This was my favourite Dalek story for much of my childhood. As an adult,
I picked up a secondhand copy of the two-movie DVD set on a market
stall - always a slightly worrying way of buying such easily-damaged
items, though this time both disks were fine - and enjoyed it again.
Very much so, in fact; I rated it 8/10 (as opposed to the 2/10 I gave
the TV version in 2006, when I watched it over two evenings). Watching
it this week I didn't expect my opinion to have changed much over the
last few years, but it has. Quite a bit.
Let's start at the beginning, though. We have a quite un-spacy opening,
with a policeman dreaming of far-away lands while a robbery is about to
take place and some classic piano music setting the tone. There's an
effective explosion, some thuggery, and another "down the rabbit-hole"
moment, this time for policeman Tom Campbell. I like the echoes of An Unearthly Child,
here - in another reality it could have been the bobby from that first
episode who found his way into the TARDIS - and this time, appropriately
for the film that concludes the series, there's also a matching "back
to reality" moment. We have a reprise at the very end, but not quite as
before because Tom gets his reward, and his dreams have changed. It may
be a feelgood ending, but it's not without its issues: if he prevents
the events that caused him to enter Tardis in the first place, what
happens? Are there now two Toms running around London? Shades of The Time Travellers!
Tackling this paradox isn't in the purview of the film, though - it's
just a bonus for people like me who enjoy thinking about such things.
For me, it takes a step down in enjoyability immediately after this
opening, when the random passer-by tries to lean against the
dematerialised Tardis and breaks the Fourth Wall by shrugging at the
audience. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this particular style of
humour - I'd been busy at school helping out with SATs in the morning
(with more to come next day), and was looking to escape into another
world; but that's not really what you get. Oh, Tom is a lot less
pratfally than the Pete's World version of Ian, but there's still quite a
bit of basic humour - the "blending in with robomen" and "food machine
on fast forward" scenes in particular.
Ah yes, Ian. This film was originally intended to use the same main cast as Doctor Who and the Daleks
but neither Roy Castle nor Jennie Linden were available, so we got Tom
and Louise instead of Ian and Barbara. Has there ever been a more
pointless character than Louise? I complained about Barbara last time,
but I think I'm right in saying that her successor gets nothing to do
that affects the plot at all. There's no way to tell how good or bad an
actress Jill Curzon is, beyond the fact that she can deliver lines,
doesn't look awkward and can fall over! This isn't a good film for
Roberta Tovey's Susy, either. She still gets to show off her brains a
little, but is in all other ways disempowered. It's a darn good job
Bernard Cribbins is a good actor, then, because he - even more than
Peter Cushing - has to carry the film.
Still, it's an action movie rather than a character piece, and needs to
be viewed in that light. Unfortunately, the bigger budget for the TV
version (plus the fact that we've seen colour Daleks before so the wow
factor from that is reduced) makes the contrast less marked - the
fights, for instance, are only a little better than the TV version. This
is compounded by some unfortunate design choices, such as the clean and
clean-cut rebels in their well-organised hideaway. In fact, the whole
effort is more... sanitised. There's a lack of grim and grimy
desperation that really should be there, and it looks more like 1950s
England than ever. The music doesn't help, with the scene of the van
charging the Daleks undermined by the jolly tune accompanying it. I
still really like Dalek/Roboman march, though, and the theme music is
better than in the last film.
There's a lot to like. Some of the set-piece scenes very work well - the
destruction of the van, for instance - and the saucer is wonderful. The
robomen look and sound a lot better, though again the loss of their
zombie nature reduces the horror factor (almost certainly deliberately).
The robotiser is snazzier, even if the head covering does look like a
hairdryer, and we have Daleks with proper voices using their claws. The
mineshaft is vastly improved, with some great pulsing lights, and the
bomb looks like one.
On the other hand the direction is largely flat and static. Gordon
Flemyng seems to think that a Dalek rolling down a ramp is interesting,
and he lacks the eye of Richard Martin (though he also has a higher
baseline of quality).
What of the script? David Whitaker does some good things here. The
Doctor's escape from the cell on the saucer is much less contrived, the
aforementioned bomb doesn't have a stupid person-holding area, and the
way he mixes up the characters to keep those aspects that are most
important to the plot is skilful. David becomes more interesting having
ditched the Zeppo-style romantic lead aspect: he has a bit of an edge,
and is the crack shot instead of Tyler (whose film alter ego Wyler has
more compassion to make up for it). David's line "I always did prefer
the country" is a nice nod to the end of the TV version. In contrast,
Dortmun is far less interesting and has had the heart of his story
ripped out. Jenny, being a woman and therefore by definition useless,
has disappeared entirely.
There are other women, of course: the clothes menders. And look who's
there! Old Mother, from the tribe of Gum! She's been appearing regularly
on the Gallifrey Base alternate history thread,
working with the Daleks, so now is an appropriate time for me to be
watching this. My review is getting long, though, so I don't have time
to say much about Philip Madoc (who we'll see again - but why did the
Daleks shoot him here?), or the Sugar Puffs adverts that appear because
the company that made them sponsored the film, or the even-worse-than-TV
technobabble, or the rubbish volcano. Though I can't help mentioning
the revelation that Daleks go to sleep when you put a cloth over them.
Genius!
It's Thingy, from That Other Program, Part 4: Bernard Cribbins and Ray Brooks
I'm well over my word count, but I also can't resist the temptation of
combining these two. Or rather, two programs for which they provided the
voices.
I only remember seeing Brooks in this movie (though I might have seen
him in guest roles in other shows I watched), but his voice is instantly
recognisable to me. He was the narrator of Mister Benn, another of my favourite children's TV shows from the early 1970s. It's much like Who
in some ways: the eponymous hero visits a costume shop run by a
mysterious, magic-using shopkeeper and then is sent to other worlds,
times and genres where he sorts out problems before returning to the
changing room. Fans of the show who also watch The Sarah Jane Adventures
may well have spotted a tribute in the fourth series. I bought the DVD
for my children, but am quite happy to watch it without them!
Meanwhile, one of the many things Cribbins was famous for three decades before his return to Who was The Wombles, which aired a couple of years later than Mister Benn.
I didn't like this quite so much, but it was still a lot of fun (and
with a breakthrough theme song by Mike Batt). I can't see much of a
connection with Who, though, other than the narrator, so I'll leave it there. See you next time.
Rating:
4/10.
Next Time:
A brief step back in time for The Exiles.
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