Bigger spoilers.
The Comic
The punchline first: this is undoubtedly the story that cemented The Dalek Chronicles'
place in history. Almost everyone rates it highly, and in my opinion
they are right to do so. Having got that out of the way, then, let's
turn to the more interesting question: what makes it so good?
First off, it's just a riproaringly fun adventure serial, perfectly
suited to its medium. Pacing is key in something like this: each
instalment holds the interest and - six times out of seven - ends on a
dramatic cliffhanging moment. (Even the seventh is better than some of
Terry Nation's TV efforts, and he's actually pretty good at this sort of
thing.)
Oddly enough, in a story that features only Daleks, it's the characterisation too - basically, that there is
some. Zeg (the first Dalek with a name, possibly also the last until
the Cult of Skaro? I'd have to check) and the Dalek Emperor are
contrasted by their personalities, which are broadly drawn but
definitely present. Both are confident, but it's a different stripe of
confidence in each. Basically, they embody the brash spirit of energetic
Youth and the calm wisdom of experienced Age.
Interestingly, Age wins by cheating. The Brain Machine says that Zeg
must prove that he is smart, and the Emperor must prove that he is
strong; but all along it is the latter setting traps for the former,
destruction testing Zeg's casing. He succeeds eventually, ignoring the
Machine's dictum in order to do so.
What drives the Emperor is revealed in the final instalment: he
genuinely believes that the Daleks can only thrive with him at their
head. It's not as visible, but he is just as arrogant as Zeg - and
indeed the Black Dalek, making his first appearance here (with an
imperiously callous air) as the Emperor's enforcer. Really, it's a key
feature of the Dalek psyche, and it's impressive that characters driven
by the same basic forces can be made so different.
I haven't said much about the artwork, but it continues to be effective
in ways I've already described, and also adds its own spin to the
atmosphere. For instance, during the duel Zeg is very prominent,
foregrounded or featured on his own three times as often as the Emperor,
who tends to lurk around the edges. This really helps to show us that
the duellists are not the same.
Published:
Dates: 3rd April to 15th May 1965
Rating:
Comic: 9.5/10.
Terry Nation's The Daleks?
Having talked about the scripting a lot over the last few reviews, it's
probably worth saying something about the writer. The logo panel says
"The Daleks by Terry Nation". Apparently for some strange reason a few
people believed that this meant the strip was written by Nation, though I
can't imagine why: it's pretty obvious that Nation had nothing to do
with it, and that David Whitaker was the writer (along with TV21 editor
Alan Fennell for the first story).
Whitaker needs no introduction to readers of this blog, but this is the
first time we've seen him as an actual writer of the Daleks. He had
already written some printed Dalek stories - which we'll get to in a
little while - and he'll get to write them for TV during Patrick
Troughton's time on the show. What he does here is to create much of the
imagery that people who grew up in the 60s associate with Daleks,
despite much of it not appearing on the show itself - even the Dalek
Emperor was conspicuous by his absence until Nation stopped writing the
scripts. There are many figures who contributed to the success of the
Daleks, and Whitaker is right up there among the most significant.
The Animation
The sound quality here is much better, which is a relief; and Stuart
Palmer has reduced the number of times he pro-noun-ces each syll-a-ble
se-pa-rate-ly, though he still does so on occasion. The fact that this
story features no humanoids also means that it is ideally suited to
animation. It's still very primitive compared to the remastered Genesis of Evil,
and in a way I'm sorry I watched that one first; but I did enjoy it.
Given that this is AV02 and the previous story was AV04, I'd expect this
one to be the less advanced; but for the reasons given above it feels
like a slightly later effort. At the moment the comic is still
considerably better, though!
VCD Extras
This disc has a "making of" documentary, which was really useful for
helping me understand quite how much work goes into an animation like
this. I can see why almost all the shots featuring speech (and hence
flashing lights) were done as basic, 2D animation, and boggle at the
hours that go into producing the sets. Worth a watch.
Rating:
Animation: 4.5/10.
Next Time:
The Amaryll Challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment