Doctor Who was a show
that was originally estimated to go on for a couple of seasons with the same
cast before dying off and most likely being forgotten about. After The
Daleks the estimate was changed to five seasons before the popularity of
the Daleks would most likely die down for the show to end. Then something happened at the end of 1964
that led to the show being able to continue beyond that initial idea of five
seasons. Carole Ann Ford chose to leave
the program as Susan so when her contract ended in The Dalek Invasion of Earth the production team wrote her out of
the show, beginning the trend that characters could come and go as they please with
the changing time periods of the show. I
will discuss how well the goodbye scene works but as the title of the story
suggests we have Daleks to deal with.
The Daleks have invaded Earth and are mining in Bedfordshire to hollow
out the Earth and use it as an enormous spaceship which is just a silly plan as
to why they would want to conquer the world, but at least it gives a decent
excuse as to why there are remnants of humanity allowed to survive. They’re plan makes no scientific sense, but
as they appear here they are much more intimidating than in their inaugural
appearance in The Daleks. Here they aren’t afraid to kill people who
disagree with them as there is a much larger cast that can be killed off.
Terry Nation returns to
write for them in his third story for Doctor Who and while the story is
engaging it does start to show that Nation only has a couple of plots up his
sleeve. The story structure feels very
much like The Daleks. “World’s End” is the mysterious episode
ending in the reveal of the Daleks, “The Daleks” and “Day of Reckoning” have
the heroes captured then escape by tricking the Daleks into letting them go
followed by an ambush on the resistance group.
“End of Tomorrow” is the expedition to the Dalek base while “The Waking
Ally” and “Flashpoint” are the climax of the story where the Daleks are
defeated. What this structure does
better is its pacing as it isn’t seven parts long, instead only six episodes to
tell the story which is more ideal as The
Dalek Invasion of Earth has more to add to the Dalek mythos than the
initial The Daleks. The script is only as good however as how
well it is realized by the director and Richard Martin actually doesn’t do that
poor of a job with the material. He was
able to get several days for location filming around London which were shot
beautifully showing off the sights and he was able to mix them well into the
sets he had built for the story. Those
sets, especially the Dalek saucer and Dalek base and mining sets all come
across really well as the team had more production space to work with this time
around instead of the small Lime Grove Studio D. Martin isn’t perfect however as there are
several points where he really doesn’t use the space properly. This is mainly when rubble falls on the
TARDIS which is shot in close up and the cliffhanger to “The End of Tomorrow”
which has the cameras jolting all around as not to see what the Slyther looks
like.
William Hartnell as the
Doctor has his largest change here to his character as now instead of having
stories motivated by a desire to get back to the TARDIS, he now has an active
stake in the events wanting to help the people of Earth. It is the Daleks that brings out the Doctor’s
moral side as he has the call to action against them. Hartnell also generally gives a good
performance in this story even if he had to be written out of “The End of Tomorrow”
after a back injury. He really shines
with Susan as going in Hartnell and Ford were prepared to say goodbye and it
shows in both their performances. The
actual goodbye is the final change for the Doctor as he knows that this is time
for Susan to settle down and she will be safe here while he keeps on
running. The final speech from Hartnell
is great and it overshadows the rest of the story which wouldn’t be remembered
nearly as well as it is without it being written in at the last minute to close
out the story. It also helps that all
the actors got a month off after the filming of this story as the production
block had ended and would continue with The
Rescue once they had cast a replacement.
To summarize, The Dalek Invasion of Earth isn’t really
a story about the Daleks, but a story about the Doctor and Susan, looking back
on how far they have come as characters.
It’s biggest flaws are that the direction and pacing of certain scenes
are badly timed in several places for the story to truly be perfect and the
plot itself still takes its main structure from The Daleks which had only finished airing ten months earlier. The acting is on form even if the rest of the
cast is lackluster and the location work really is a feast for the eyes. 85/100.
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