Doctor Who Rewind - The Daleks

This is it, the first appearance of a design classic. Terry Nation's tin pot metal meanies who'll stop at nothing until humanity is eradicated from existence. But will their debut outing be a terrifying tale of evil or a giggle fest of embarrassing attempts at extermination.

There's so much resting on the first episode of seven,"The Dead Planet", if you come at it from Eleven Doctors later. But just imagine what it would have been like watching this back in 1963, with no idea what this strange desolate planet had in store for the Doctor and the TARDIS crew.

At the beginning of the episode the audience knows something terrible is going to happen, as the TARDIS radiation counter displays worryingly in the danger zone. Unluckily, nobody clocks this as their all too busy getting a wash and brush up after the last adventure. Got to look clean for those Daleks.

It's then that the Doctor becomes a kind of Willy Wonker type character, producing some amazing contraption that produces little tablets, that when consumed, provide a full meal. Just simply dial in your favourite food and hey presto. Of all the exotic culinary delights Ian and Barbara could test on this kitchen marvel, they opt for good old fashioned bacon and eggs. Nothing like a full English before exploring a strange new planet.

What you realise in this story is the scope and diversity that was required and what the set designers were up against. And all from one studio with no exteriors. They are asked for a dense other worldly jungle - and what we get is just that. Probably concocted out of paper, plastic and toilet roles (more on those later) but in the monochrome world of 1960s tv it works amazingly well. It's both threatening and wondrous. What prey, is in the canopy of those pole like trees that grow straight up - we never find out of course, but that's the beauty of tv in this era. It's like reading a book, but here what we only partially see fires the imagination to fill in the rest.

Again in this story the Doctors bedside manner is as self centred as ever as he selfishly considers the strange great city that lies before them when the edge of the forest is reached. He wants to go down there straight away and investigate but is talked out of it by the rest. And then, when they all have him outnumbered in their desire to leave the planet he decides otherwise. Deciding to sabotage the TARDIS by removing a some inner part called The Fluid Link, and kidding them he needs to refill it with mercury or they won't be going anywhere. That they don't smell his little ruse is beyond me given his track record to date but there is an off hand remark between Barbara and Ian that implies that it wouldn't be an altogether bad thing if something were to happen to this so called Doctor chap.

The upshot of the Doctors little ploy is that the four of them venture out again into a planet steeped in radiation and by the time they reach the Dalek city of corridors they are all but spent.

These seven episodes are full of inventive camera work. The first view of a Dalek is from its point of view as it corners Barbara when she gets lost. We just see the camera approaching her with the Dalek stalk and plunger waving in front. It's crude but effective. Also the use of reverse negative when the Daleks fire their weapons holds up really well. So much so that when Ian's legs get partially paralysed we really do feel his frustration at being utterly useless.

What also works well is the sense of claustrophobia in that Dalek city, made up of a maze of corridors, doors and lifts on multiple floors. When the travellers are held captive by the Daleks, and they are literally dying of radiation poisoning, the sweat on their faces (generated by the heat of the studio no doubt) only adds to the realism that they are on the very brink of death.

The scene in which the four brainstorm ideas for escape is well played as well. A number of ideas are discussed before they agree on a plan. Again this builds on the realistic approach and I doubt that would happen now in the age of DW where everything moves along at a hundred miles an hour.

One of the more bizarre scenes is where Susan is taking dictation from the Daleks, as they get her to write a letter to lure the Thals into an ambush. She has trouble keeping up and even shouts at them, telling them to slow down. When they take the note from her to check it, stuck on the end of a plunger, I couldn't help thinking how limited these creatures really are. You can just imagine them saying, "You-have-spelled-exterminate -incorrectly!!!"

Then what of the Thals themselves. Void of any violent outbursts or acts of aggression, until that is DW turns up. The blonde tall headed scantly clad Thals want a peaceful resolution at all costs. They go bounding into Dalek city with the promise of food and provisions from the Daleks. On a table in the middle of the room, with the Daleks hiding our of sight round the corner (there plungers in full view), we see gifts of fruit and veg, and what look like several rolls of loo paper? Are those for when the Thals shit themselves on sight of the wheeled pepper potted pests?

When the remaining Thals and humans escape back to the TARDIS though, its all laughs as the consensus is that they had better leave this place pronto. The cliff hanger at the end of episode four had me in stitches. DW asks Ian for the fluid Link for the TARDIS and Ian suddenly realises the Daleks had confiscated it while they were held captive. The camera slowly pans from Ian to Barbara, to Susan and finally to the Doctor as he turns to face the camera and pull a face of sheer anguish. They should have gotten him to say "FUCK!!!" and it would have been genius.

Help is needed to get back into Dalek city and despite a short moral debate on the pros and cons of getting the Thals to man up a bit. It's agreed the only way to get that fluid link is to inlisted the Thals help. Therefore our Mr Who has not only almost killed his friends, he's now ready to use the Thals for his own means as well. We clearly know now that his moral compass is not really been developed yet.

Luckily, after Ian threatens to take one of the Thal women to the Daleks, they suddenly discover the ability to inflict violence and agree to help.

After a lengthy period concentrating on the journey back to Dalek City, and the threats it poses, they finally arrive.

The Daleks have already initiated a countdown to explode another neutron bomb. Bad news. Or is it?

Lucky again for our time travellers the countdown starts at about one hundred and goes on, well, forever. Long enough time for the Daleks to be overthrown and be put out of action. If only they had started from ten. Maybe next time. Even the poor Dalek announcing the countdown seems bored after a while and ready to give up.

Another thing that impressed me about this story was the sound fx and back ground noise of the city. It sounds fantastically unfriendly, atonal and threatening and really adds to the tension as the story goes on. It's echoey too. Like Someone sliding a mallet up and down a xylophone over and over again. It's terribly effective and the kind of thing we would now take for granted.

All in all we have this story to thank for the eventual continuation of DW, as the Daleks were so popular another story was soon written for the next series. There was no stopping DW now, the stage was set, and although the character of the Dictor was still forming, all the main ingredients were there.

Next time on Doctor Who Rewind a weird two part story set entirely on the TARDIS, where things get decidedly strange, and then some.