The Dalek Invasion Revisted!

And now, due to unoriginality and the discovery of how to upload pictures, I return us to:



I felt this had to be revisted, to appreciate the humour. Also, I have pictures. Anyway, we start off with that. THAT. That is the first shot. How can it not be utterly fantastic? How can it not be the funniest thing since Batman discovered a small plastic shark attatched to his leg? Well, it gets better.

A quick play around in DVD menus reveals that you can turn CGI special effects on and off. That picture, despite it's sixties glory, had them on. The real flying saucers look much, much better.
Of course, it's better when you see and hear it, complete with sixties spaceship noise and the wobble of it on its string. But I feel the moral is there.

It gets better too. At one point, our heroes face an evil and deadly foe, that for no apparent reason, isn't a Dalek, but an evil monster that's on the lose on Earth for some reason!


But of course, all the horrors of that can't face up to the lethal and deadly ROBOMEN!


These are ordinary men who appear to have had some kind of hair enhancement device stuck on their heads, turning them into stupid looking slaves of the Daleks whos only purpose, I can assume, is to press buttons and turn door handles because the Daleks noticed they don't have any hands. I mean, they say dolphins could be as intelligent as man if they had opposible thumbs, so how did Daleks ever become space faring with only a plunger and a whisk? It boggles the mind.

The theme of aquatic creatures is good, actually, because next up we have the least convincing crocodile since Ace Rimmer decided to go surfing.

The flaw here is not that it's made of rubber (it's not), but it appears to be some kind of small alligator-resembling lizard. Cut in between shots of somebody afraid they'll fall in a pit, it's akin to Team America and the lethal panthers in that. Which is a shame, because the concept of the aliens invading so long ago all wildlife has escaped from the zoos, and although most of it died off, lizards thrived in the sewers, is really quite original, if not ridiculous, but this small might-be-a-gecko just is hilarious.

In fact, they address this on a documentary, I discovered, on the DVD. (Yes, this is a new piece of information I just found). Where they confess to using baby crocodiles, that were about 200 millimeters long. And trying to make them stand up for deadly alligators plauging the sewers. All I can say is; good job!

Of course, no ridiculing of a Doctor Who story featuring Daleks would be complete without mentioning the Daleks themselves. They're special here, for a seemingly inability to speak unless they're moving. They move backwards and forwards whenever they speak like they just HAVE to be doing something while they talk. And during the climax, as they're leader delivers orders, they all resort to driving around him in circles, for no apparent reason. As seen, kind of, here:

There are in fact four Daleks. Driving in circles. While that black one moves backwards and forwards giving orders. As soon as it stops speaking, they all stop, assemble into a line, and leave.

Why can they not sit still? Daleks are not robots, but small mutants inside those suits, maybe they're really uncomfortable and as a result they fidget? I don't know, but it's baffling.

In fact, they only can't sit still when speaking, when by coincidence, lights flash on their heads (for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe orignally designed to warn people a Dalek was reversing, it got wired into the speaking mechanism). As a result of this, I can only assume that the movement controls are by the 'turn lights on and off' switch inside the case, so they keep accidently moving forwards and backwards while doing it.

Anything else to say about them, well, all I can say is: look at them. Just look at them for a moment. And imagine how they could possibly conquer the Earth. Forget stairs. They wouldn't be able to handle a door!

"A door han-dle! I can-not ope-rate this dev-ice!"

Okay, that's not funny. But it's a point!

I'm being harsh. I really liked this story actually. Dare I say, it looked better than a lot of later science fiction, because other than the stupidity of the design of the Daleks, they look like they're made out of metal, and the fact that it takes place on Earth means that most of the shots are outside, so no ridiculously naff looking futuristic sets, and I actually enjoyed the story, despite it's sillyness (but I do have a weakness for silly adventure stories; hence my fandom of the A-team and Knight Rider). So, I confess, I am a fan. This is probably my favourite serial story ever, and up there competing with the new series of Doctor Who for favourite episode. So I confess, I love stories like this, but NOT because it's funny, I really do enjoy them for all the other reasons you might find enjoyment; watching the story, the adventure, whatever the hell the appeal of the Daleks is, it is there.

But above all.

You have to laugh.