'Begin the countedown!'
'No!
'One Hundred'
'Ninety Nine'
'Ninety Eight...'
Welcome to Dark Corners Dr Who Special!
'You will die.'
Let’s hear that familiar theme...
What the hell was that?
‘Okay so you caught me again’
Of course this isn’t the real Dr Who, we like the real Dr who.
'That is understandable.'
Mostly.
That last Christmas special was a bit poor.
‘Well you don’t have to convince me’
This is Dr Who and the Daleks the big screen remake of the TV story The Dead Planet
which first introduced the world to...
They bloody crept up.
'Destroy!'
Peter Cushing (Legend) take the lead.
‘Most exciting’
He may be the definitive Dr Frankenstein but he’s not Dr Who.
‘What’s his name’
No, Who’s his name. In this version the character’s name is Dr Who,
he’s a scientist who’s built a time machine in his back garden.
and (pause for effect) he’s human.
'One heart, no regeneration, lots of angry geeks.'
'But I don't understand why.'
And that’s not the only change, the Tardis looks different...
and sounds very different...
and the Dr has picked up a 2nd grand-daughter Barbra.
who is dating Ian, played by Roy Castle, who seems to have worn his tap shoes.
and whose lovable clowning makes the movie so much worse.
Fans of the series will dislike this on principle and why not? But we have to judge the movie in isolation.
‘What a relief’
Put the TV show from your minds,
view the film objectively, and only then can you say, with a certain sense of smug satisfaction,
that it absolutely sucks.
‘Somehting terrible happened here’
The plot is more or less identical to the original;
radioactive planet which has seen a long war between the vicious Daleks,
who mutated into monsters, and the peace-loving Thals...
who mutated into Ziggy Stardust.
‘This is most interesting’
But here’s the thing; the daleks are stupid
the Thals are stupid
‘Now they wish to make friends with us and offer us food.'
the humans are really stupid
‘That’s how they know what we’re doing’
You might think he’s pretty smart to spot the Dalek’s camera; here it is...
'Right pull hard, I'll hold you.'
Took him a day to notice that.
‘Our prisoners are intelligent’
Worse still, the bulk of the backstory is got across by the daleks
‘Man-y cent-ur-ies- a-go there were two peo-ples of this plan-et'
brilliant villains, not natural narrators!
‘But I don’t understand’
2 key things ruin this film; Cushing’s amiable Dr acts like a selfish prick
‘Please forgive me’
because his actions are written for William Hartnell’s more hard-edged interpretation
and while they’ve changed the character they haven’t changed what he does
‘Oh well’
secondly it doesn’t take itself seriously; between Roy Castle’s clowning
‘Excuse me Mr Dalek would you care to move on to this...’
and the Dalek room service
‘I have brought you more food and water’
I just can’t believe lives are really at stake.
And it seems like they aren’t.
Ooh, cramp!
How did this war last as long as it did if all the unarmed Thals had to do was push the Daleks into a wall!
‘It’s rather exciting isn’t it'
No!
'We must be over the worst of it by now.'
While the film’s main problem remains it’s bastardising of a popular character,
it’s perfectly capable of being dreadful in its own right.
‘There’s something wrong somewhere’
We were also going to review the sequel Daleks Invasion of Earth but then I’d have to watch it.
‘Rather you than me’
Exactly.
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