The Animation
Well, this being a story with no organic life on-screen, I thought it
would be ideally suited to animation; and, indeed, this turns out to be
the case. I enjoyed this much more than the original comic.
Still, let's start with sound rather than vision. One minor annoyance is
the presence of some irritatingly slow Dalek voices, as there used to
be in some of the previous stories. I notice that this one is actually
an earlier release than The Pentaray Factor, where the problem didn't occur; so I'm hoping this is the last time we'll have to deal with it.
In contrast, the voice of the Brain Machine was fun; and the music and
sound effects from Empire 639 were great! The recording quality of all
the sound is as crisp as I could want, which hasn't always been true.
All of this really helps the experience.
Visually it's a strong release too. There's a lovely shot where the
camera is pointing through a sheet of metal, which is gradually eaten
away to reveal the scene behind. In fact, several of the rust attack
shots impress, as does a first-person view of the Black Dalek seen
through the eyestalk of a plague victim. The landscape of Skaro is also
pretty spectacular - it looks like it might be taken from photographs,
but if so I'm uncertain where on Earth they were snapped! The only
significant flaw is a glitch where the Emperor's saucer disappears
behind a strip of "sky", which is a shame.
Sound and vision also work together well to support the
characterisation. They really show how scared some of the Daleks are,
and I also found that the Black Dalek's personality comes through even
more strongly than in the comic.
Another aspect of the adaptation that raises this above the comic is the
pacing. Various events are compressed or expanded, creating more
tension and putting back some of the structure that was absent from the
comic. To be fair, this is taking advantage of the fact that there
doesn't have to be a cliffhanger every page; but regardless, it's a
carefully judged move which is a vast improvement.
There's not much humour here that wasn't present in the original comic
(scaredy-Daleks take a bow), but two moments are particularly worthy of
note. First, I loved the restrained and disarmed "volunteer" Dalek, poor
thing; and second, the moment when opposing Daleks are told "Do Not
Fight In Here!". I wonder if the Emperor's throne room is known as the
war room? It would certainly be appropriate.
VCD Extras
Surprisingly, there are no extras this time around. The disc didn't
really need them, but I was slightly disappointed. Ah well, I suppose
I'd better just cut this short and go drown me sorrows - or at least
listen to an Iris Wildthyme audio, which is pretty much the same
thing...
Rating:
Animation: 5/10.
Next Time:
The Menace of the Monstrons.
DRP
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