Well, as you can see, it's happened again. What I had planned to be only a few paragraphs long to sum up today grew to be, well, a little longer than that. As such, I thought it best to post just the whole of today's entry anyway.
So, I bought a storage unit for my cds today. It’s another
step towards making my room – which more than likely, I’ll be living in for a
couple more years yet – a more organized, less chaotic area, something which a
reasonably sane adult could live in. I’ve got a lot more planned for it over
the next year – a better bed, clear some stuff, be less of a klepto and all
that. None of the Doctor Who stuff, of course, but a few impulse buys that have
remained over the years that I’ll need to clear out. Try and grow up a little
bit, even if I am a 24 year old who still lives with his parents.
Does that
last point bother me? Sometimes, I must admit. Not because of mum and dad,
they’re two of the best people I know, but more because of me. I see a lot of
people I know from high school moving on with their lives – getting married,
having kids, all “grown up” stuff. And while I’m not exactly wanting to rush
into any of that, I’m not keen on being an overgrown kid who lives in his
parent’s attic (not exactly a basement, I know, but still) all his life.
On the other hand, it’s not like I haven’t discussed this with them,
or that my situation is unique, or that it’s even a serious worry. I’ve worked
out the costs of moving out, and at the end of the day, paying rent and
expenses for my own flat in an economy that’s pretty much fucked at the moment,
and may be fucked for quite a while, while paying for college every month isn’t
exactly an ideal situation for me to walk into. Perhaps I’m making excuses, but
for the moment, if my parents are happy to have me around, and as long as I
continue to pay them back and don’t leech off them while working in a decent job like I've been doing, then I should aim to be
happy for the moment, too. As long as I don’t turn into a c**t – and I trust
that my friends will tell me if I do – then I’ll try not to worry. Well, not
about my living situation, at least.
Anyway, moving on from that glimpse into how paranoid and
insecure my mind can be on occasion, back to what my life is really all about –
Doctor Who! As noted in my previous entry, I finished season 8 on Thursday. I
think I’ll plan to start season 9 tonight. Day of the Daleks... ah, now there’s
a story from my childhood. One of the earliest stories I bought on video.
Watched that quite a few times, too. A really decent story, although problems
in production let it down – specifically, the fact that only 3 Dalek props were
used and how obvious that was, most
notably during an “invasion” scene towards the end, and even the Dalek’s
voices, which just didn’t sound…Dalek-y enough.
Bear in mind that I am a huge
Dalek fan, although unlike Who, this was something I only fully realized
within the last couple of years or so. It’s funny, really, to think of them as
separate, considering that the Daleks not only started in Who, but have been so
closely connected to it that, in Britain, at least, it’s hard for the average
person to separate the two. Indeed, comedienne and actress Catherine Tate (who
played companion Donna Noble in the new series) actually said that before she
did Doctor Who, she didn’t know there were other monsters in the show, she just
thought that the Doctor fought the Daleks every episode. To be honest, it
wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what a lot of Brits who didn’t watch the show
think. It says a lot about how much an image or idea has on a culture when most
people will have a basic idea of what something is without having watched a
single minute or read a single page of the original source. As far as Britain
is concerned, Doctor Who and the Daleks are as iconic as Sherlock Holmes and
his deerstalker hat.
But when it comes to a Doctor Who fan, there’s no guarantee
that that person will be a fan of the Daleks as well. Some may think that
they’re over used; that they’re not much of a convincing enemy; that in many
cases they’re pretty straight-forward and one-dimensional. These traits are
especially clear in rather weak stories like Victory of the Daleks or the
Chase, two of my least favourite Dalek stories in the entire series (although
the latter is still well worth watching for the wonderful final episode, and a
rather emotional goodbye).
So why do I love them, and when did I work out how much of
a fan I am of them? It was about last year, maybe even a matter of months ago,
when I worked my way through the black and white episodes. As I watched and
listened to their stories in order, I realised something: practically all my
favourite stories were also Dalek stories. I also realised why – when the
Daleks are written well, when they’re given good stories to be in, then it’s
clear exactly why they work so well as villains: they are pure evil. There’s no reasonable side to them, no real motive other
than the one established in the first episode – they hate any and all beings
that are not Dalek, and therefore, deserve to die, according to their point of
view. Nothing else is given, there’s nothing more superficial given to them,
like a love of money or a need for vengeance or anything like that. They’re
just creatures of hate, and in one way, it’s “stupid and ridiculous” to quote
companion Ian Chesterton, but in another way, it’s absolutely terrifying because it’s also completely
and utterly believable. You only need to look at some of the history of the
human race to see just how believable it really is.
But it’s not just the Daleks themselves. It’s the human
beings as well. The ones who run, the ones who stand and fight, the ones
willing to do anything to survive, to help others to survive, even the ones who
help the Daleks for their own ends – so many truly fascinating characters and
stories were written with the Daleks in the 60s, and so many I loved because of
just how strong those characters and stories were. It was enough to inspire me
to finally get the first season of audio spin-off Dalek Empire, the story of a
Dalek invasion where, as can be expected most of the time in the Doctor Who universe, the Doctor isn’t there to save the day – instead,
it’s the story of how a bunch of humans, on their own, fight back. And my word,
did that first season live up to its promise! It was exactly as brilliant a
series as such a simple concept was expected to be. I bought the remaining 3
seasons last week, hoping to start season 2 later tonight.
So, as you can see, I really do love the Daleks. And I like
to see their awesome pepperpot evilness fully justified when possible. So while
the weak voices given to them in this story isn’t enough to ruin it for me –
like I said, it’s a very good story – it does lessen the experience a little.
When the story was released on DVD last year, it came with a
rather wonderful bonus – a “special edition” version of the story, one that
overall aims to improve a few problems the original version had, like adding in
a couple of extra Daleks during the invasion at the end, or adding in a couple
of laser effects to make it more exciting. Mostly, bar one or two shots, it’s
not too drastic, it’s just showing how it might’ve looked at the time had it
had a bit more budget thrown at it and maybe if the director and technical
effects people had shown more imagination. However, I’m not one to be entirely
swayed by that sort of thing, and I was originally planning to watch the
original version in the Who watch…then I remembered that the Dalek voices in
this story had been replaced by, well, actual
Dalek voices. Believe it or not, that was enough to persuade me to just bend
the rules of the Watch a little bit and watch the special edition over the
original.
So, I’m off to sort my room out and tidy it up a bit before watching some more classic Who. Will write more afterwards to give some
thoughts.
***
Ok, finished tidying up and had some dinner (lasagne,
lovely!), now watching Day of the Daleks. Two things that the ongoing watch has
given me that watching this serial out of order, as I used to do, couldn’t
give. One: an appreciation of seeing UNIT as a proper military organisation.
Over the past couple of seasons, I’ve seen the soldiers fighting more than a
few alien invasions, but sometimes, there’s something more domestic but vitally
important going on in the background. In this episode, important delegations
are going ahead to prevent a third world war, in the Mind of Evil, UNIT were initially
busy running security on a peace conference, finding no time to help the Doctor
out with his usual alien problems (until they find out that it’s a danger to
the peace conference, of course) – it all really reinforces the idea that this is a
military organisation that has other problems to deal with on Earth, not just
the ones involving the Doctor and aliens that we see.
Two: a nice sense of continuity. There was a nice little
conversation near the start between the Doctor and Jo while he’s fixing his
TARDIS over events from last season, involving the TARDIS briefly working and visiting another planet, but
only because the Time Lords allowed it to do so for a limited period. I always love
seeing the Doctor’s constant rebellious side: it’s not enough that he got
to leave Earth for a brief period of time – it’s escaping the controlling reach
of the Time Lords he’s concerned with. “I don’t want it to work for them. I want it to work for me.” The Doctor’s relationship with his
own people is something I’ve always liked about the original series.
However, there’s another side I like to the Doctor, and it’s
specific to the Third incarnation: his love of good food and fine wine. One of
the most hysterical Third Doctor moment’s I’ve seen yet occured in this story when, while occupying a
politician’s house, he helps himself, with a big smile on his face, to a bottle of
wine and some cheese. His gentleman dandy behaviour is doubly brilliant when
combined with his extraordinarily high level of kick-arseness, a prime example
being his greeting to a huge thuggish monster – “How do you do?” – before bitch-slapping
that geezer’s arse with not just martial arts, but Venusian martial arts!
As for the story itself – considering it’s the first story
in five years to feature the Daleks, it’s certainly not a bad one. It’s great
to get a glimpse of what happens when the human race gets enslaved by creatures
as evil as the Daleks – some are so desperate they are willing to kill anyone
and anything to stop them, some only get by by selling out their own race, but
most are forced to work to the point of exhaustion, if they’re lucky.
Another point I liked is the reason the Daleks took over in
the first place – it’s because of the human race fucking up more than anything.
Overall, like many Dalek stories, it’s the strength of the human characters
that make it work. The Controller, (as rather wonderfully played by Aubrey
Woods,) either the man with the most power or the man more enslaved than
anyone, depending on your point of view, is a particularly fascinating
character. Essentially a puppet leader put in charge by the Daleks, he sees
himself as someone who is doing good by negotiating with the Daleks and trying to make things easier as much as possible for the human race. Or he tries to, at
least, and yet clearly, deep down, he’s aware of just how much he lies to himself.
One final thing I’ll say about the story and appreciating it
in context: UNIT versus the Daleks. The first time I watched it, it was only
the 2nd Third Doctor serial that I had bought on video, so with characters like
Mike Yates, Benton and of course the Brigadier, it was my first time meeting
these characters. So the Dalek attack and UNIT fighting back was cool, but not
nearly as cool as it is after I’ve gotten to know these wonderful characters
and how awesome UNIT is as a whole after more than two seasons already. It may have been more than a little helped
by the fact that the battle I watched actually looked rather impressive and a
lot closer to looking like, well, a battle on the special edition than it did
in the original version, but still, seeing UNIT fight off the Daleks was, for
this fanboy at least, a delight to see.
So overall, what did I think of it? I really enjoyed it. I
wouldn’t rate it quite as highly as my favourite Dalek stories, but it was
still a very strong story, with some nice use of time travel, questions over
what’s set in stone and what can be changed (and this was over a decade before
the Terminator did it), with a pretty decent pace and some kickarse action,
too. In short, a strong start to season 9 and a more than welcome return of the
Daleks. 8/10
So now that that story's finished, what now? I'm already tempted to watch the next story, particularly as it's the first Peladon story, the reason for which I'm eager to re-watch I'll explain in my next post. But for now, I think I'll rest my eyes a bit and listen to more Dalek Empire. And sorry, dear reader, if I've rambled on. I hope you've got some enjoyment out of reading today's post. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, the entry for the day will only be one page long. Maybe even a couple of paragraphs, as I had originally envisioned. In the light of my impressive record so far though, I will make no rash commitments.
No comments:
Post a Comment