Death to the Daleks
En route to the galactic luxury world of Florana, the TARDIS becomes stranded on the planet Exxilon, its energy sucked away by some unknown force. The Doctor and Sarah find themselves on a barren world inhabited by savages, and a mysterious pristine city towering over the landscape. An expedition from Earth has also been stranded on Exxilon in their search for a rare mineral that will cure a plague that is wiping out their colony worlds. Trouble is, a force of Daleks has been sent to the planet for the same reasons, although the Doctor doubts their motives. Humans and Daleks form an uneasy truce as the Daleks discover that they have no energy for their weapons, but that will only last until the Daleks develop substitute weapons and resume their murderous ways. But the Daleks are the least of the Doctor's worries, and he seeks to unravel the mysteries of the city.
I don't know why people don't like this story. It's got Daleks! It's got better Daleks than Day of the Daleks and it has Daleks out of their element with their weapons not functioning, leaving them as helpless as those they would crush and destroy. Helpless Daleks have never been encountered before, and even the disarmed ones from Power of the Daleks knew that they were in control of their situation without their weapons. In fact, Daleks without their power to exterminate would only be examined twice in the future; in the audio Jubilee and the new series adventure Dalek. But trust the Daleks not to be down for long, and when they reinvent the machine gun for their own use, they're back to their old style. The guns actually do fire but there's this wierd ticking noise that comes, and some bad ricochet sound effects. And the Dalek colouring... they're painted silver for some reason.
Exxilon suffers from bad casting; another rock quarry. A very bad paper mache boulder. Some sad puddles of water. And the city appearing as a very bad CSO effect, until episode 4 when it is revealed that it has been made out of wax. The peoples of Exxilon are realized as well as they could be, their bulging eyes and bald heads obviously latex masks but somehow they don't demand a lot of explaining, they're just accepted. The subterranean Exxilons like Bellal are a bit different with their oddly glowing skin, but to their credit you can only see one actor's eyes behind the mask the whole adventure. That's got to count for something.
Jon Pertwee is obviously not doing his own stunts anymore; some editing could have saved me from noticing that it is just some guy in a wig in some of the fight scenes. And speaking of fights .... when Sarah encounters an Exxilon after it sneaks into the powerless TARDIS, rather than scream or faint she beats the living crap out of it with a crowbar. That's my girl! This is the first time we see her in the console room, and the room itself has become a lot smaller than it was back in 1963. And speaking of the old days, the power loss that strands the TARDIS draws some parallels to the plight of the ship and its crew from The Edge of Destruction, although Sarah never gets worried about something getting in... until it does.. and I've already said how she deals with that little trifle. The Doctor does not find the TARDIS' plight as traumatic as the first Doctor did; he's either gotten jaded to outside forces attacking his ship or he's suffering some kind of lingering disconnect after being exiled to Earth and deprived of his symbiotic link with the ship.
I want this one on DVD soon. And not just because it'd be nice to have it in episode format (the VHS copy from Playhouse Video - a dreaded name from the past! - has all four episodes wound together into a movie format, and you can really see the difference in quality between what copy of episode 1 they have and the rest of the adventure) but it would piss off the people who don't like it. This is a good Dalek story as far as I am concerned; their chemistry with the Doctor is a bit diminished I'll grant you, but hey they get to show themseles as more innovative, coming up with a new weapons design and shooting Exxilons off cliffs for sport. A total of three Daleks meet flashy deaths on screen, and another one just screams a lot.
NEXT EPISODE : THE MONSTER OF PELADON
PS That logging issue still remains.. it's 9:52 PM right now.
I don't know why people don't like this story. It's got Daleks! It's got better Daleks than Day of the Daleks and it has Daleks out of their element with their weapons not functioning, leaving them as helpless as those they would crush and destroy. Helpless Daleks have never been encountered before, and even the disarmed ones from Power of the Daleks knew that they were in control of their situation without their weapons. In fact, Daleks without their power to exterminate would only be examined twice in the future; in the audio Jubilee and the new series adventure Dalek. But trust the Daleks not to be down for long, and when they reinvent the machine gun for their own use, they're back to their old style. The guns actually do fire but there's this wierd ticking noise that comes, and some bad ricochet sound effects. And the Dalek colouring... they're painted silver for some reason.
Exxilon suffers from bad casting; another rock quarry. A very bad paper mache boulder. Some sad puddles of water. And the city appearing as a very bad CSO effect, until episode 4 when it is revealed that it has been made out of wax. The peoples of Exxilon are realized as well as they could be, their bulging eyes and bald heads obviously latex masks but somehow they don't demand a lot of explaining, they're just accepted. The subterranean Exxilons like Bellal are a bit different with their oddly glowing skin, but to their credit you can only see one actor's eyes behind the mask the whole adventure. That's got to count for something.
Jon Pertwee is obviously not doing his own stunts anymore; some editing could have saved me from noticing that it is just some guy in a wig in some of the fight scenes. And speaking of fights .... when Sarah encounters an Exxilon after it sneaks into the powerless TARDIS, rather than scream or faint she beats the living crap out of it with a crowbar. That's my girl! This is the first time we see her in the console room, and the room itself has become a lot smaller than it was back in 1963. And speaking of the old days, the power loss that strands the TARDIS draws some parallels to the plight of the ship and its crew from The Edge of Destruction, although Sarah never gets worried about something getting in... until it does.. and I've already said how she deals with that little trifle. The Doctor does not find the TARDIS' plight as traumatic as the first Doctor did; he's either gotten jaded to outside forces attacking his ship or he's suffering some kind of lingering disconnect after being exiled to Earth and deprived of his symbiotic link with the ship.
I want this one on DVD soon. And not just because it'd be nice to have it in episode format (the VHS copy from Playhouse Video - a dreaded name from the past! - has all four episodes wound together into a movie format, and you can really see the difference in quality between what copy of episode 1 they have and the rest of the adventure) but it would piss off the people who don't like it. This is a good Dalek story as far as I am concerned; their chemistry with the Doctor is a bit diminished I'll grant you, but hey they get to show themseles as more innovative, coming up with a new weapons design and shooting Exxilons off cliffs for sport. A total of three Daleks meet flashy deaths on screen, and another one just screams a lot.
NEXT EPISODE : THE MONSTER OF PELADON
PS That logging issue still remains.. it's 9:52 PM right now.
Labels: Daleks, Sarah Jane Smith, The 3rd Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 6:31 PM
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