The Doctor Who story “ Death to the Daleks ” contains the coolest picture ever created : A Dalek exploding in fire . vast roiling flaming coming out of the bust - open dome , like a hulk inferno had squander the mutation within . I still rememberthe crazy cover to the Target novelization , where the flames soar up so in high spirits they were half the video . This was igneous Dalekgeddon .
And then you determine the actual story “ Death to the Daleks , ” and … Umm . It ’s kind of awkward . You sense bad for the Daleks , honestly .
On paper , “ Death to the Daleks ” is a bang-up idea . The TARDIS receive stuck on a planet where some mysterious force suck all the power out of everything — including the TARDIS and the spaceship of some humans who ’ve come there . And then the Daleks show up and they , too , are without power for their weapons and clobber . Except that the Daleks can still move around , because they apply bridge player - wavy psychical stuff and nonsense to move their shell . The Daleks , deprive of their usual firepower , have to use more cunning to get what they desire .
So far , so good . Except that , rewatching “ last to the Daleks ” after its recent videodisc release , it ’s hard not to feel horribly lease down . These are credibly the least spoilt - tush the Daleks have ever been — yes , worse than the original version of “ daylight of the Daleks . ” It ’s believably a affiliation with “ Destiny of the Daleks , ” the story where the Daleks :
A ) Are ineffectual to shoot down Disco robots with peachy shining hair
B ) Are portrayed as entirely lucid , fly in the face of all old portrayals of them as irrational hate monsters
C ) Become suicide bombers , because the existence ’s most awesome war machines are at their most redoubtable with explosives strapped to them , apparently .
But “ Death to the Daleks ” is almost as bad . The Daleks are unable to kill the Doctor and his admirer with their ray grease-gun , and it does n’t occur to the Daleks to just examine feed them over or something . The Daleks keep to make the little fibers go in and out of their egg whisk broom hit man long after it ’s open they ’re not actually send away is sort of sorry . But then you get to the bit where the Dalek gets blown up and bursts in to flames ( see above ) , and it ’s really kind of inauspicious . The Dalek fundamentally gets collision with stick a few times , which do n’t even scratch its casing . And then it burst into flames for no particular reason . Maybe the Dalek just felt like being a Tiki torch , to add to the festive mood .
Later on , there ’s the illustrious bit where the Daleks fit themselves with auto guns , and they test them out by shooting at little model of the Doctor ’s TARDIS , which are standard equipment on all Dalek vessel because of hostility therapy . They ’re like the equivalent weight of those office squeezy balls that you ’re theorise to fascinate to get rid of tautness .
But spoiled of all is the bit where a Dalek notices his prisoners have escaped , and starts shouting louder and in high spirits … until finally he just dies of a nervous breakdown . Yes , really . The Dalek is so upset he just dies of tsuris . He ego - destructs , but there ’s no detonation or anything , just the Dalek sort of crapping out .
I had somehow remembered “ dying to the Daleks ” as a jolly sturdy little account — not as interesting as “ Day of the Daleks , ” or as weirdly epic as “ Planet of the Daleks , ” the other two Jon Pertwee Dalek stories , but pretty fun . But sadly , the new videodisk acquittance is a groovy chance to revisit and see how poorly this account really treated the Daleks . The rest of the story is also kind of naff — the indigen of the planet , the Exxilons , are sort of received - outcome savages who ’ve lost the manipulation of their former high engineering . With the human forfeiture and the weird superstition . The foreign city that move around out to be the cause of all the power drain can only be insert after going through exactly one episode ’s worth of sappy tests of skill and reason , a figure of speech that ’s done right smart better in “ Pyramids of Mars ” a couple years later .
It ’s credibly deserving renting , just for Jon Pertwee being debonair here and there , plus one of the first stories with Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith . The extras are really courteous , too — much good than a pot of the other late videodisc . There ’s some actual behind - the - scenes footage showing stunt sequences and action stuff being worked out , and you’re able to see the super - archaic use of greenscreen ( or in this causa , xanthous - screen ) for the Daleks coming out of their starship . It ’s a pretty fascinating look at how they did this stuff and nonsense on a shoestring budget .
The “ qualification of ” docudrama is also more fun than a lot of the other recent one we ’ve seen — including this weird anecdote about just how altogether hinder the Daleks during the production of this story , getting shoved around and “ taking on a little bit of a rock and roll ” and crashing into each other . Oh dear .
Also on the DVD — a brief look behind the scenes of Peter Cushing ’s Dalek movies , and a flaky little featurette about the guys who sit inside the Daleks throughout the classic Doctor Who epoch . Apparently going to the privy when you ’re inside a Dalek could be a sly suggestion . Unless you just wrap on top of a storm drain and countenance it go . ( See video at leftover . )
When the Daleks actually wreak — as they do in “ Genesis of the Daleks ” a yr later , or a smattering of other stories — they ’re absolutely terrific and imposingly foreign . And seeing them not work quite so well , in a story like “ Death to the Daleks , ” is sort of a reminder of just how marvellous and inspired their successes were .
If you want to see Doctor Who trying to create another subspecies like the Daleks , and failing miserably , another recent DVD release is “ The Krotons , ” in which some diamond - direct sorta - robot sorta - rock creatures oppress the squabbling Gonds from inside their spaceship . The Krotons seem even more cockeyed than I ’d think of , and the fact that they basically ca n’t move outside their ship , and are unreasoning without the Kroton inside the ship giving them “ direction dot ” every few seconds , just makes them even less redoubtable . peradventure the bad Dalek whang - offs the show ever produced — but it ’s sort of amusing to check Patrick Troughton run rings around them .
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