Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Brad dropped off a comic for me on Saturday so I'll be reviewing that this week. Which means I'll be taking a break from my reviews of The Amazing Spider-Girl. I'll talk about that more at the end of this review. Right now though let's get on with it and talk about "The Daleks".
I'm not overly familiar with the Daleks. In fact, aside from this serial the only Dalek centric episode I've ever seen was the 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor. Otherwise I haven't seen any Dalek centric episodes from the modern era. And because I saw The Day of the Doctor only the one time during it's original airing in 2013, I don't remember anything about the Daleks from that special. Which makes it even more interesting seeing them in their original incarnations from 1963.
While "The Daleks" wouldn't've made a good introduction to Doctor Who in 1963, I actually think it's a much better story than "An Unearthly Child" is. Doctor Who was so different at the beginning than it is now and yet "The Daleks" is slightly closer to what the show is in the modern era than the previous serial was that it's astonishing to see the similarities as well as the differences.
The model work and set design on this serial is actually pretty amazing. Despite the low budget this show had back in the '60s the model of the Dalek city looks impressive. Also the sets actually make it look like the underground facility is vast. I'm sure they reused the same chamber and corridors for all of it though. Star Trek did that to make the Enterprise look like it was as big as it appeared to be when looking at the model of the ship on screen. While most of this is so much easier today, given that TV shows have the same budgets that movies had thirty years ago, and with the use of CGI it's easy to augment physical sets with digital extensions. Of course this just wasn't possible back in the '60s when Doctor Who, Batman, Lost in Space, and Star Trek were being produced.
The Doctor is so different in the beginning than they are today. Unlike the Doctor of the modern era this Doctor isn't a hero. He's an explorer, a scientist, and a historian of sorts. Therefore he only helps others if it benefits him somehow. Which makes him a difficult character in this serial. Of course the First Doctor, played so wonderfully by William Hartnell, is pretty difficult as he's always butting heads with Ian and Barbara. He also butts heads with Susan a few times throughout the course of this serial as well. Which is interesting. It's not bad, I'm just not used to the Doctor being at odds with his Companions.
I was actually more intrigued with the Thals than I was with the Daleks. After I watched the serial I went on the Doctor Who Wiki and looked to see of the Thals appeared in the modern era. I'm sad to report that they don't. They do show up a few more times in the classic series, so I might have to track down those stories at some point just to revisit them.
Overall this was a pretty good story. I do find myself preferring modern Doctor Who to the classic series, but I do appreciate the classic series because it laid the foundation for what we have now with Doctor Who. Plus the writing is pretty good even though it's pretty cheesy at times. But, it is a show that was made for kids originally, so I don't expect any less of it than that.
I think that's going to be it for me for now. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of the Star Trek episode "Space Seed". On Wednesday I'll be taking a break from reviewing The Amazing Spider-Girl so I can review the comic that Brad got for me on Saturday, which is a one-shot called Batman '66: The Lost Episode. I'll explain that more in my review. Also, because I was dumb and forgot that the first episode of Marvel's What If...? drops on Wednesday and the season 2 premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks airs on Thursday night, I planned to review both Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan AND Flight of the Navigator this week. Yeah, that's not happening, so Flight of the Navigator will be reviewed at a later time and I'll be watching Wrath of Khan on Friday night to review on Saturday. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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