.. I’ve been revisiting some key Dalek stories through Netflix UK‘s Doctor Who collection – beginning with 1963′s The Daleks story in which the Doctor, Susan and their companions Ian and Barbara, encounter the Daleks and the Thals for the very first time.
I note with some amusement that all the male Thals look like Graham Chapman from Monty Python:
“Hello. My name is Raymond Luxury Yacht”
Monty Python’s Flying Dalek!
The trouble with this 1963 story arc is that the pacing is just terrible. The Ordeal in particular just dragged on and on with the scenes in the caves – particularly the chasm jump – and episode just couldn’t have gone any slower. A lot of it could have been re-written and tightened up. Doctor Who could have really benefited from a stronger script editor back in those days. But it was rather splendid to see the Daleks from 1963 be a bit more individual within the collective and even perhaps more .. emotional .. than future generations.
From The Daleks I jumped forward to 2005′s Dalek with Christopher Eccelston. Some superb performances from both all and still one of the finest scripted Dalek stories of all time.
I then fast forwarded to David Tennant’s Doctor and The Daleks of Manhattan/The Evolution of the Daleks which is fun, campy and quite insane. The only problem here is the Dalek/human hybrid make-up. It looked far too much like the stuff that Millenium FX/Neil Gorton produced for Gerry Anderson’s god-awful Space Precinct (some of the worst acting and writing you’ll ever see) and indeed the whole thing felt like a better Space Precinct than a Doctor Who episode. But I still liked these two episodes nonetheless.
I’m about to start The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End and that should pretty much do until tonight’s new Dalek-filled episode.
