OK so the title of this blog entry refers to the classic Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Day of the Daleks, which I got on DoovD the other day, so this is essentially what this post is all about in case you hadn't notice (or rather I!).
Day of the Daleks is definitely of Jon Pertwee's strongest stories in his time as the Doctor, as it has some very well written scripts and despite the fact there are clearly only three daleks in the whole story doesn't really detract from its quality in the other areas of the show. The plot deals with an attempt being made on the life of a peace delegate Sir Reginald Styles who is attacked by a guerilla who quickly vanishes before he can kill him. As a result UNIT get involved (the Brig et al) and the Doctor and Jo as they try to get to the bottom of who and what was behind the assassination attempt. The Doctor and Jo soon discover that the daleks are the masterminds behind the whole lot and the guerillas who went back through time were trying to stop a future war which erupted as a result of Styles allegely luring the world leaders to a mansion where he killed them in an explosion. So the Doctor and Jo get tangled up in the mess and are transported to the 22nd century on Earth where the daleks now rule the Earth and are intent on ensuring their version of events stays the same.
The story definitely has some very good standout moments especially the scene where the Doctor has it out with the Earth controller (the excellent Aubrey Woods) and asks "who really rules this planet of yours??!" and the scene where the Doctor discovers the truth behind the war and the future with the guerillas. There are also some fun little moments, my favourite of course being when one of the guerillas enters Styles house where he attacks the Doctor who uses his venusian karate to disable him, with wine glass in hand, he takes a sip of wine after! The Doctor also got one of the best lines of the story as well when he says to Styles "try and use your intelligence, man, even if you are a politician!!".
The weaker side of the story is of course the somewhat poorly directed action scenes with the Ogrons, who despite their impressive makeup moved way too slowly to provide any major threat, as anyone could outrun them, especially in the last battle scene where the ponder slowly toward Auderly house (the peace conference setting). The pacing of the daleks movement also is pretty sluggish, but then again they only had three working daleks back then. The dalek voices at the time were also a bit of a disappointment as the voice actors spoke their lines too slowly as it came out even more staccato then usual "do-----you------have-----the-----space---------time----------co------ordinates??" gives you an idea of that problem. Despite that though the story definitely has a lot going for it and the plot and quality of scripts definitely make up for any shortcomings of the story. Although I still cringe at Katy Manning's faux cry for help in the scene where the Doctor and Jo create a diversion so they can escape with Jo screaming "aghhh help me!!" but I like the Doctor's line after Jo smashes the Ogron over the head with a plastic wine glass, "pity that was rather a good vintage!".
Coming onto the Special Edition DVD version of Day of the Daleks, it is essentially the same version except with a few extra added effects and tidied up vocal fluffs from some of the actors. But the main part of the new version is of course Nicholas Briggs re-dubbing of the dalek voices, which is definitely an improvement on the original actors voices. Nicholas definitely provides more pace and hysteria to the daleks voices, although perhaps he does add a little too much sarcasm into their voices, as his voice always seems to go up on the end of lines such as "you may goooooooo!". It just sounds a bit out of place in those moments, but overall he does a fine job on improving one of the story's less impressive aspects.
Another aspect of the special edition that has been altered slightly is the scene where the Doctor appears to murder an ogron in cold blood with a disintegrator gun, this time round they have added in the old "Greedo shoots first" principal, with the ogron firing first at the Doctor who in turn shoots the baddie. They also added in the Doctor shooting another ogron inside Styles house just before he leaves and shoots up the next one. It does in some way make the Doctor seem a bit more moralistic in that he is killing the ogrons out of self defence, and I guess it does make up for what appears to be a very out of character moment for the Doctor. Although if you look at other stories you see the Doctor is put in position where he does have to directly kill his enemies, such as pushing Magnus Greel into the distillation chamber in the Talons of Weng Chiang, or killing the Cyber Leader in Earthshock with Adric's golden badge and then with a cybergun (OK a bit of nerdy referencing there!).
In regards to the DVD's extras it has also a fine documentary about the story detailing how it was made, etc, and it also features a documentary on the special edition where we see that they actually used new actors to potray some of the UNIT soldiers being killed by the Daleks or Ogrons. We also see Nicholas Briggs delivering his lines into a mic with fine hysteria, as well as how they did the special effects for the new explosions, the background of the future factory, and the video screen effects. Overall the special edition is actually pretty good and doesn't in anyway detract from the original story. We also get the second part of the UNIT family documentary which is really good as the actors from the Pertwee era, such as Richard Franklin, Katy Manning, Nick Courtney and John Levine all reminisce on their times on the show, and there is also a rather poignant moment with John Levine nearly in tears describing everyone's upset at Roger Delgado's untimely death and departure from the show.
Sooooooooo Day of the Daleks is a pretty good buy and a fine Doctor Who story to shoes, so with that I'll leave it there for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment