Death to the Daleks

1 Apr 2009, 8:25 pm
Dorney
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Death to the Daleks 1:

Whilst I stand by my opinions in the Day of the Dalek review that holding off the monster til the cliffhanger (despite titular prescence) is not the massive act of idiocy fandom tends to assume it is, there are problems with this approach, and Death to the Daleks demonstrates one of them. Namely that you'd better be certain you've got enough plot to fill in the story before you get there.

Death to the Daleks emphatically doesn’t. And that’s a shame, because there’s a lot of potential here. The initial hook of the episode is the TARDIS losing power, which is unnerving enough to be worthwhile. But because that is, by definition, a plot about something not actually doing anything, the absence of action, then it won’t really cover that much time. And the story as a whole just seems to be unsure of what to occupy itself with.

Take the opening sequence. Man staggers along. Gets hit in chest by spear. Dies. Even written down in that bland way I’m still not managing to communicate the sheer underwhelming limpness of the sequence. It’s like everyone involved knows this is just a by the numbers way of trying to kick off the story with a bit of action. It’s all so desperately half-hearted. There’s no build up, no tension. Just an event.

And the entire story is like that. The first fifteen minutes almost entirely consists of the Doctor and Sarah wandering around Exillon having the crap kicked out of them by, or kicking the crap out of, a few faceless savages. And lots of walking.

Now, it livens up in the last ten with the appearance of the Earth expedition force, all of whom have been selected to conform to a stock stereotype rather than for any real use on the mission. OK, that’s a touch unfair, because at least they offer a bit of life. But ultimately they’re nothing we haven’t seen before.

No, for that, we have to wait for the Exillon city.

The Exillon city sequences are the exact opposite of the opening. They’re superb. The incongruous oddness of the building, especially given the generic quarry it’s placed in, give it an eerie and unsettling quality. And that revitalises the production. The sequences around the city are the exact opposite of the opening sting of this episode. Whereas the generic nature of that led to a clear lack of interest on the director’s part, you can almost see his ears pricking up when he hears about this sequence. Everything about it is inventive and original, combining beautiful sound and vision with the darker warnings of the Earth crew. Hopefully the remaining three episodes will pull this way.

Though given the heinous mis-editing of the cliffhanger, giving away its own resolution, I’m not convinced.

#811 8 Apr 2009, 11:59 pm
Dorney

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Death to the Daleks 2:

There’s something really frustrating about this story. It seems close to doing something really interesting, and yet never quite succeeds in pulling it off.

For example – the notion of the Daleks losing their firepower is a genuinely novel idea (ok, it does necessitate a little delicate skipping around the problem of how they’re still able to move, but at least they try). How will these dangerous and powerful creatures cope when they have that power removed? How will the fare collaborating with their enemies? It’s an intriguing prospect that sets up several potential avenues worth exploring…

But then it doesn’t do anything with them. The Dalek’s emasculation lasts all of about ten minutes. As soon as it can, the story gives them alternate weaponary. It’s a definite wasted opportunity, meaning one of the most original ideas this story had is frittered away on a cliffhanger resolution, and nothing more. Indeed, there’s no effort to carry it through – why, exactly, are the humans still treated as equals by the Daleks even after they’ve got ther firepower back?

Equally, last episode’s most promising element – the Exillon city – is barely even mentioned this time around, as we end up spending most of our time hanging around a fairly standard sacrifice chamber, filling in time again.

It’s pretty much standard for this episode. John Abineri is killed off, then almost instantly replaced with another commanding officer type (who’ve we never really know or develop any interest in) just to die as well. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have only had Abineri mortally wounded?

And it’s still so frustrating because the story constantly skims close to genuine interest. Galloway’s deliberate mishearing of his commander’s dying wish is a great moment (although it would be better if the character wasn’t so one-note). And the Dalek who explodes after Exillon attack gets one of his species best deaths.

But it’s all just so lacklustre. There’s no real energy in the direction. Which is a shame because this has all the potential to be a good fun – if pulpy – space romp. But it isn’t quite committing enough to that.

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#813 11 Apr 2009, 12:51 am
Dorney

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Death to the Daleks 3:

Sometimes an episode has something in it so famous you can’t help but mention it up front. A classic character, a great scene, an iconic image. And then some just have the most notoriously crap cliffhanger of all time. Yes, if there’s something that people tend to associate this story with, more often than not it’s the Doctor and Bellal reacting to a patterned floor. But let’s think about this a moment. Yes, it’s a laughably bad cliffhanger, but it’s important to notice what it tells us about the story, and its problems.

When I first saw this story this bit wasn’t a problem. It was the edited VHS release, so the precise cliffhanger locations were impossible to determine. But, when I didn’t know, I’d always take a guess, based around careful watching of the clock and guesswork. And, rather predictably I guessed the moment when the Daleks glide around the corner of the city and start firing at the spot where the Doctor previously stood. It’s a good guess, as were it not for the lack of material in the third episode, that was the scripted point.

But seen in context, there’s a full five minutes left to run. And that’s what’s interesting. The episode has to lift five minutes from the next episode and fill out it’s length, but unlike similar botch jobs (such as Planet of the Spiders 5/6), there’s no need to re-edit the cliffhanger reprise, or take it to absurd length. Episode four still runs to length without those five minutes.

When your final episode is so long that its offcuts can be used to pad out another episode without any trouble, when the earlier episodes aren’t full, doesn’t that suggest your saving too much up? That’s the main problem with this story so far. Lots of interesting ideas, but they’re left too late to be dealt with. Only now do we meet Bellal and get some exposition on the city (in one great big unashamed info-dump), for example, and seem to be moving on to something intriguing. Couldn’t this have come in a bit earlier? Too much of the story so far has been standard issue Dalek serial – slaves, shooting, threats, drilling, etc. This is the stuff that’s unique to this story, this is the element you should be focusing on.

But at the same time, there’s another problem. Whilst the city storyline is intriguing, it really isn’t marrying all that well with the Dalek plot. It’s like the Doctor is in a separate storyline. OK, there are efforts to tie it all together, but it’s clearly less than the sum of its parts.

Loads of weird little rubbish bits in this episode, btw. I don’t mean the violent root (which I like for the sound effect alone). More like the way that the logic test that’s supposed to have foiled a good three or four skeletons in the city is a simple map out of a child’s puzzle book. And Pertwee’s ‘Palpable hit’ stuff is pretentious and annoying.

Still, at least you still get the cliffhanger to laugh at.

#814 14 Apr 2009, 12:01 pm
stanmore
Time Lord
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So, essentially, you disagree with the idea in The DisContinuity Guide that there's too much plot in this story rather than too little?

#815 15 Apr 2009, 2:23 am
AlMiles
Stay warm
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I've always found the concerns over stories' plot (or lack of) to be rather pointless, anyway. Doctor Who is a half-hour fun romp for all the family, half of which are too young or too hip to bother with plots and want other things - action, scares, character, cool designs and concepts, witty dialogue, even to learn something new ... why does plot always hog the limelight? Is it a fan thing?

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#816 15 Apr 2009, 5:36 pm
Pete Lack

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Oh, I've always had something of a soft spot for 'Death' as it was my first VHS, and like Dorney, I viewed it as an edited 'movie' version. Unlike Dorney, I have never seen the original episodic version, so I have no real problems with the cliffhangers; in fact the first time I saw the 'floor of doom' was on the Trial DVD's cliffhangers docu...

My god, I even like Carey Blyton's saxophone score, which also gets a fair bit of stick. Takes all sorts hey?

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#817 19 Apr 2009, 12:20 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stanmore
"So, essentially, you disagree with the idea in The DisContinuity Guide that there's too much plot in this story rather than too little? "

Not exactly. I think there probably are too many interesting ideas in the story to explore in the time... as a result they all get short shrift.


Quote:
Originally Posted by AlMiles
"I've always found the concerns over stories' plot (or lack of) to be rather pointless, anyway. Doctor Who is a half-hour fun romp for all the family, half of which are too young or too hip to bother with plots and want other things - action, scares, character, cool designs and concepts, witty dialogue, even to learn something new ... why does plot always hog the limelight? Is it a fan thing? "

I think it's down to individual taste. Personally, I think that all of the things you mention, whilst important, are usually improved when attached to a storyline that actually makes sense, or has a bit of drive. Humour is always at its funniest when there is something at stake, for example. In deed, I think that whilst, yes, half the audience probably don't get the plots (I struggle to think of what I made of Kinda as a child), there has to be something for everyone in the audience - it is a family show after all. And a rollicking story helps.



#818 24 Apr 2009, 12:39 pm
Raveen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
"Too much of the story so far has been standard issue Dalek serial – slaves, shooting, threats, drilling, etc. "

Is this actually such a crime? For us as fans yes, because we've seen The Daleks, Dalek Invasion of Earth, Planet of the Daleks and all the other serials that tread much the same ground relatively recently. For the average viewer in Nineteen Seventy Whatever is was it's not going to seem like a rehash of past stories because they haven't seen or don't remember those stories. Ok so this argument falls down a bit becasue Planet was only a year ago but surely that story at least can be excused it's Daleks Greatest Hits status because the hits were so long ago?

It's the logic puzzles that really fail. Ok so the non-matching symbols works becasue we're never shown which one doesn't match so we can assume that the Doctor was very clever to work it out. The maze is much harder to justify. Ok it's something that kids can understand and relate to, but it's tricky to believe that nobody got past it (and we can assume that nobody did becuase the floor of death has no skeletons in evidence).

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#819 24 Apr 2009, 6:28 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raveen
"Is this actually such a crime? For us as fans yes, because we've seen The Daleks, Dalek Invasion of Earth, Planet of the Daleks and all the other serials that tread much the same ground relatively recently. For the average viewer in Nineteen Seventy Whatever is was it's not going to seem like a rehash of past stories because they haven't seen or don't remember those stories. Ok so this argument falls down a bit becasue Planet was only a year ago but surely that story at least can be excused it's Daleks Greatest Hits status because the hits were so long ago? "

I dunno - there's a degree to which that's right... but it's hard to put yourself in the mind of those who aren't regular watchers. Maybe they have clearer memories than we think.

Incidentally, part four's review will be up soon. I've been working on it for over a week, just been a bit busy!


#820 1 May 2009, 12:14 pm
Richard2801
Fluffy Elephant
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For some reason I'd not caught up with this for a while - missing my chance to disagree with you markedly over Invasion of the Dinosaurs, I think! - but, sadly, you're spot-on with Death To the Daleks. I can never quite understand Michael E Briant's direction; in interviews and indeed in person he comes across as lively and committed, and on several stories he directs like that, too. At other times, it seems like someone utterly disinterested is saying 'yeah, whatever'. The script's so listless, too, that I can see how he'd have found it difficult to whip up enthusiasm, but still...

Anyway, I'm following your blog (excellent idea) now, so no doubt I'll see the whole lot come up eventually, which is exciting. I've now got as far as, er, The Daleks on my own 'do the lot' blog, which suggests I've cut the time it'll take me to complete it from a little under 500 years to not much over 200. Woo hoo!

(Alex, borrowing Richard. Richard writes his blog's Who reviews far more regularly)

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#821 3 May 2009, 2:13 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
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Death to the Daleks 4:

I’m not sure how I can really finish off this review without simply reusing a phrase from the episode 3 review – ‘less than the sum of its parts’. If there’s a phrase that sums Death to the Daleks, it’s that.

I’ve read that a lot of the story ideas here come from either Dicks or Holmes working behind the scenes, and that makes a lot of sense, frankly. Not because Nation’s incapable of coming up with intriguing concepts (he clearly is), but because the story is chock full of elements that never quite fit together. Particularly, the Daleks and their miracle mineral appear to be in a different story to the Exillon city. Notice how the central issue of the story – the power drain – is actually resolved twice as the natural conclusion to two separate threads.

In deed, if you think of it that way, there’s pretty much two separate stories going on here. One starring the Doctor and about the city, one about the Dalek’s battle of wills with the humans – and they only really intersect for one episode (two). The Doctor never really gets much dealings with the Daleks after that episode – mainly hanging around out of the way whilst the City deals with them – and their threat is resolved by Galloway rather than him. At times it feels like a backdoor pilot for a Dalek TV show.

And this approach ends up leaving them both a bit short changed. Whiltst the ‘meh’ quality of the Dalek plot isn’t all that disappointing, the Doctor’s thread is far more disappointing as it’s got so much more to play with. There’s never any real sense of what to do with this super-powered city, beautiful and haunting as it undeniably is (the death of the city at the end is really rather disturbing). Having a sequence of Crystal Maze traps smacks of desperation, especially when the logic for it is so fuzzy – only allow the smartest people into your brain, possibly to be made servants, though why you need servants at all, let alone smart ones, when you’ve been surviving perfectly well for hundreds of years is beyond me. Yes, the story takes loads of interesting ideas, but just doesn’t have the time or the interest into developing them into a proper solid story. Strong concepts – but no idea what to do with them.

#822 3 May 2009, 3:38 pm
Gravitational Pull
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Quote:
"Particularly, the Daleks and their miracle mineral appear to be in a different story to the Exillon city. Notice how the central issue of the story – the power drain – is actually resolved twice as the natural conclusion to two separate threads. "

Wow, I'd never actually noticed despite the fact (now that someone mentions it) it is a bit blatant.

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#823 15 May 2009, 1:14 am
Xipuloxx
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I was watching the "Frighten Factor" documentary on the Deadly Assassin DVD tonight, and up pops a "John Dorney, Writer" as one of the talking heads ...

... is that you, Dorney?

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#824 15 May 2009, 11:05 am
Dorney

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xipuloxx
"I was watching the "Frighten Factor" documentary on the Deadly Assassin DVD tonight, and up pops a "John Dorney, Writer" as one of the talking heads ...

... is that you, Dorney? "

Er, yeah...

#825 15 May 2009, 3:14 pm
Xipuloxx

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Cool! Congratulaions on your moment of fame, then! Because clearly there is no greater fame than appearing as a talking head on a Doctor Who DVD.

I hadn't realised you were a writer as well as an actor (you are an actor, right? I'm not going mad?), so I wasn't sure if it was you...

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#826 15 May 2009, 4:08 pm
Dorney
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xipuloxx
"Cool! Congratulaions on your moment of fame, then! Because clearly there is no greater fame than appearing as a talking head on a Doctor Who DVD.

I hadn't realised you were a writer as well as an actor (you are an actor, right? I'm not going mad?), so I wasn't sure if it was you... "

Hey, only did it for the freebie. Technically it's my second dvd mention (having been mentioned, although not by name) for a fanzine article I wrote in the Seeds of Death commentary (a series of articles about running down corridors that was, I cannot emphasise enough, meant to be a joke...).

But yes, write and act a bit. See my sig for some of my written material (plug plug).

#827 15 May 2009, 6:43 pm
Mighty Chicken Man
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
"Hey, only did it for the freebie. Technically it's my second dvd mention (having been mentioned, although not by name) for a fanzine article I wrote in the Seeds of Death commentary (a series of articles about running down corridors that was, I cannot emphasise enough, meant to be a joke...).

But yes, write and act a bit. See my sig for some of my written material (plug plug). "

i didn't think there were 2 dorneys! good to see you on it

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