The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: Death To The Daleks
Death To The Daleks: Part One (23/02/14)
Oh dear. It's another Terry Nation Dalek story. I freely admit when I read the title and saw who wrote it I wasn't enthused, especially after his last 'effort'. However, it wasn't terrible (yet it did feature a number of his 'trademark' plot points.
The overall atmosphere was good and held throughout the majority of the episode, largely thanks to very good night filming. The opening sequence featured the Doctor taking Sarah to Florana (as promised at the end of '...Dinosaurs') when, a la 'Planet Of...' something went wrong with the TARDIS, this time a power drain. Armed with a gas lamp, the Doctor used a crank to open the doors and step out onto the clay-quarry-like surface of Exxillon. Whilst Sarah put something brown and unflattering over her turquoise swimwear, the Doctor buggered off and got caught by the locals - who seem to dress in leather sacking held over their heads like children pretending to be ghosts.
Looking for him, Sarah found his blood-stained lamp (stupidly dropping it) before being chased back to the TARDIS by a couple of locals. Another local had walked in while she was out (because she'd left the door open!), but she soon dealt with him, beating the living shit out of him with the TARDIS crank. Twice.
Legging it, she found herself approaching a huge, white temple with a pulsing light on a beacon tower. By dawn she'd reached it, found some glowing, alien writing, and been captured by the locals - who look like they have shrunken heads thanks to their big, disc-like eyes - and prepared for sacrifice.
By this point, the Doctor had been rescued by some marooned Space Marine Corps people in search of a cure for a Space Plague. Thankfully, the Daleks only turned up at the end to quite obviously fail to shoot all the Marines dead.
It's very much Terry-Nation-By-Numbers, and the Chamber Quartet music isn't helping, only being effective when Sarah first saw the city. Nothing says 'Shit Monster' better than clunky woodwind and a glock; and given the Daleks are meant to be Villain #1, their lumbering entrance was only emphasised by the lumbering music. I can only pray this isn't a six-parter as I can't honestly see this improving. Ho hum.
Death To The Daleks: Part Two (02/03/14)
Oh dear. I wasn't expecting Mr Nation to plumb the depths of banality quite so soon, but he has. The Dalek weaponry doesn't work because of the effect the planet has draining power. However, as the Doctor rather unconvincingly explained to Sarah later on, they can still move about and flash their headlights because they've harnessed psychokinetic energy. Er...okay...
The Daleks fooled the Marines into thinking there were only four of them (there seem to be more) and they joined forces to find 'Perinium' - the unfortunately-named mineral that can prevent the 'Space Plague' mentioned last week. So off they went, only to be ambushed by Exxilons. John Abineri was killed, and they were taken with their dying Space Commander to their temple, where the Doctor attacked the High Priest preparing to sacrifice Sarah. They all got locked up.
Meanwhile, the other Daleks have perfected 'Machine Guns' to use and they raided the Temple. The Space Commander died, as did lots of Exxilons, while the Doctor and Sarah legged it into some underground tunnels, which it turns out they were going to be cast into for sacrifice. This wasn't made clear until the Doctor stated it five minutes later.
The dodgy Irish Marine has sided with the Daleks to use the Exxilons as a slave labour force to mine the Perinium, and agreed to hunt down the Doctor. Also, the Exxilons have agreed to be used as slave labour if the Daleks hunt down and kill a rebel faction of Exxilons, one of which appears to have found Sarah, abandoned by the Doctor whilst he went ahead to encounter a crappy, snake-headed thing for the cliffhanger.
There were moments when this wasn't bad, namely the chanting and sacrificial preparation with the Exxilons, but on the whole the acting was poor, the script was poor, the dialogue was dire and the Daleks were rubbish. Cheap and tedious. This'd better not be a six-parter!
Death To The Daleks: Part Three (09/03/14)
This story is going from bad to worse! Having been saved from Death-By-'Root' - apparently a probe from the living city of Exxilon - by the timely and distracting arrival of a Dalek who was quickly set on fire, the Doctor returned to Sarah and her new friend Bellal, one of the breakaway rebel Exxilons. Whilst Bellal claims the difference between his rebels and the other Exxilons is that they don't worship the City as a god whereas the others do, I think the rebels are just a bunch of Naturists since they don't wear the all-encompassing cloaks the others do. Bellal is very enthusiastic and melodramatic. As is his friend. A Dalek chased them through the tunnels, but they escaped.
Meanwhile, the Daleks told dodgy Galloway to tell the Exxilons to put more effort into their search for Perinium, then their quarry-cum-pool was attacked by another 'Root' probe who set one semi-submerged, flailing Exxilon on fire, then did the same to a Dalek on a cliff. Then the Daleks sent Jill off somewhere, but I didn't catch why and don't really care either.
The Doctor got Bellal to take him to the City, built by the Exxilons' ancestors who in turn travelled the universe and taught the Peruvians how to build - a statement that single-handedly insulted every single Human Being from the last 10,000 years! Our ancient ancestors were a hell of a lot more capable of building complicated structures than Mr Nation ever has been of writing a decent script! Wanker.
Anyhow, the Daleks followed the Doctor and Bellal into the City - entry was gained by picking the odd symbol out on a wall next to a sign proclaiming DAVE, into an antechamber full of skeletons of people who'd never encountered or had the brains to understand a maze (the next devious test to open the next door). Closely followed by the Daleks, the Doctor and Bellal entered a corridor only to encounter some devious RED FLOOR TILES!!! in what has to be one of the worst cliffhangers in anything ever!
Sarah Jane was also in this episode, not that she did much apart from be incomprehensibly wet. Clearly Mr Nation has no concept of what a strong female character is. Nil Point!
Death To The Daleks: Part Four (16/03/14)
Well, what to make of that? Not a great deal, I'm afraid. The Red Floor Tiles Of Death were easily overcome; you just didn't tread on the red ones, although Mr Pertwee did try and make it seem more complicated. They made their way to the control room, being attacked by a special lighting effect best used to accompany something Glam Rock of Top Of The Pops, where they were attacked by some 'Antibodies' (ie - men in even more dire costumes than the Exxilons) while the Doctor rewired the City's 'brain' to give it a 'nervous breakdown' so they could escape, clearly forgetting to do anything about the power drain encompassing the planet.
But that was okay as the Daleks had sent Peter and Galloway up to the top of the city to attach a couple of bombs to the beacon. Galloway, deciding one bomb was enough, hid the second bomb (very poorly) under his jacket instead. Then, having blown up the beacon, the Daleks had the bags of Perinium loaded onto their ship, gathered the Doctor, Bellal, Sarah, Jill and Peter to let them know that they were leaving and going to fire Plague Missiles (yes, shock horror, they were behind the plague) from space to kill everyone on the planet and prevent further expeditions, then ransom the Perinium.
Then they took off having failed to notice the absence of Galloway (one of only two Humans who'd loaded the Perinium onto their ship) with the others as he'd stowed away with the second bomb and blew the Daleks and their ship to bits. And the life-saving, plague-curing Perinium? Well, Sarah and Jill had replaced it all with sand and loaded the whole lot onto the Earth ship. Maybe if their guard had gone looking for them when it noticed they'd scarpered, or told the other Daleks instead of going "Human Female has escaped. I have failed! Self destruct!" and blowing itself up, they may have faired better.
I honestly can't think of anything to recommend this pile of garbage of a story. It started off okay, but then became the worst story in the show's history! Shit plot; shit acting; shit design (aside from the model City); unbelievably shit music! Mr Nation, please never write for Doctor Who again. And thank fuck it wasn't a six-parter!
Oh dear. It's another Terry Nation Dalek story. I freely admit when I read the title and saw who wrote it I wasn't enthused, especially after his last 'effort'. However, it wasn't terrible (yet it did feature a number of his 'trademark' plot points.
The overall atmosphere was good and held throughout the majority of the episode, largely thanks to very good night filming. The opening sequence featured the Doctor taking Sarah to Florana (as promised at the end of '...Dinosaurs') when, a la 'Planet Of...' something went wrong with the TARDIS, this time a power drain. Armed with a gas lamp, the Doctor used a crank to open the doors and step out onto the clay-quarry-like surface of Exxillon. Whilst Sarah put something brown and unflattering over her turquoise swimwear, the Doctor buggered off and got caught by the locals - who seem to dress in leather sacking held over their heads like children pretending to be ghosts.
Looking for him, Sarah found his blood-stained lamp (stupidly dropping it) before being chased back to the TARDIS by a couple of locals. Another local had walked in while she was out (because she'd left the door open!), but she soon dealt with him, beating the living shit out of him with the TARDIS crank. Twice.
Legging it, she found herself approaching a huge, white temple with a pulsing light on a beacon tower. By dawn she'd reached it, found some glowing, alien writing, and been captured by the locals - who look like they have shrunken heads thanks to their big, disc-like eyes - and prepared for sacrifice.
By this point, the Doctor had been rescued by some marooned Space Marine Corps people in search of a cure for a Space Plague. Thankfully, the Daleks only turned up at the end to quite obviously fail to shoot all the Marines dead.
It's very much Terry-Nation-By-Numbers, and the Chamber Quartet music isn't helping, only being effective when Sarah first saw the city. Nothing says 'Shit Monster' better than clunky woodwind and a glock; and given the Daleks are meant to be Villain #1, their lumbering entrance was only emphasised by the lumbering music. I can only pray this isn't a six-parter as I can't honestly see this improving. Ho hum.
Death To The Daleks: Part Two (02/03/14)
Oh dear. I wasn't expecting Mr Nation to plumb the depths of banality quite so soon, but he has. The Dalek weaponry doesn't work because of the effect the planet has draining power. However, as the Doctor rather unconvincingly explained to Sarah later on, they can still move about and flash their headlights because they've harnessed psychokinetic energy. Er...okay...
The Daleks fooled the Marines into thinking there were only four of them (there seem to be more) and they joined forces to find 'Perinium' - the unfortunately-named mineral that can prevent the 'Space Plague' mentioned last week. So off they went, only to be ambushed by Exxilons. John Abineri was killed, and they were taken with their dying Space Commander to their temple, where the Doctor attacked the High Priest preparing to sacrifice Sarah. They all got locked up.
Meanwhile, the other Daleks have perfected 'Machine Guns' to use and they raided the Temple. The Space Commander died, as did lots of Exxilons, while the Doctor and Sarah legged it into some underground tunnels, which it turns out they were going to be cast into for sacrifice. This wasn't made clear until the Doctor stated it five minutes later.
The dodgy Irish Marine has sided with the Daleks to use the Exxilons as a slave labour force to mine the Perinium, and agreed to hunt down the Doctor. Also, the Exxilons have agreed to be used as slave labour if the Daleks hunt down and kill a rebel faction of Exxilons, one of which appears to have found Sarah, abandoned by the Doctor whilst he went ahead to encounter a crappy, snake-headed thing for the cliffhanger.
There were moments when this wasn't bad, namely the chanting and sacrificial preparation with the Exxilons, but on the whole the acting was poor, the script was poor, the dialogue was dire and the Daleks were rubbish. Cheap and tedious. This'd better not be a six-parter!
Death To The Daleks: Part Three (09/03/14)
This story is going from bad to worse! Having been saved from Death-By-'Root' - apparently a probe from the living city of Exxilon - by the timely and distracting arrival of a Dalek who was quickly set on fire, the Doctor returned to Sarah and her new friend Bellal, one of the breakaway rebel Exxilons. Whilst Bellal claims the difference between his rebels and the other Exxilons is that they don't worship the City as a god whereas the others do, I think the rebels are just a bunch of Naturists since they don't wear the all-encompassing cloaks the others do. Bellal is very enthusiastic and melodramatic. As is his friend. A Dalek chased them through the tunnels, but they escaped.
Meanwhile, the Daleks told dodgy Galloway to tell the Exxilons to put more effort into their search for Perinium, then their quarry-cum-pool was attacked by another 'Root' probe who set one semi-submerged, flailing Exxilon on fire, then did the same to a Dalek on a cliff. Then the Daleks sent Jill off somewhere, but I didn't catch why and don't really care either.
The Doctor got Bellal to take him to the City, built by the Exxilons' ancestors who in turn travelled the universe and taught the Peruvians how to build - a statement that single-handedly insulted every single Human Being from the last 10,000 years! Our ancient ancestors were a hell of a lot more capable of building complicated structures than Mr Nation ever has been of writing a decent script! Wanker.
Anyhow, the Daleks followed the Doctor and Bellal into the City - entry was gained by picking the odd symbol out on a wall next to a sign proclaiming DAVE, into an antechamber full of skeletons of people who'd never encountered or had the brains to understand a maze (the next devious test to open the next door). Closely followed by the Daleks, the Doctor and Bellal entered a corridor only to encounter some devious RED FLOOR TILES!!! in what has to be one of the worst cliffhangers in anything ever!
Sarah Jane was also in this episode, not that she did much apart from be incomprehensibly wet. Clearly Mr Nation has no concept of what a strong female character is. Nil Point!
Death To The Daleks: Part Four (16/03/14)
Well, what to make of that? Not a great deal, I'm afraid. The Red Floor Tiles Of Death were easily overcome; you just didn't tread on the red ones, although Mr Pertwee did try and make it seem more complicated. They made their way to the control room, being attacked by a special lighting effect best used to accompany something Glam Rock of Top Of The Pops, where they were attacked by some 'Antibodies' (ie - men in even more dire costumes than the Exxilons) while the Doctor rewired the City's 'brain' to give it a 'nervous breakdown' so they could escape, clearly forgetting to do anything about the power drain encompassing the planet.
But that was okay as the Daleks had sent Peter and Galloway up to the top of the city to attach a couple of bombs to the beacon. Galloway, deciding one bomb was enough, hid the second bomb (very poorly) under his jacket instead. Then, having blown up the beacon, the Daleks had the bags of Perinium loaded onto their ship, gathered the Doctor, Bellal, Sarah, Jill and Peter to let them know that they were leaving and going to fire Plague Missiles (yes, shock horror, they were behind the plague) from space to kill everyone on the planet and prevent further expeditions, then ransom the Perinium.
Then they took off having failed to notice the absence of Galloway (one of only two Humans who'd loaded the Perinium onto their ship) with the others as he'd stowed away with the second bomb and blew the Daleks and their ship to bits. And the life-saving, plague-curing Perinium? Well, Sarah and Jill had replaced it all with sand and loaded the whole lot onto the Earth ship. Maybe if their guard had gone looking for them when it noticed they'd scarpered, or told the other Daleks instead of going "Human Female has escaped. I have failed! Self destruct!" and blowing itself up, they may have faired better.
I honestly can't think of anything to recommend this pile of garbage of a story. It started off okay, but then became the worst story in the show's history! Shit plot; shit acting; shit design (aside from the model City); unbelievably shit music! Mr Nation, please never write for Doctor Who again. And thank fuck it wasn't a six-parter!
Huh. I commented on this straight after I read it, so I've no idea where it disappeared to. Anyway, yeah, it was basically agreeing that it's shit and full of plot holes, but the one thing it has going for it (to me anyway) is Belal, who is played with real thought and conviction by Arnold whatsit. And I like the melting pavlova effect for the dying city. And the chanting for the sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteThat's really odd as I never saw your comment or got notified! I figured you were busy with life things. In retrospect, it's certainly not a great story but I can still enjoy it as a daft, badly plotted runaround with some horrendous design and direction. But I do like the sacrificial chanting and the City is actually quite nice. One thing I didn't note was Jill Tarrant's fixed expression which, from the very first time I saw the story on UK Gold in the mid-90s, stood out as a defining aspect of the story. She has two expressions: bemused and happy. Look at her at the end of Part One - You could literally make a figurine of her from that and place the character in a toy remake (al la Adam And Joe) and not know the difference.
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