The Daleks have returned! Well I didn’t see that coming! And
this time they invaded the Earth! The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara must be
wondering when they will land somewhere safe!
What to say about this story? It’s pretty good I guess, well
done in parts and less so in others. The flying saucers were right out of Ed
Wood for starters! The Slither wasn’t very good either. Some parts lacked
sufficient background music. Never the less, on the flip side some great shots
were achieved, and they got the show out of the TV studio.
‘World’s End’, the opening episode, is very well directed
and paced. Another case of the Doctor and his band of merry women and one man
exploring their surroundings and gradually becoming aware of where they are and
what’s going on. Unfortunately Susan hurts her ankle in a piece of appallingly
bad acting that is hard to ignore. She’s squealing again!
The Robomen. What can I say? I understand the need for them
in Terry Nation’s story, but the polystyrene head-gear that they wear is a bit
embarrassing from a design stand point. However, achieving the Dalek coming out
of the Thames at the end of the first episode is something the production team
should be very proud of. I have never seen an In grin come out of water. The
stuff on film generally looks great.
The plotline is definitely, though, B-movie. I don’t know if
B-movie is a step up or down for Doctor Who to be honest. The way the
explanations are delivered is not so well written for example. It’s very plain
and functionary. However, direction Richard Martin did a great job with cross
fades and the like to spruce it up visually.
For this viewer, the saucers are the biggest point of
embarrassment (for the production team), both in design and in being in the
story in the first place, and the detonation device in the final two episodes
that is supposed to break the Earth’s crust. The model shots may have a lot of
detail, but sadly look like toys. Ian spends all this time phaffing around
inside the device pulling out wires, and later he manages to stop it with a
couple of thin logs. Meanwhile all that was needed to defeat the daleks was
ordering the robomen to turn on them.
The scenes are rather good at the end though, with the
humans destroying the Daleks. The shot with a Dalek lifted above their heads is
particularly memorable.
The costume people did something interesting with the
character Jenny, played by Ann Davies . Apparently her hair wasn’t prepared for
the film shots, so she had to wear and extremely comical
balaclava for exterior
shots (and some studio work too). Bernard Kay is rather good in this as Tyler –
I wonder if he’s likely to reappear in another story? Probably not, they
wouldn’t re-engage the same actor for different roles in this series I imagine.
Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) has a nice role to play in this
story, her character is very strong and she seems to enjoy the role. She is
split from the rest, and so is Ian who has his own story. Susan spends most of
the story with the Doctor and David (Peter Fraser) – where she falls in love.
She has her fair share of screaming and crying, but a very nice final scene.
The Doctor leaves her on Earth to start a life with David. The final scene is very moving indeed and
well delivered from the two actors.
The story has a few ridiculous things in it, and at the same
time it is rather harsh at times. We get to see more death at the hands of the
Daleks than in the first instalment, a lot of it is quite brutal in as much as
it was needless. Perhaps the most horrific scene is the one where the character is strangled to death by his brother,
now a roboman.
London is destroyed by firebombs, but we really don’t see
any of the devastation. Only one bomb is diffused, and most of the city should
be in ruins, yet Barbara and Jenny don’t even hear the bombs exploding and
drive off through London in an ancient fire truck, a London showing no signs of
the fire bombs. It’s a nice scene, but the Dalek’s appear to have the least
effective bombs ever devised.
To summarise though, I think the production team were easily
attempting the ‘biggest’ story they had ever done. They were raising the bar
with props, locations, characters and the like. The story is well paced and
well done on the whole, especially for what was possible at the time and
keeping in mind the limited budget.
7/10
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