.
I do know he wrote other things apart from his DW stuff: I think they’re just as weak.
The Daleks’ ability to move without metal floors was at least addressed and explained, and to my mind the vertical slats take the place of the disc.
Oh and I do know the difference between saxmophones (sic) and kazoos: obviously you don’t realise that Daleks couldn’t possibly play saxophones with their sink plungers……
I’m intrigued by the idea of characters playing their own motifs. Should definitely be done.
Love the idea of mummies lumbering about with bass clarinets or the amazing cybermen marching gamelan ensemble. Also Bodie and Doyle hidden behind a car with a bass guitar and snare drum. Darth Vader might have trouble with a trombone though…
…bass guitar and hi-hat.
I’ve not seen this one since it was first on the telly, so I’m looking forward to the DVD release. I remember that Bellal scared the bejabbers out of me!
I’m almost tempted to get out the VHS after all that Julian Fox look-to-the-camera-spotting. The screengrabs are very funny. But my opinion of the story’s so low that I think I’ll wait for the DVD…
Is this the highest swearage count so far in the voyage? I can’t say I’m surprised. But, Neil, surely now you have a range of T-shirts and mugs, you have the opportunity to make the asterisks “massive” when you print up “What a ****! What an absolute ****! ****!! ****!!!”
And “It’s like Jo and the sandwich all over again!” wins a decent second place, too.
I’ve always said the Part One cliffhanger’s the worst – because on paper it should work, but everything about it (including Pertwee finding another girlie to patronise; thanks, Terry, after turning Sarah Jane into a screamer in a swimsuit) is done so badly. For me, Part Three’s just dull, not catastrophic. But as Sue’s got such an interest in interior furnishings, I guess that hits her own ‘On paper it should work’ trigger…
On the bright side, Bellal looked great in The Doctor Who Monster Book when I was a boy, and I’ve always been fond of him and his little tribe of nudist nonconformists.
Oh wow. I just finished episode six of “Planet of the Spiders” last night. I guess I’ll have to take a break and let you guys catch up!
One comment about “The Curse of Peladon” and “The Monster of Peladon”, I don’t believe that someone got special credit for the Alpha Centauri consume, which is merely a painted paper mache sphere (eyeball) and a green shower curtain. Yikes!
Neil, why DO they have so many 6 parters rather than a 5 parter that isnt padded?
It’s not my fault!
You think Pertwee’s 6-parters are dull…. try season 5!!!
“The worst cliffhanger EVER!”
I’m not going to argue with Sue about that, particularly when she is on such scintillating form. This is, by some distance, my least favourite classic series Dalek story. It had so much potential, particularly the concept of the living city and the Daleks being deprived of their normal weapons, but the end result feels more padded and tedious than many of Pertwee’s 6-parters, while the human characters are almost all totally forgettable. John Abineri is as good as always, but is totally wasted in his short-lived role – why on earth was he cast in it? The least said about the plank playing Jill the better, I think…
The music is one thing that doesn’t actually bother me, funnily enough. However, thanks to Sue, if I ever watch this story again I think I’ll be too distracted looking out for Julian Fox to pay much attention to the rest of it!
“Whatever you do – DO NOT LOOK AT THE CAMERA!”
T-shirt. Please. Make it so…
Agree with Sue’s rating. Always remembered the Dalek suicide – it’s right up there with Jenny Laird. And Terry ****ing Nation? Louis Marks did the Daleks so much better…
“Now there are only 699 wonders of the universe…” Lucky old universe, I say.
I’m still surprised that there hasn’t been a YouTube re-edit with Pertwee telling Sally Sparrow not to SPLINK.
Admittedly, it wouldn’t actually be that funny, but this IS YouTube we’re talking about…
I did that joke years ago. Nobody got it.
Tsk, what’s not to get?
Stop Pavement Look Is Near Keep – simples!
When the daleks are attacked byt he antibodies, one of the daleks calls it a fascist.
Doesn’t it call it a cyst?
Oh God, never noticed Julian Fox staring before, now I always will!
Episode 1, by itself, is a minor gem. Thinks are spooky and well directed, Pertwee seems more animated than usual and has good chemistry with Lis. Even the music mostly works, I adore the little sequence where Sarah Jane first sees the Exxilon City.
Rest of it never quite lives up to that, but it’s still a decent yarn with a great central idea and Bellal is rather sweet.
I like that Sue immediately picked up on the more grim, moody style of this story, as it’s like a tentative dry-run for the Holmes & Hinchcliffe House of Horror shenanigans that are just around the corner. Very fond of this story, partly because it was the second Dr ‘oo videotape I owned (Still not seen the episodic version) and although it sticks to the Terry Nation script-o-matic algorithm there is some interesting stuff going on there. Disappointed she didn’t have much to say about Galloway, he strikes me as a deliberate piss-take of the stereotypical ‘rowdy trade unionist’ of the era (until his predictable last minute heroic act of self sacrifice of course).
Sounds like Julian Fox could have used some acting coaching from Matthew Waterhouse. Pity that Waterhouse was only 12 when the episode was filmed, or Fox could have benefited from the advice he later gave to Richard Todd.
Looking at Richard Todd’s CV, it seems that at the time of “Kinda” Matthew Waterhouse had about three times as much experience of a TV studio and VT work (and Todd’s was largely in the 60s, so his experience was even less relevant given the huge changes in such work after 20 years)…
It was still incredibly inappropriate of Waterhouse to try to give him advice.
I think a recent DWM put a slightly different slant on what actually happened… I’ll have to dig it out and have another look. But prima facie I can’t really see how an actor working in a different medium (Todd being a film star) would object to friendly advice on VT studio technique – maybe it’s the manner it put across. But there has apparently been some misreporting on the incident. Then again – haters gonna hate.
Funny, I remembered this one being quite interesting, I’m not arguing, haven’t seen it for quite awhile and yeah the whole puzzle thing tended to excite me when I was a kid, before I saw how stupid the puzzles were so I guess it’s not surprising that it’s not as good as I remember. I also had remembered Jo being in it, so it shows how long it’s been, I should find it and watch it again. Honestly I often got bored by Dalek stories, this was the one that I liked a lot.
That one was a bit silly. The Dalek music was just dreadful, a bit too Abbott & Costello for me. I laughed whenever i heard it. And Daleks target-practicing with a miniature TARDIS!
The aliens looked a bit like they were from TatooIne. I loved the giant metal lily monster! I particularly liked the gladiator fight it had with the Dalek. And the Dalek ship blowing up at the end, what’s not to like?