Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary.
The only Doctor Who podcast emerging slowly from the waters of the
Thames, in the hope of kicking off an exciting second year.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
I'm Simon. and I'm Todd.
It's the 21st of November, 1964.
It's been 11 months since Jackie Hill was forced to scream at a
sink plunger, and tonight, 11400000 people have tuned in for a
rematch.
From shrieking racist robots in some futuristic space corridors to
the doctor's greatest and most mythic enemy.
Let's see how, and if, that transformation is achieved, in the
Dalek invasion of Earth.
Let's say something about this story that I don't think is said
very often.
It's really not very well made, is it?
I think that's indisputable.
There are, I think, parts of it that are very well made, and that
just stands in stock relief to all the parts that aren't.
There's definitely things that are disappointing about the
production.
A lot of it unfortunately does come down to the director.
I also want to say a lot of it comes down to the designer as
well.
You can tell that Ray Koustic has not been a designer. this
story.
But having said that, I think it tries very hard.
And I think part of the reason for a lot of the failures is
because it's being scripted as if it is a fully budgeted feature
film.
Like it's almost being scripted for the feature film remake rather
than for it to be filmed in a microscopic studio.
It's very interesting because I realised as I was watching this, I
actually know the movie better than this.
Oh, absolutely, me too.
And I kept comparing it to the movie.
And I even kept saying to myself, this is like the pilot episode
not even the pilot episode for American series where they've given
them money to say go and film something, right?
With this script, and we won't give you enough to do all the
special effects, you can just have like a shot of a UFO that
you're going to zoom in on.
You going to have like baby crocodiles.
You're going to have, near enough is good enough with some
performances like, and you're going to present it to us.
And then you present it to us, and then we just tighten up the
script at the end and focus on the mining at the quarry and give
you a much bigger Dalek set, and all those big set pieces will
give you money for in the robe, and men will look much better and
we'll go and film the movie as the pilot episode.
Well, actually, the Robaman, I thought that about the Robaman, the
1st time I saw it, whenever it was, the early 90s, because again, I
was so used to the film, but I actually think these robamen are
far more awful looking because you've got the bits of wire and
you've got the kind of the white skull cap which goes on.
Yes, when they pull off the helmet and they've got the skull cap
on it.
It looks awful.
It looks awful. and the performances are all like they are, the
walking dead, they're zombies.
So in some respects, in hindsight, I think that they do make the
right decision with the Roman, I think the slick version of the
Roman, you get in the film, is actually the wrong decision for
what they are.
And let's just say there's no scene in this Dalek invasion of
Earth where the road men are lining up to get their food and it's
all comedy slapstick.
Comedy relief, yes.
Yes.
I would say that this might be the fullest example in all of
Doctor Who of the sum being more than its parts.
I want to compare it to like the other 2 Dalek stories on either
side of it because Richard Martin obviously directs about half of
the Daleks, is that right?
Yes, 4 a half.
Yeah.
And then he directs the chase.
Which is the poorer.
Which is the poorer third.
And I actually remember the last time I watched the chase for
another podcast that I was appearing in, that I was absolutely
horrified by how terrible it looked, like just how extraordinarily
poor it was.
And I remember it might have been the 1st black and white story
that I ever saw in kind of reasonable condition because it was
part of that box set, with remembrance of the dialects on the
chase.
And I saw the chase and I thought, oh, that must be what 1960s
Doctor Who is like.
And often that is what 1960s Doctor Who is like.
It doesn't have to be like that.
And certainly after we get the chase, we get the dialect master
plan and the surviving episodes of that that are directed by
Douglas Campfield.
And of course, that is one of the enduring mysteries of Richard
Martin, who I'm sure we'll talk lots more about, being given after
his work on the Daleks.
The big episodes of the series, Darlic Invasion of Earth, the
Chase, the Web Planet.
He is entirely the wrong director for those stories.
He's the right director, I think, for maybe some other stories.
But suddenly when you get to Starlet Masterplan, and you've got
Dougie in charge.
It all works.
And it's amazing.
Even in sort of tiny studios, even with all of the, you know
restrictions, budgetary restrictions, and so on.
It wasn't inevitable that you would have Richard Martin just point
a camera at something that's vaguely happening in the foreground.
I actually don't think that that's why it's terrible.
I don't think it's not laziness.
First of all, just going back to the 1st point about why does
Richard Martin get to do those three?
What are effectively the 3 showcase?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it may be to do with.
Look, his episodes of the Daleks, I think, are his best work, as
in the original show, original serial, are I think his best work
on the show.
That will play into something I'll say later.
Yes, but that's probably partly because he's already got it all
set up, thanks to Christopher Barry and Ray Cuzick, which is very
very vitally. was very, very vital to the success of that story.
What you get on the DVD extras, and I was watching, I didn't watch
all of it, but what most of the making of documentation of Earth
are this.
And they all say how lovely he was, and I think it's Bernard Kay
who said that he didn't really get things right sometimes, or at
least it was all too much of a nice place to be.
So with these directors, A, you need to find someone who is
available and willing and even though the show's new, it's still
like, 0 God, do I really want to work on that?
It sounds like a complete nightmare.
He probably was also brought in because he kept the place happy.
He kept everything ticking along.
We got to Friday night.
We shot it all, whenever it was, and we got through it.
I think his problem is, is that he doesn't, he's got all that time
in rehearsal in acting or wherever it is.
And then you have such a tiny amount of time in the studio.
And I think what it comes down to is his ambition for that, is
that his vision for that, is not possible within the multicamera
studio environment.
Because if you look at the film shots, you know, running through
London and all that sort of stuff, they are well shot, good angles
interesting choices.
Like even when, you know, when Dortmund is on the ground after
he's been killed lying there while they drive the truck out, you
know, it's an interesting angle.
He's trying to do all that and it's just not possible with his
clunky cameras, but he's not taking that into account when he's
doing his camera script.
So the cameramen are trying to get from A to B. They're not making
it to here.
They're not making it to there.
So I don't think it's the fact that the camera just pointed in a
random spot.
I think it ends up being pointed in a random spot because it can't
get to where it's supposed to be.
Let me add something to this and also I'll push back on
something.
So I think Richard Martin was trying to create art.
I interviewed him for 3 hours in 1995.
And what constantly came across was that he was frustrated in his
goals.
He wanted to create something amazing and never could.
Now, you can debate where the fault for that lies.
Obviously, if you're trying to create art, it's almost impossible
under the restrictions that you have making an episode of Doc 2 in
70 minutes in the studio.
So, who works the Doctor Who is people who make the very best that
they can within the limitations that they're working under?
He was always shooting for the sky and frequently missing, and
that is much worse than lowering your sights a little bit and
achieving something that is pretty good.
Now, I also...
There is absolutely a happy medium, yes.
And I want to push back a little bit on this characterisation of
Richard as someone who is kind of either well-meaning and liked by
the team or who just placed his cameras.
I think he would entirely disagree with that and I think I would
as well.
I think he viewed himself as an iconoclastic bomb thrower.
He was trying to blow everything up and do everything his way and
get people to produce some art, damn it.
Of course, he didn't succeed.
Mostly.
He did occasionally, but he was not a Morris Barry.
He wasn't someone who went in and said, oh, that'll do, love.
He was always striving for more.
It's just a case if he was striving for far too much.
And even the stuff on the web planet is noticeably better, I think
than certainly the stuff on either Dalek conversion of earth or
the chase.
Don't you think?
Yes, I think it's really interesting what you've both said.
Obviously, you've got a personal experience of talking to him and
finding out all this information.
I think what you've said is that I think it's far worse that he
strive to do so much and frequently misses because then surely you
would adjust yourself saying, like, you know, in the chase, by the
time you get to chase, okay, I know I can't do as much.
So let's pull it back a bit and I'm going to get it much more on
target and that still doesn't happen.
And I think that is, well, it's just going to sound horrible
unforgivable.
And at points in this, I was just sitting there going, this is the
attack on the Dalek spaceship and it's like one punch and the
robomen are down.
Like it's not even a punch.
Those sequences are just we've had a week of rehearsal and this is
what you're giving me.
I mean, he's incredibly poor at action in the studio.
Yes, 100%.
I agree, bad.
He can't cover.
No.
And that's hugely evident, I think, in the chase where you've got
the big fight on a radius, and you've got the big fight in the
haunted house.
And both of them are just, there's a camera distant from the
action pointing over everyone's head and things are happening.
And that scene at the helipad.
I think he's really quite terrible.
Sluggish and odd.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think there's a reason for this because he said to me that he
would have these complicated camera scripts where he was trying to
cover the action.
It would all just go horribly wrong and the vision mixer would say
get out of the way, Clive, and just do some cutting, usually to
the wide shot that was covering everything, which is probably why
it's all just started to disintegrate in the shot choice.
And they've just cut to the wide shop, which is why there's
characters and daleks going backwards and forwards.
And often waiting for something to happen so that they can do
their bit. absolutely.
And so I think it's exactly what Simon said.
The cameras can't get there.
His camera scripts are too complicated.
He's asking too much of the camera people to be able to get into
position to get that shot.
So they're always a 2nd late.
It cuts to them and they're always still focussing or sort of
wobbling onto the MCU that they want.
And then you miss the action, and like Todd said, the chase
becomes the most egregious example, where in the haunted house
episode, Everything you need to see happens a 2nd before
offscreen.
Yeah.
And what I would say to follow up on Todd's point and to push back
on you, Peter, is that why hasn't he learned his lesson by that?
Oh, there's no pushback. agree with you.
You do what I mean?
And I think that, okay, that's a reason for it being rubbish in
Dalek invasion of Earth.
And maybe he gets away with it a little bit in Web Planet, and he
thinks it, alt, was just a cumbersome nature of the costumes and
so on, which is why we couldn't do that.
But then, yeah, the chase is the most egregious example, as you
say.
I really like what you had to say about the location work.
This is the 1st time I've had so much location work integrated
into a Doctor Who story.
Because Rand of Chair is the first, isn't it?
But it's just a long shot with someone else playing the doctor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're used to as children of the late 70s, early 80s.
We're used to Doctor Who with location work integrated in with
studio work and it's just 2nd nature to us.
But this is the 1st time the show is really doing it.
So I have to give it kudos for that.
You know, we're trying something new.
Technology is moving on.
We've got bigger budgets.
We are really trying to move. going to the next level.
And this is the thing.
When you look at television, whether it be in the United States or
whether it be in the UK.
If you look at like 61 to 64, and if you look at like, say, 67 to
69, there is a big change, because we've got newer technology
we've got used to the techniques of television, we've got a
different psyche around, you know, the swinging 60s, et cetera.
I have 200 lines on the screen.
True.
But where we are, you've got to start somewhere in terms of
pushing the technology forward.
And this is where I think over from this, well, all of Doctor Who
but really these next 2 seasons, up until around like the moon
based sort of macro terror where we're sort of much more Doctor
Who is Doctor Who as we know it, like these next 2 years are
pushing that envelope and trying with that technology and we're
going to have failures and not.
And so for that matter, for this time round, the 1st time round
that we're really doing it.
You know, we've got to start somewhere.
Do you notice something about the location work, about a lot of
the location work?
Is it that Britain in the 60s looks like post-war Britain and
they've lost the war?
Or that the Daleks have invaded?
No, it's the fact that actually only a very small amount of it has
sink sound.
I picked this up because I think when we were at University Peter
we were shown in episode, we would have been homicide, which was
dated, which is I think was 964 as well.
And they made a particular point when they showed it to us.
None of the location work in it, had sync sound.
It was people getting out of cars, it was walking up to the police
station, so on like that because it was just too difficult to be
able to do it.
And so all the stuff running through Trafalgar Square running
across, you know, Westminster Bridge and stuff.
It's all silent. and even the stuff with the van and so on
crashing to the Daleks, that sound is all folded later.
What about the stuff in episode one?
Oh, there is some, it's not I not saying all of it. a surprising
amount of it when you think about it is mute, basically.
And of course, that's down to the scheduling because they were
like guerilla filmers, not...
They had to like get in and shoot it and get out and doing that
without sound enables that.
You can basically set up the camera.
Because a film camera is so light in comparison to a video
camera.
That's right.
Other day.
Also, you noticed the lighting in the location shot.
It's not very good. just going with what is the available.
Of course.
Unfortunately, it's sunny day.
They have to snatch that 102nd interval when they're down on the
embankment when there's no one walking through the background and
no one coming through the form.
There is someone in the background of Trafalgar Square, I noticed
and there is someone there is a...
And there is a lorry.
There is a lorry or something at the very end of Whitehall.
Just very, very...
I did notice those.
It's like the blue array. thanks to the Blu-ray.
Didn't you?
I did I was watching them.
I had to reduce the size of the window on the screen when I was
watching it just because the picture quality on like a giant
monitor.
You can see the lines. terrible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So sort of bringing it right down.
I was obviously on the flight through the entirety episode that
covered this and the thing that struck me most in context, you
know, having watched Doctor Who threw all the way through to this
point. all those episodes.
Marco Polo, Mariners, and something.
It's a lot Sorry to disappoint you.
I think it was only 44, but...
Depends for count part 4 of Paul.
No, we're not counting.
Like the location thing is absolutely the most striking thing.
And because everyone's tuning in, I think next week gets slightly
more viewers than this week.
12.4.
And the last episode also gets 12.4 as well.
But everyone loves Sandy.
It's kind of a cap, really.
The ceiling.
But this had been this had kind of been on the radio times.
Everyone knew that it's a Dalek story.
And so everyone is tuning in, and I think people who haven't tuned
in since the Daleks were 1st on, and they had to be kind of some
of them in there must have been going, oh my god, look, what's
happened to this show?
It looks amazing.
But also it's outside factors.
Yes, it gets great ratings because the Daleks are back and there's
radio times cover, but also the Daleks has shown up in the lead up
to Christmas and the Christmas holidays, the rescue is shown in
the early new year.
Yeah, there's a huge available audience.
So they did this on purpose.
They knew they'd have a big audience and they delivered.
What I like is the fact that they're still playing to their
limitations, the fact that yes, they've got to get in and out of
that location filming.
And so as Simon said, there's very little sink sound, there's no
lighting set up on the location, they just go for it.
But also, they had to record this story now because it's the end
of the production block, and it's the only time they're able to
actually find those days to get out and film it.
It's like going forwards.
The smugglers has lots of location filming because it's the end of
the recording.
The abominable snowmen and the invasion have lots of location
filming because it's the start of their production blocks.
And so they know what they're doing with utilising their resources
for pushing them as far as they can.
Just going back to the Richard Martin thing, again, I just wanted
to pick up on the designer aspect, because when you were talking
about the attack on the Dalek spaceship, I think that's where the
frankly, quite rubbish sets are in evidence most, because you've
got the operation bed where people are robotised, which is just on
the other side of a small space where the cells are off.
Now, I know that the studio is microscopic, but the way that is
shot as well is just awful because when, you know, the doctor's
lying on the bed and Tyler's behind that tiny wall and all this
action's happening.
You just don't get a sense.
Like, it's just so awfully cramped and actually have a continuous
crab, which breaks television grammar completely, where you go
from outside that set and then just crab across to inside the
set.
And it's very clear that there's no wall there.
You can see where the wall ends.
And he does it again later in that episode where Ian is hiding in
the little bolt hole underneath.
And so he shoots in a little pot, but he shoots too wide.
So you can see that it's actually cuts away.
You should be in close with him to give the impression and then
cut to the top and he comes out.
There's no opportunity for retake.
There is, but all you have to say is camera 3 getting closer
love.
Well, it's too late, but it's too late by then, frankly.
That's the problem.
Yes, there's no opportunity for retakes.
Like, you know, when they attack that robber man, and then he has
to bump into the equipment and it all explodes.
He seems to have 2 goes at it. because the effect hasn't gone off
or something.
Can we talk about things that go right in the production, though?
And one of them, I think, is the music.
Very good.
The music, so this is someone who never works on the show, again
his name is Francis.
Richard Martin?
Sean.
Oh, he worked.
He got paid.
Yeah, France's chagrin.
Chagrin.
I don't know, but it is that French word.
He doesn't work on it again, and it is incredible.
So the staff in episode 3 with the Daleks in Trafalgar Square and
going along the embankment, which is all that sort of very weird
very experimental sort of percussion.
There's some very weird piano stuff at the end at the climax.
Like it's really... very avant-garde. great, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's also just sort of terribly modern in the way that the
theme music is as well. like the score for the invasion.
Yeah, which is just atmospherics, which underline...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It certainly makes that tense, I think, and strange.
You know, the whole purpose, I think, of that location footage and
why it works so well is that it's familiar places with Daleks in
them, which is something that we couldn't have imagined, I think
as little as 11 months ago.
And it just serves to make those places even more strange and
threatening.
It really lifts the episodes at their in.
The Dalek plunges are very, very long.
They're great I love the extended dark.
Yeah, well, they have to do Elon Musk.
They were bragging about that in the bar on Friday.
I think that's important, Nathan, because, like Simon said, a lot
of location filming is shot without location sound, and so it
relies on the music.
And so it gives it a real sense of pace, those scenes where
Barbara and Jenny are trying to escape London with Dortmund.
And the music ramps up the tension, which otherwise isn't really
there.
Because again, going back to Richard Martin, he's handed this gift
of going to central London, shoot the deserted streets.
Dialects are invaded, it seems impossible you could muck that up
and yet occasionally I think he does.
There are some great shots in there, but there's also some what?
Shots like shooting around the Royal Albert Hall, which I think
unless you're a Londoner, is not immediately recognisable as a
location.
The scrap extension of cream Victoria, isn't it?
Well, that's the Albert Memorial, yes, but.
But on 405...
You are a Londoner, though, aren't you?
I don't, absolutely.
Sorry, I said, oh, look, it's the Royal Arpent Hall.
Well, I just think there was more opportunities there.
Look at what Dougie does.
Dougie goes, okay, St.
Paul's Cathedral.
Yeah, he chooses the really obvious.
Yes, and where else?
Well, there's that street that they walk around.
Yes, exactly.
My point is there's a pub.
Yeah, but the point being, I think we've done a pretty good job
getting Westminster Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and Whitehall, and I
think that the Albert Memorial is probably pretty good as well.
And even if we don't, okay, it's not outside Buckingham Palace, but
that probably was too hard.
And remember, they're not doing this with permission.
They're just turning up at 5 AM.
That's absolutely... they are shot as well.
Like when they're walking down, I think it's the cenotaph towards
Trafalgar Square.
Whitehall.
Yeah.
There's no establishing shots.
There's nothing to actually show you where you are.
You're already watching them in the action and then work out a
movement later where they are.
I agree with you.
It's not terrible, but I think more could have been done with
this.
And I think a director like Duggee would have really made those
show stopping pieces, and I'm not sure that's exactly what you
get.
What the hell is Jenny wearing?
She looks like snuggle, pot and cuddle pie, the gum nut.
And I hate them.
And I just and I just look at that.
I just think, what were they thinking?
So hate Jenny.
Well, actually, no, I think she's a better actress than Carol Anne
Ford.
Well, yeah, low bar, low bar.
You want to know why?
Yes, please.
It's because she naturally has darker hair and they wanted her to
have blonde hair for the production so that she could be told
apart on a 5 inch screen between Barbara and someone like that
because, you know, all women look the same, obviously.
So she had to get her hair dyed, but she hadn't had it dyed or
bleached by the time the location work because that was done 1st
and so they put a balaclava on her to hide it.
It would have been improved if Barbara had also been...
Yes.
Then you wouldn't have told them apart.
Scarf, you know, pulled out of her capacious pockets.
Richard Martin is such an interesting case because I can see so
much of what he's trying to do.
So I was watching that 1st scene in the Tardis.
It's the 1st scene in the studio of the entire show.
And it's all shot in one frame.
So you've got the console in front.
You've got the scanner behind and you've got the camera in front
looking at both of them at this strangely high angle.
And the reason is he wants the doctor to be in the background
wandering around.
It's not framed for that shot.
It's framed for where the shot will end up eventually.
So all William Hartnell does is wander around in front of the
console between that and the scanner with the camera just trained
on him in wide shot.
He then moves it out of shot camera right for 3 seconds.
So there's nothing on screen before wandering back into shot
weirdly close to the camera and in close-up so that the other
characters can then walk into shot, fill the space that he was
in.
And suddenly we have a fully composed shot.
Mise en scene.
It is mis-on-sen.
It doesn't work because it's incredibly static and wrongly
framed.
Now this could be an analogue for most of Richard Martin's work
incredibly static and wrongly framed.
But I can see what he was trying to do.
He was trying to save time in the studio by doing it in one shot
with people moving around in it.
So he could get onto the stuff which was more time consuming and
which might, God forbid, require a retake or something.
But it doesn't work.
He just doesn't place his camera correctly.
It's an astounding admission, isn't it, that we have here a
director who can't do a scene in the TARDIS where people walk
around the console effectively, and that's a problem, I think.
I think what he's trying to do is he's trying to make that shot
interesting, and he knows that he can set the camera up actually
in the right position, or what he's regarded as the right position
before we start, because that's where everything starts, because
the Robeman sequence is a film insert.
And he wanted to do that thing where he doesn't cut between
things.
He didn't want it to be that kind of standard coverage of the
Tartis console room.
I agree that doesn't work, but yeah, I allowed him...
Not my large criticism.
No, absolutely not mine either.
And we'll see you when he comes to the chase, for instance.
He always has ideas.
He's always brimming with ideas.
Some of them don't come off and some of them are just like, okay
that's an idea, but why did you go with that?
In the chase, he puts the camera in place of the console.
So the doctor is leaning over the camera and pretending to pull
leave us.
So the door's open, which is a fascinating idea, but doesn't work
in the action.
You're thinking, what are you doing?
Oh, I see what we're doing.
So you're following...
Yeah, you're following the director's choices rather than them
being natural and feeling like they belong in the action.
Having said that, I don't want to crucify Richard Martin too much
because I think some parts of the story really do work, and these
I think, are the parts which play to his strengths.
So going back to what I say, why is he the person who's in charge
of these big action oriented stories when they are clearly not his
wheelhouse?
Imagine how different it would have been, Christopher Barry had
been invited back to do the Dalek invasion of birth, and Dougie
Canfield had been invited to do the web planets instead of the
time meddler.
Just imagine how differently those stories would exist.
But when we get to episode five, I think it is, The Croones in the
Wood, that sequence is magnificent.
It's all set up, as Simon said, with Miz onsen.
It done like a plea for today on a stage or corner of the studio.
It's lit beautifully with the light from the storm coming in from
outside.
He gets these lovely close-ups on the 2 crones, which you don't
often get in 60s talk 2, those intense close-ups.
And the whole thing from beginning to end is a magic little
sequence in the story that works perfectly.
That's the kind of stuff he can do.
Exactly, because it's standard drama.
It just, it's not Doctor Who.
It just, it's just normal.
Remember, he does come from a theatre background.
He's mainly a theatre director and that's his bread and butter.
Interesting.
I just want to observe something about that sequence and why we're
talking about it, is it reminded me, this sounds ridiculous. of
threads.
Yes, Simon, yes.
Right, because you've got this post-apocalyptic world and, I mean
you called them old crones, but there's supposed to be mother and
daughter, the younger one.
I'm basically thinking of Eileen Way.
Yes, exactly.
I'm surprised it wasn't Eileen Way. should have been...
But the younger one is hurt, obviously her daughter, and she's a
simpleton.
She hasn't been properly educated.
It's like, it's like, you know, the decay of civilisation, you
know, we've fallen off the edge just like in the threads.
No, absolutely agree.
It's funny because when I watch that sequence, I just think of the
movie sequence and I just think of Louise, isn't the movie
sequence actually Eileen Way?
It might be, actually.
Yeah, exactly.
So, I guess old woman for rent.
And this is going back to what Simon said, because threads is a
very effective, obviously, post-apocalyptic nightmare.
Terry Nation, who I'm sure we'll talk more about, gets all of
those ideas right.
He says, we need a creepy moment in the woods with people who are
cut off from civilisation.
It feels like we've regressed to kind of mediaeval times or, you
know, the Middle Ages.
And so he hones in on that drama, and that is a perfect little
vineyard.
It's my favourite sequence from the story.
Well, certainly my favourite seconds from that episode, but that's
not difficult.
Not the slither?
Ah, Jesus.
I, you know, I, I think that that, I was wondering, though, whether
that was supposed to be a Roberman being caught, because you can
imagine a Roberman going, ah. that kind of, you know, like that
robotic kind of...
They say, stop.
But I had totally forgotten it.
Like, I could not remember it from when I 1st watched it.
I just think of the movie.
Is it in the movie?
No, in the movie.
Alas, it didn't make the cut.
Ashton gets killed by the Daleks, which is obviously what has to
happen.
Yes.
You know, in a sort of competent thing.
But Terry loves those monsters.
We have the Maya Beasts, we have whatever the hell that octopus is
in the Daleks, you know, we have...
We have Varga plants, you know, like he loves that star.
Sorry, just when I saw it in the background with its little tiny
claw things, like, it's, it's, claw is perfectly formed.
It's so bad.
It's like a one of the dalek claws, right?
Yeah, but they swap the sink plunge of the floor without the metal
casing.
Skeleton.
Because in the movie...
Is it Ashton?
Gets exterminated by the dark...
Yeah, wonderful.
And I remember that sequence so vividly.
But in this, like I thought, okay, so they're going to go into
their little hut, blah, blah, blah.
And then it sort of, it sort of attacks the side of our heart and
he just gives up. submits to the death of this thing and then it's
coming after them and they jump into that whatever that wine
cart.
And then there's this small gap between the card and that.
And it just sort of just goes, boom.
I just I just said there going, why how?
I don't understand either.
Because it looks so terrible.
Or more likely they just missed the shots of it.
You don't actually see it.
And so you have to have Ian and his friend Larry there going, it
looks like it's about to jump.
It's jumped.
Same today as always.
Doesn't it go, ooh.
Yes, actually, I made it.
It's a wonderful little squeal.
It honestly thought it could jump that far.
That 6 inch distance.
That little sound was digetic to the studio.
It was, it was falling at a dead feet.
Can I just observe, though, about the slither whilst now that we
appear to be talking about it?
is that it is actually, unlike those creatures that were mentioned
in the Daleks and even the brains with eyes on sticks in the keys
of marinos and so on like that.
Dexterity.
Dexterity, indeed.
This is basically the last gasp of, or this is the formal end of
the no bug eyed monsters rule.
Because when you think about it, basically, that's what we've
arrived in, and we'll probably talk about this molitarination and
so on like that.
Terry has won that argument over Sydney.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, just through, you know, force of personality, I guess.
Well, no, just to issue determination to completely ignore it.
I mean, he wants to put silly monsters into the show.
Well, that's what he that's what he thinks it is because of the 3
page probably brief that he's been given, he may have read the 1st
2.5 paragraphs.
There is also kind of the thing where if you're not going to have
monsters in a story, this is the one to not have them in, because
you've got the Daleks right there, you know, you don't have to
build a whatever the hell you think you're building when you put
the slipper.
But there's also 2 substitutes for the daleks.
And you know, this is the thing, the doctor will do.
Alligators?
The baby alligators.
I mean, them as well.
Was it an episode of Thunderbirds?
I don't know.
The best episode of...
No, you've got the slither, who is like substitute for the Daleks
being there, but you've also got the rope in me.
Yeah, so the rope man of the delayed gratification of getting the
Daleks at the end of episode one.
But Doctor Who does that throughout its history, and I think it
has a long and venerable tradition.
So you look at earth shock.
There's no reason for those 2 black androids in the 1st episode to
not be Cyberman.
Yeah, yeah.
And Terry understands that.
He understands that you need the punch of what people are
expecting not just to introduce them in the 1st scene.
No, I think in this case.
The reason why the Androids are there in Earthshock is to delay
the appearance of the cybermen.
The Roman are there, not just to delay the appearance of the
Daleks, but also to provide more evil characters, because we only
have so many garlic props.
Oh, absolutely, because Terry's an amazing writer.
And so that's how, well, we'll come, perhaps come to that.
But the slither, I think, is an example of a poor choice.
It's like the creature in case of Andrewzani.
The manga beast is in the case of an design, is inserted because
of instruction from John Nathan Turner.
We need a monster.
Placement of the slither in the story suggests that it was a
similar command from the producer saying, or the script editor to
say, we need a monster, which is odd.
I don't think they'd have asked that.
So I don't know why he would have done this.
He's just gotten, he's just realised, oh, it's episode five, we
need something else now.
Yeah, it's just Terry going.
It's episode five.
We need something to fill up the drama.
Let's talk about Terry, and in particular, what he does with the
dialects here, because this is the story that takes the daleks
from being a one off, and it's the 1st time we do a sequel.
It's just about the only sequel in the Heart Mill era. am I
right?
Shall I have the monk coming back if that counts?
Well, yeah, you get the monk coming back and you get the dialects
on their annual thing.
But it's definitely our twice annual thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's definitely our 1st sequel is Doctor Who, going to be the kind
of thing that does that, given, you know, the premise, given that
we turn up somewhere different at random every every month.
What does he do to the daleks to make them a going concern outside
of the context of that 1st story that they appear in?
Well, he makes them less interesting.
I would agree.
Because in the Daleks, they've actually got a bit of depth to
them.
They are frightened.
Yes.
They are not refugees.
They are hiding in their city, frightened of the outside world
paranoid.
They are weak, right?
They can only travel on the static electricity floors.
They can't leave the city.
They need to explode the bomb, not to destroy the files. that's a
happy side effect.
To survive.
To survive because they can go outside.
No, because they need another burst of radiation.
Because the reason why they're getting sick is because they've
adapted to radiation and the radiation on Scaro is fading from the
nuclear war.
So that's interesting.
And also, they talk sort of like normal characters might.
Yeah.
I believe someone said, may have been verity, that the worst thing
that happened to Terry Nation was that he heard the Dalek Speck.
Right.
Because suddenly in the Dalek invasion of Earth, Daleks speak much
more slowly, they are much more robotic like that, whereas in
various sequences in the Daleks, they speak at a bit of a slow
pace, but still a relatively normal or more acceptable pace.
The dialogue is also more simplified for the Daleks here.
They become talking robots, even though there's supposed to be a
mutant creature inside, they are just talking robots.
It's not delivering to the audience what Terry wants.
It's delivering what he thinks the audience's expectation of them
is.
Maybe that's what it is.
Yes, I think so, but I also think it's because they've basically
become what Sidney Newman was worried.
They were going to be in the 1st place, which are bug eyed
monsters.
They are just killer robots.
I just felt they weren't the Daleks.
L. Like I sat there going, when did the Daleks become the Daleks
that I know?
And I know the Daleks from Death to the Daleks and Genesis of the
Daleks contestiny, the dialects the most.
When am I getting those daleks?
And I sat through this going, waiting to hear them say exterminate
right?
They say 5 and they say it 5 or 6 times in episode 6 only.
Right?
So up to that point I'm going, they could be anything, right?
And when they have their pieces of dialogue with each other.
Like, yes, terrible. absolutely awful.
And I'm just there going, they are not what they were in the
Daleks.
And they're not what they are in the chase because in the chase
they've got time travel.
They're after the doctor.
It's more like the Daleks that we know are out to exterminate and
get him.
Whereas it's almost like they can do anything according to what
the story demands of them.
Well, that's true.
But here, they don't even know the doctor, right?
So I just was there going, they could be anything.
There could be anything.
They conquerors, though.
They're now conquerors.
And a species which goes off and invades other planets, whereas
they are not that in the Daleks.
And the problem is that to make them an ongoing concern and to
make them an enemy of the doctor, you know, they're the 1st
recurring enemy of the doctor.
They have to change what underpins them.
So no longer are they a Cold War analogy.
They're now Nazis.
They're Nazi storm troopers because you're in decimated London.
Yeah, like occupied London.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so they have to, as Simon said, they have to ditch what made
them interesting and become villains.
They have to be talking about destruction and killing and death
all the time because that's what makes a good monster.
I think the big loss is the thing that you identified, and it's in
the performances of the voice actors, and it's where the Daleks
eventually land, which is that they are slightly hysterical.
You know, when we hear the day of the Daleks Daleks, their voices
are kind of wrong because it's like they've heard the Dalek
invasion of Earth ones.
The pitch is too low, isn't it?
Yeah, but there's not that edge of hysteria, that edge of panic in
their voices.
Yes.
And that's what we eventually land.
And you start getting that in Genesis, actually, is where you
start getting those, or possibly Death of the Daleks.
When Michael wishes starts doing the voices.
But I think that the Daleks properly land.
The Daleks that Todd wants properly land in power of the Daleks
even though they're being sneaky.
It's interesting because I think the Daleks we get in power of the
Daleks are the throwback almost to the original stone.
Oh, yeah.
And I think I think it's the power of the Dalek Staleks that I
want now and we just haven't had since, since then.
That's right, and the power of the Daleks Daleks.
The power Daleks. are absolutely a throwback to the originals and
they have that conversational dialogue that David Whisker gives
them.
And so they say things to each other, and this comes back to the
tempo you were talking about, Nathan.
They say to each other things like, we are not yet ready to teach
these humans the pelore of the dalek.
Yes, and with the rising inflection.
Yeah, it's also the recognition of the doctor.
I mean, the doctor becomes the doctor when the Daleks recognise
the power of the Daleks.
They don't recognise him here.
And he isn't quite there yet either, I think.
And Terry Nation has a big claim to uh, to responsibility for what
the doctor ends up being like.
But he gets Barbara and Ian to be like that, actually, sort of
really rather than the doctor.
So when the doctor gives his big speech to the Daleks in episode
two.
And it's, you know, an iconic moment where he gets to kind of make
fun of them, but he's kind of talking nonsense and none of it
really makes sense.
You know, that baffling line about having to destroy all living
matter and stuff.
It's like I don't...
I don't think that was quite in the screen.
I have something to say about that.
Yeah.
But, but there's the wonderful bits in the end, like in episode
sort of 5 and 6 where Ian is playing with the wires inside the
capsule and stuff where he's improvising with bits of water.
Well he's a science teacher.
But that's also what the doctor ends up doing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And having him sort of slightly panicky.
You know, like he's surrounded by Daleks and he's in that little
thing and all of that is really fun.
And then you've got Barbara, not only giving the Roberman orders
that can't be countermanded, but also her bluffing that she does.
Yes, yes, which she fluffs the line, but it doesn't matter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She just keeps going, but that's super doctor-ish as well.
In fact, you know, that's what Rose does in the Christmas invasion
when the doctor's gone and she's trying to be the doctor.
His makeup a whole heap of stuff out of things that she knows in
order to bluff.
So let's go through Barbara's pockets to find out what's there.
So that sort of thing, that's how we want our heroes and
ultimately the doctor to behave.
That's how he defeats the villains, and we have it happening here
but it's not quite located in the doctor yet.
That line that you mentioned about living matter, I think that's
part of this story's preoccupation with the atom bomb and nuclear
destruction.
I think that's a remnant of that because later on the doctor says
they dare to tamper with the forces of creation, which is all
clearly informed by that kind of Cold War phobia of what's going
to happen.
And of course, this is only 5 years removed from on the beach.
Yeah, yeah.
And Terry must have seen that film and drawn inspiration from that
for the Daleks.
And going back to what we were saying about the Daleks in that
iteration of their, in their 1st story.
It's so sad that you actually had a little bit of sympathy for the
Daleks in that story, which has now completely vanished because
they've gone from wanting to survive to wanting to conquer.
They've gone from wanting to exist, to wanting to kill.
And so everything that made them special and interesting has kind
of been stripped back.
And what you're left with is the incredible design and the
incredible voice.
That is what is now iconic about the Daleks rather than the idea
behind them.
And to go back to what we were saying about the location filming
taking them out of that city removes a lot of what made them
interesting and special. putting them on location dwarfed by
buildings and things like that.
All you've got to hang onto is that iconic design.
I think, though, that those scenes are great, you know, and Terry
is right, I think, to set it in London, where most of the audience
are or much of the audience is, because...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's, it's, yeah.
But it's also kind of shocking.
Like that, you know, it's not the planet Zog.
Yes, it is Earth. and the Daleks have invaded Earth, and this is
where the show takes a turn and never looks back.
And a lot of the stories we have after this are just basically
waiting to be made and shown until we get to what Doctor Who
really is about, which is stuff like this.
As you say, the Dalek's more interesting, the 1st story, because
there's something about them, which you might find sympathy for
right?
Their predicament.
And remember, they didn't want the bug eyed monsters.
They wanted it to be much more high concept.
So all of the science fiction-y stories are all nothing like we
have now, the Sensorites.
You would never have anything remotely like that now.
You would never have anything like the space museum.
You would never have anything like the web planet, unfortunately.
And then you have, obviously, the historical sort of dotted
through, which are all supposed to be sort of, you know, factual
and educational and so on like that.
With Dalek Invasion of Earth, and you get it a little bit with
Keys of Mariners, but you get it properly from Dalek Invasion of
Earth, you get the idea of the alien invasion, the alien menace
whether it's threatening Earth or another colony somewhere else
it's the same principle.
And therefore, you have a story of good versus bad.
There's no shades of grey.
You just, you're with us or you're against us.
And as we move through to the rest of the heart and ear and get
into the trout in the era, that's when you start to get from like
the war machines on, that's where you start to get that pattern.
It's that speech of Troughton about things that the universe is
bred, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that is, we're heading towards that.
And also, and we did get it a little bit with Planet of Giants
because they decide that they need to do something about this
insecticide.
But in Dialect Conversions of Earth, you get the doctor actually
saying, it's time we put out our witch together and defeat.
Yes, in that very speech when the Daleks say, oh, you know, we're
in charge of the earth.
Doctors goes, not for long.
Yes.
Now that, again, and I know that the TARDIS is covered with fallen
bridge and so on, but nevertheless, we've now moved Styrofoam to
me.
Fallen Styrofoam.
Perhaps I have.
There's some balsa wood.
Exactly.
There's a plank that's carried.
But the point is that we've moved to a thing where the TARDIS
arrives somewhere and makes the world a better place.
And that's what carries the show then forward for the next 60
years.
But we're not quite there.
No we're not quite there yet, but this becomes the template.
Even if you've still got a lot of other stuff between now.
Galaxy four, for instance.
You'd never make Galaxy 4 now.
You know what I mean?
This is, of course, a hugely influential and consequential story
going forward for many reasons.
The location work that we talked about, the fact that it's the 1st
returning monster, all of those factors, but what it is incredible
for is what Simon said.
This is Terry Nation, looking at the show's format and adding
adventure to it, the sense rights is, I love the sense rights on
many levels.
It's not about adventure.
It's a cerebral story.
So there is a huge argument to be made, that terry nation creates
the modern Doctor Who story in the Daleks, and then refines it
here to be the archetypal Doctor Who story, which is the Aean
invasion.
And I think, too, that there's the kind of the linearity of the
plot as well that it is all about splitting us up into 3 groups
and having those 3 groups all go to Bedfordshire and then meet up
again.
At the Wooden Hill.
Do you know what I mean?
And then and then we resolve the thing.
And we don't have to be particularly clever to resolve the thing
or anything.
Can I also say there's something about the structure of the story
and we'll, I mean, we're probably starting to talk about Terry
Nation as a writer now as well.
But the other thing is that the structure of the story is what
20th century doctor who becomes, because it's changed now because
of the single episode format, but back in the day, whether it was
4 or 6 episodes or thereabouts, you often had the initial setup, an
initial, some kind of attack or getting into where the, where the
alien menace is and doing stuff, failing, retreating, coming
together again, and then being split up and so on, and then going
back and destroying them for a 2nd time.
And that's how you create the arc that makes a 4 or 6 part story.
But one important thing that good classic Doctor Who does is a
point in the story where we realise that things are not quite what
they seem and they're actually somewhat worse.
That never comes here.
We have...
No, no.
That's something I think is developed more as we pet into the
70s.
It's shame matures further.
It's not something that Terry does, despite the somewhere on this
planet, there are $10,000.
That's not quite what you have. by that name.
He never really, really quite...
On the contrary, we were told there are very few daleks.
Just about six.
Oh, no, they have some cardboard ones at a helicopter.
I think that where Terry's genius comes in with Doctor Who is that
he plunders the right material.
What he's looking at is things like Day of the Triffords. stuff
like that.
And he shamelessly takes stuff like that and sees that the
documentary format will work well with this stuff.
So is that written before?
Yeah, 1951.
That's 50s.
I've got it.
Yeah, it's much earlier than you think, despite, you know, Joe
Sellers backstory.
Even things like War of the World.
Yeah, going back to HG Wells.
What he understands is the power of spectacle.
Yeah.
And he introduces spectacle to Doctor Who.
And, you know, they do try it again later on, like I think Web
Planet, in its own way, is trying for sceptical.
But the reason that the Dalek Invasion Earth, these episodes live
on in the public consciousness and did for like decades afterwards
is not how good the story is or how well it was produced.
It's the power of that imagery of the Daleks in Central London and
a broken down London with people on the streets scurrying away.
I think that's so important.
Like as classic Doctor Who fans.
We have a tendency to think that spectacle is meretricious because
Doctor Who tends to do it badly because it can't really afford
it.
But of course, the thing that everyone remembers the moments of
spectacle, the giant maggots and stuff like that.
If I can push back on that.
It's not spectacles, we might understand it in the 21st century
sense with the show.
It's spectacle in terms of powerful images, which is not really
spectacle in the same way.
It's a very powerful image.
Yes, exactly.
It's Sutech.
It's the mummies, it's whatever, you know.
But I think it's also things like that shot of Nord, Vandal of the
Roads heading off and the big planet and things in the
background.
You know, the images that you see nowhere else.
And I think, you know, it's television and visions right in the
word.
Yes, but it's the end of episode one of the Daleks.
Yeah, yeah, it's that that's different.
So what I'm saying?
not big budget.
It's just beautifully, beautifully been forced.
I don't think it has to be a big budget and they're clearly
attempting it in episode 6 with their series of stock footage of
you know, mud falling into rivers and stuff.
Yes. to kind of achieve the...
I think some of that's supposed to be volcanic.
It's difficult to celebrate away.
I'm very surprised we didn't get those stock shots from info.
Yeah, same ones.
Maybe that hadn't happened yet.
I thought they were very similar, but it's interesting what you
were talking about here because as I was watching this, I was
going, how are the Daleks?
How did they become this cultural icon when I'm looking at this?
Yeah, yeah.
And the only thing that I am latching onto is the imagery from
coming out of the water, from being around London, not by being
the Daleks themselves, because they are, can I just say it, pretty
crap through most of this and going back to episode six, the
exterminator exterminator is only in that episode.
So to me, I was just there saying, when did the Daleks become the
dialects, why are they suddenly a cultural phenomenon at this
point?
Because, like, why would kids be going around saying exterminates
terminate?
Because they don't say it much in the Daleks either?
Okay, so when's the 1st film out?
The 1st film is not released until after the chase.
Oh, gosh, LA.
Yes, August 65.
Right, right.
Because I was going to say that I think they become a success
before the film.
I was going to say it's boosted by the film, which obviously it
is.
Well, there's only a film because they're already a success.
Yeah, I know. and obviously things take time in production and so
on like that.
But I thought my memory for some reason thought that, well, memory
we weren't alive, but I thought that it came out sometime between
Darlic Invasion of Earth and the Jazz.
Phil might have boosted the ratings for, I don't know, Galaxy 4.
For example.
But the Dalek props in the original story are better than the
Dalek crops here.
And they are shot much better by Christopher Barry.
Which helps, but they are definitely more Now I don't know, did
they lose them slash destroy them after the 1st story or?
So what happened was they kept two?
They donated 2 to Dr. Bernardo's and then had to borrow them back
presumably refurbished them.
And then they created 2 new ones and then they put them up on
those big sort of to hide the three.
According to the rubbery wheels.
Doctor Who Technical manually.
Sorry, call that.
Yeah, so like, so this is December 64, The chase is made June 65
and the movie, the 1st movie is August 65, right?
Okay.
But anyway, it is the imagery, it's the iconography.
You're right.
But remember, this is a small screen.
You know, I don't know how big it's 11 inches.
Yeah, yeah, tiny screens. imperfect reception.
You're seeing these things.
You've got the radio times cover there with a dalek on it.
You've already got Daleks and comics and stuff by now, do you?
So it's sort of that thing that it feeds on itself thanks to all
that and, you know, if they're Daleks on the back of cereal
packets and so on like that.
In some respects, all that stuff is more important than them
actually being on television.
Well, yeah, interestingly.
Only on television for a few weeks a year.
Yeah, it's almost like it exists just to keep the public interest
up rather than being the source of it.
Yes.
And if you're going to remember an episode, You're probably going
to remember the dialogue more from the last episode than the
previous ones and they're saying exterminate in the last episode
but not in the previous five.
It goes back to what I was saying, that the power of the dialect
such as it is right now, is in their incredible design.
It's in this story.
It's not about how they're placed in the frames, not about the way
they're shot.
It's not about the way that on that small screen you're talking
about, people are watching.
They're a little bit lost sometimes in that location for you.
Oh, and I was also going to say on the small screen.
Are there other people in the room?
Is granny over talking to your mother?
Yeah, you're not able to actually hear it properly.
Mum dishing up your baked beans.
Exactly.
Or the clanking of cutlery in... saying, shut up. recording it.
Yes.
But I think you would have said it more forcefully than that.
He would have taken that mallet.
But therein, again, lies the genius of Terry because if you just
had the imagery, that would be one thing.
But what he does is marry it to high stakes peril.
And so beforehand, and I think very few times since, has the
doctor and his companions ever been in such a desperate
situation?
Yeah, probably.
Well, the whole world is the world has been taken over.
Yes.
They've arrived after the fact.
Yes.
On Terry, I don't know whether it's a revisionist thing that was
sort of regarding him as a great writer, and obviously he's a
great writer.
You know, he created the Daleks.
He's written so much television.
He wrote bounty, for instance.
I mean yeah.
I'm not saying he's not capable of good work.
I think he is capable of work.
I think if I can sort of describe him as a workman-like writer
it's people who regard whether they regard writing as an art or a
craft and he is a craftsman, not an artist.
The artists will produce far less stuff, which might be much
better, but it'll be less frequent.
And hearing you say that right now, it makes me wonder if there
wasn't method to verities madness in that she married the
craftsman writer to the self-styled artist director to see what
would happen.
Possibly.
I think maybe that's a stretch too far.
We don't really know.
But what Terry does is he does take traditional, standard ways of
storytelling.
He never needs to try to do something which is unusual or
different.
He needs to get the story from A to B, to C, and he uses fairly
standard tropes for a better word or cliches even to get you
there.
And that can often work so well because what you get is you get a
proper sense of balanced story.
Absolutely.
Now, this story sags, episode 4 is completely unnecessary.
Production also seems to fall further apart.
For further apart.
I mean, that's bafflingly bad, isn't it?
We don't have Bill that week.
And so we're going to leave him behind and then go back for him.
So what are we doing?
You know, like it just makes sense.
Are they just leaving you under a bush for the allegations?
They're just little things like Susan spraying her ankle in that
initial sequence when the...
The only time apart from Susan again, the five doctors.
Yeah.
But the point is, you know, that needs to happen so that Barbara
can go down to the river so that, you know, it splits them up.
It's just a method of getting you from A to B. and he doesn't he
doesn't sit there in front of his typewriter agonising about, oh
what's the best way of doing?
He just says, oh, she can just sprain her ankle and we'll move
on.
Now, that's not a criticism.
It doesn't muck about.
Yeah, it's not a criticism.
It's an observation.
And that's why I think he, that's why he was a successful
television writer because he was able to keep churning them out.
But that's why he is able to develop Doctor Who's format because
it is clear and followable.
His stories.
I said this to Simon.
They're unpretentious.
They are definitely unpretentious.
And if you look at the Hartnell science fiction stories.
There is a strong argument from you that Terry is the only
successful writer of Heartnell science fiction.
There are other good, interesting ideas that don't quite work.
It's the Terry Nation stories that people remember from the 1960s
as Doctor Who's sci-fi.
But that's because they're the Doctor Who stories that we can now
more easily recognise in the modern day, and in certainly what the
shape becomes in the 70s and 80s, whereas the other science
fiction stories, as I was saying earlier, are completely different
to what we...
Strange little cul-de-sacs, like the sound.
Yeah, and in fact, speaking about Richard Martin, I do wonder
whether if he was directing something like the Censor rights or
the Space Museum, that might have been a good vehicle for his
talents to have that kind of thing.
They're not brilliantly directed either, though.
No, they're not.
And so maybe he might have improved on because I just think the
way that he approached Doctor Who would have worked for kind of a
small scale, interesting, slightly left field idea, like space
museum rather than this big action adventure.
The other thing, just by way of ending talking about Terry, is
that we have been dulled over the decades since to just how
imaginative the leaps he took were.
So when they come to him and say, we want to have the Daleks back
he doesn't say, okay, I'll formulate a return to Scaro to see
what's happening as well.
He says, okay, we'll bring them back.
We're going to go even bigger.
They're going to invade the earth.
Okay, does he or does verity say, and or David Whittaker say
that's what we want?
I think maybe it's Terry because that feels like exactly the kind
of thing he would do.
Certainly, it ends up playing into his strengths and he will go on
to create an entire series based on the premise here in Survivors
where he investigates what happens when human society falls to
pieces and they're only middle class white people left.
So it would be a weird coincidence if it had been verity
introducing him to that idea.
It does sound more like something that's bubbling away, something
that he's interested in.
Absolutely.
And it's actually a little bit gobsmacking to think that within
most people's living memory watching this, the blitz would have
been a thing.
And he goes right there in a children's series and presents on
screen.
What looks like something that happened 20 years ago?
That the children, the children will still be wet.
There are still large swathes of bomb sites in the 60s in London
in vacant areas thanks to the bombings.
Well, I mean, they shoot in sort of abandoned crumbling warehouses
and things like that.
Yeah, that was a national, that was a trauma from the national
psyche, you know, the blitz and the V1 and V2s blowing up huge
chunks of London when they fell.
In a sense too.
I think that that's why that 2nd film fails.
Like it doesn't...
Well, it doesn't fail artistically, but it fails commercially.
They don't do a 3rd film.
It doesn't do as well as anyone kind of expected.
And I think it is because it seems old.
It's dealing with obsessions from an earlier era, and it's not
really consonant with the public mood.
We no longer feel like we're emerging from rationing in World War
2 and anything like that.
You know, England is a bit more exciting and a bit more forward
looking.
I think it's just more to do with the fact that, and I don't think
it fails commercially.
I just think it doesn't it isn't the spectacular success.
It certainly doesn't do as well as they expected it.
We hope, whatever.
And also, I think it's just generally things have moved on.
I think you've still got issues.
I mean, because Gary Russell says that, you know, there are bombs
sites still in the 70s.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that's not how they feel about themselves.
No, not anymore.
It's a swing 60s.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But you can still have the alien invasion stories.
Sure, sure.
But then for everything that that film gets right.
And it does get quite a lot right.
It's not as imaginative as these TV episodes in postulating a
future.
So these episodes look a bit blitzy and like 1940s London, but no
one is really dressed that way.
They're just dressed drably, whereas in the film, they look like
they're dressed in the 1960s.
They look like they were dressed at the time when the film is
filmed rather than at the time it's meant to be set.
But I think that's okay because, I mean, that's and that's
what...
It may have been an effort to place... we generally do do that.
It's either that space tuning.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. to the space tunic.
We do have moving pavements or moving sideways or something in
London, apparently.
I hate to break it to you.
I think what they're wearing in Dalek Invasion of Earth is
actually what people are wearing in 1964.
I agree.
There's no dirty doubles to rags.
It's dirty up into rags, but by the time you get to a couple of
years later with the making of the 2nd film, Fashion has advanced
and there's a sense of fashion, whereas in fact, I think running
out of the mine at the end is a woman in a fur coat and a sort of
in the film. horribly malnourished post-war English people, don't
they?
I was shocked. was just shocked in this one to have all those
topless men.
Yeah, none of them who you wanted.
No, no, it's always the wrong ones, but I was like, 0 gosh.
It's always Roy Evans.
And also quite a diversity of extras in terms of ages as well.
But then, again, going back to Richard Martin occasionally gets it
right.
That incredible shot of those 2 Roberman, standing really tall and
erect on top of that mining cart that's heading into the
underground.
I think it's a very arresting image occasionally gets right.
That location is great too.
Like that that mine shaft location.
You know, that the train tracks and things coming out of is really
really something.
It is just a work in quarry, isn't it?
But it's the right time you need something like that.
And then, of course, then you get them observing all of the
volcanic explosion.
Which is hilarious.
I think you haven't even get an atomic cloud. bit of footage at
the end of it.
It actually makes me a little bit sad that Terry was never given a
proper unit story to rice.
I think he would have been very good at a unit, 70s alien invasion
story.
It would have pushed all of his buttons and it would have turned
out something really interesting.
I know we get the Android invasion.
It's not quite there.
The one thing we haven't talked about yet is the departure of
Susan.
Yeah.
And I think that's a really important thing in the development of
Doctor Who.
William Hartnell is utterly superb in that entire sequence at the
end.
It's amazing, isn't it?
Because it's been excerpted so often.
We've seen it.
We've kind of enured to it, but seeing it in context, he's great
in it.
You know, he's so superb in episodes one and two.
Then he has his unfortunate fall or whatever, 34, and he gets back
on track in five, but you can see Jacqueline Hill willing him to
get the dialogue out when he enters the dalek control room and
he's stumbling in.
You can see it in her eyes going, yes, you could do it, Bill.
Like, you know, she's...
Wait, you know, so, doctor, what you mean?
Oh, look, Dr. Demblo.
But just the dialogue that Terry has given all David Whittaker.
David Whitaker wrote that last time.
But just the dialogue, obviously ceding the whole romance thing
throughout and building it, right?
It's not just right at the end, right?
And you can see it happening, which is great.
Not just delightful in those scenes where they are sitting at, like
when David and Susan are sitting around the fire roasting the
rabbit and he comes and he says, oh, yes, I could see that
something was cooking.
It's a fish.
But all of that stuff outside the Tartars with her before he goes
in and then that entire sequence, he's just incredible.
And he's the thing that keeps that really going.
You may have different opinions like of Susan and David.
And I actually think the guy playing David, whose name I cannot
remember.
I actually think does a really good job of selling that bromance.
It's a shame that we see the back of his head in so many shots
towards the end there, right?
And I'm there going direction, direction, but we've discussed
direction.
I was going there too.
My biggest problem is the development of Susan slash Carol Anne
Ford's acting.
Because like for one whole year, she's been a 15, 16 year old, and
now in this one story, it's suddenly like she gets to be her age
like 21, 22, right?
And suddenly you don't see that before this.
There's also then Susan herself.
Like one minute she's hysterical at tripping over and hurting her
ankle.
Then it's like she's taken something to nullify her hysteria so
she can say to Barbara, oh, yes, go off and get some more water
because it's also nice. found some Xanax in the ruins.
Then the next moment, like Barbara says something like, oh, yes
put on the robo helmet and you'll be able to attack them and
everybody goes, oh, yes, as if they've never thought of that.
And they're all quite muted.
And then Susan does this when 7 out of 10 reaction is fine.
She does a 14 out of 10 on Barbara, as if to say, you are the god
of all ideas, right?
And so there's this swing between being totally over the top at
reactions and then totally the opposite.
And then you've got Caroline Ford looking mysteriously at the
camera like she does.
I like to go home in the dark, you know, in the forest.
Like she's some Eastern European model that's, you know, modelling
something.
Maybe she was.
But just throughout the entire thing, I'm just there going, oh, my
goodness.
And like then the baby crocodile sequence where she's having
hysteria again and then attacking the robamen like, I mean, I just
struggled.
Like, I could see the writing.
I like this sassy version of Susan when Jenny turns around or
Craddick or Tyler, whoever it is, one of them turns around and
says, and what do you do?
And she says, I eat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's amazing.
I love that grown-up version of Susan.
Yes.
So it's it's so like one way over the place.
Over the place, if they didn't know what they were doing.
And it's obviously she doesn't know what she's doing, right?
I hate I hate criticising that.
Are you listening, Carol?
I'm just going to say this.
I think, you know, Maureen O'Brien comes in and it's just so much
better.
Well, she gives a more consistent performance through what you're
saying.
Yeah, there is something resembling a character.
But even in those last sequences, like with David, like they're
trying to focus on her and she's trying to give what they want, but
I still think like that tension in the last bit where is she going
to take David's hand or is she going to say, and I fully expect to
say, oh, I've made a terrible mistake. tracked on this planet and
it's just a disaster.
We're going to be farmers for Christ's sake.
You know, it's such a pivotal moment in the history of the show to
lose the 1st companion and have them depart and to see that play
out.
But also, I think it's great that it is actually seated throughout
the episode and it's not just one of these last 10 minute jobs.
Yeah, I think it is kind of well done.
And I mean, it is a problem that they never kind of land Susan's
character properly, and it's possible that making her the doctor's
granddaughter is partly to blame for that as well, because when
Maureen O'Brien comes along, and the doctor's just so keen to
impress her and he really likes her and he's not protective of her
in quite the same way.
You know, like he wants to, he wants her to have fun and he wants
to show her adventures and stuff like that.
Whereas he wants to kind of keep Susan under his wing a little
bit.
And this is infamously, obviously, where he says that she's in
need of a jolly good smacked bottom.
Like, it was always just maybe a slightly better.
I think he thinks she's in need of something else that's jolly
good.
Yes, exactly.
It's time for her to become a woman.
Well, that's that wonderful moment, isn't it?
Where he kind of knows what's going on and he's not jealous and he
actually plays along.
There's a bit where he's off somewhere and the doctor and Susan
are having an argument about what to do next and she wants to do
what David has suggested and the doctor doesn't want to do that
because he's in charge.
But then when he sees it.
He's all grumbly.
Yeah, yeah.
But then he sees what's going on and he decides to suggest the
thing that David was going to do.
And Caroline is very good in that scene.
Yeah, that's a good scene.
I think that sets that up because it is, you know, finally going
to be a decision between David and her.
I think the mistake is not giving her any agency there.
It would have been better if she had been able to make that
decision.
And, you know, there's that sort of kind of unfortunate thing
about how the companions have to go off and get married.
Do you know what I mean?
Because she's a woman.
What else is she going to do?
You know?
But I think that's I think that's a leftover thing of the times
like, yeah, for sure.
Yes, we can still have her being a relationship, but they still
have to get married.
Like there's that caveat at the end.
We're not at the end of the 60s where they could just go off
together and live together.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She is a very good cook, apparently.
It's that.
She eats.
No, in the campsite.
Yeah, yeah.
The doctor says she's a very good cook.
David will call to David.
She eats.
It's almost as if the very good cook line is they're repairing the
IE line in order to make her a suitable line.
We made her...
The floor the floor with Susan is that, yes, as you say, they make
it the doctor's granddaughter and they were going to make her an
alien and that's how she was going to be.
She was going to have telepathy and all this kind of stuff which
they explore.
All never happened, really. a little bit of a darker angstier
character, which they can't land.
Whereas when they introduce Vicky, she's bright and bubbly and so
she brings it to us.
No, what I was going to say was, but the problem is that for the
stories, they need someone to get into trouble and to sprain their
ankle and so on and so on.
And so that's that's completely at odds with this idea of her
being a sophisticated...
By episode 2 of the show.
She's having a panicky meltdown.
Yes, yes, exactly.
She can't see the doctor.
Yeah, exactly.
Because so the 3 paragraph character outline, whatever it is, is
already is basically thrown away, and then every now and again
someone finds a sentence of us and drops it in something.
Yes, exactly.
Don't you think that this story as a whole could have benefitted
from Sydney Newman watching it with a resigned look and turning
around saying, do it again, Richard.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It could have. thing should have been shot twice.
Absolutely.
Well, probably more than twice.
Fortunately, since then it has been.
Exactly.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back next week for the second appearance of Doctor Who's
second 11 in the moon base.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yeardiary.com, where
you'll find our social media links, as well as links to all of our
other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, flight
through entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful human empire.
Until next time, remember that there's nothing better than hitting
your fascist overlords with rocks and then blowing them up in a
massive volcanic explosion.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
See you soon.
That was 500-year diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley
Peter Griffiths and Simon Moore.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Daleks Daleks, was recorded on the 16th of March
2025, and released on the 27th of April.
If you've enjoyed hearing us, discuss a Doctor Who story over 60
years old and you want to hear what we think about the last few
weeks, head on over to our Doctor Who flashcast at the 2nd great
and bountifulhumanempire.com, or if you're pressed for time, just
greatandbountiful.com.
There is absolutely a reason that this is one of two heart and all
stories that are novelized in the 1970s.
Um, the power of its imagery and where it sits in the public
consciousness, in fan consciousness.
Very important fans, lives on.
And the novelisation of this book starts with maybe the most
famous opening line of any target novelisation, which is through
the ruin of the city, stalked the ruin of a man, and that is
Terence Dix delivering his best based on what Terry has given
him.
That's Terry's best, that opening shot.
I think this story is all about the potency of its images and you
just can't take that away no matter what its problems are.
I think part of the reason it's one of the 2 Partnel stories
novelized in the 70s is because of the film, but also what we
haven't really talked about as on the potency of the image is that
opening sequence which is utterly horrific, really.
A man a man drowns himself in the Thames.
And there's a poster behind where they're just forbidden to
gumble.
That is, in fact, the most sinister thing in the entire story, that
poster.
Yeah, yeah.
And that poster, they're not put up by the Daleks saying, that's
put up at the time of the plague.
Yes, before the invasion.
Exactly.
Trop that in somewhere earlier.
Because then none your thing.
So I just wanted to say that.
So the other one's kids of Marinas, I assume.
No, the kids match 1980, the other one's the 10th planet.
Of course.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. you've only got the original three.
And then you've got those...
Like the 2 headline stories.
Because all the ones that are in the early 70s, the next batch
that 1st batch with the Pertwe logo on them, they're Pertweis, but
they're also Pat stories, the season 5 there, but...
That's right. don't start getting half the cyberman.
The Cyberman.
Yeah, that's right.
You get Keys Marinus, which is a weird kind of, you know, why did
they choose King?
I think great because...
No, it is a great choice, but it's weird from a marketing angle
that they would choose that over something like the chase.
Well, maybe I think looking at the script of the chase, you'd
think, how do we normalise that and make it interesting because
basically nothing happens.
I mean, it could also have been coming from...
Well, but I mean, Darlic Invasion of Earth does that.
To be fair, it's the same thing.
So there's keys of marinus.
It's just we go from a thing to a thing.
We get in our travel dials and go to the next episode.
I think so much of this is coming from Terrence because Terrence
was the unofficial kind of editor of the range choosing, you know
what would be done and who would do it.
I think he's been in the viewing room, watching clips, including
Dalek Invasion of Earth, for the lively arts documentary, and he's
gone, okay, we'll do this next. 6 months later out it comes.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, we're going to talk about Russell, but I just don't think we
will, I think.
You know, he steals the Dalek invasion of earth and the ridiculous
premise of Dalek invasion of earth for stolen earth.
The reason the earth is stolen is so that the Daleks can drive
around in it, you know, through his face or whatever.
Yeah.
Well, I could imagine in the context of Dark Invasion, but this is
not the only planet they're doing.
But he does, like, he does actually, like, a doctor.
Yeah, it's a fairly loving...
Yeah, fairly loving homage to their space.
There's much to talk about.
No, no.
It's got the males, the females, the descendants.
Oh, is that right?
Yes, he uses that.
But also, like the 1st companion departure in New Who is someone
who is left behind to rebuild the earth after the Daleks are
destroyed and destroyed.
No, no, in stolen in...
No, no, no, no. when Jack leaves.
Like, they leave Jack behind, and then there's a line about he's
going to be busy rebuilding the earth because the earth has been
destroyed.
Like we watch the Daleks destroy the earth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we watch them, you know, like it's 200 years in the future in
in the, in the, it's, you know, 200 centuries in the future in
Russell's 1st season.
I think this is where Russell in those 1st couple of years pays
homage to Classic Who and puts little things like that in.
So that it means nothing to new people, but if we hear it, oh wow
that's a little nugget.
But remember what Russell does is he introduces the dialects in
series one, the sidemen in series two, the master in series three
Dan Ross in series four.
He's introducing all the 10th goal.
Oh, this on Taran's in series 4 as well.
Orton?
But like he's doing that.
He's introducing those big tent pole things so that young people
have that as part of their experience of Doctor Who just as we
did.
And so the 1st Dalek story is a dalek trapped panicking in a
building that it's unable to leave.
And then we have the Daleks coming in force as a giant spectacle
and destroying the earth, you know.
But in some respects, that's because that's playing with just
different aspects of the Daleks.
I mean, that's just also it's Dalek.
I mean, I haven't heard the audio, but Dalek is a pre-existing
story.
It's not very much like Jubilee.
Okay, right.
Bass plays a solo Dalek being tortured.
That's it, right.
Okay.
But the point being that Martin Jarvis.
Yeah, awesome. really good.
But the, but the, it's, it's, I don't, I, I, I don't think it is a
literal, I don't think it's a deliberate reflection of those 1st 2
Dalek stories.
I think it's just the fact that you have a standalone Dalek story
early in the season or midseason, and then you have the climax
which is going to be kind of a space invasion type thing.
I think opening the scale up, though, is doing that.
And I think that's a deliberate choice.
Yeah, I think, well, I think it's, yes.
But it's also just doing both sides of what you can do with Dalek
I think.
The claustrophobic versus the the the big invader kind of thing.
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously he's got, he's inspired by a lot
of the original series and he, not remakes per se, but he, he, he
riffs on it.
Yeah, he wants to build on it and say, well, this is this number.
So I'll do that and so on.
He takes that inspiration and then, as you said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And how can you make a new series of noct 2 and not have the
dialects invade Earth?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, you know, like, to be fair, that too part of it, which I
think is, you know, one of the best things that the new series
ever does.
No, no, the two-parter at the end of series one, I think is
magnificent.
Yeah, yeah. is mostly about, you know, other TV shows that are on
at the time.
Because the best Starlic stories don't have Daleks in them too
much.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they turn up at the end of episode one.
Of course they do.
There is a little part of me that will always be slightly mad at
Russell that we didn't find out in the stolen earth, that Tyler in
Darlic Invasion Earth is a descendant.
You know who.