6 episodes
Aired between 21st November 1964 and 26th December 1964
Written by Terry Nation
Produced by Verity Lambert
Directed by Richard Martin
Synopsis
On a derelict patch of ground under a bridge, a man with a steel contraption on his head goes crazy and walks into a nearby river, drowning himself.
In the TARDIS, The Doctor complains that he still can't see out of the scanner, but he's certain that wherever it is, the air is breathable. The group emerge to the sight of the derelict waste ground under the bridge, and quickly determine that they've landed in London.
Despite the fact that Ian and Barbara are overjoyed to be back home, all of the group remark how odd the place "feels", given that the nearby Thames is deserted and there are no sounds of traffic or birds anywhere. The Doctor remarks with some worry that this might not be the 1960's at all.
Susan tries to look over a nearby wall, but falls, twisting her ankle and bringing loose girders and rubble crashing down over the entrance to the TARDIS. The Doctor is angry threatening to give Susan a "jolly good smacked bottom", but soon calms down as Ian suggests that he and the Doctor take a look in a nearby warehouse for a cutting torch or something else useful.
As they explore the warehouse, Ian and the Doctor fail to notice that they are being watched. Ian does however spot Battersea Power Station with two smashed chimneys and a strange ball like structure by its side, and the Doctor finds a desk diary with the date placed as 2164.
Barbara goes to the Thames to wet her handkerchief to bathe Susan's leg, and sees the drowned man floating in the river. She returns to the TARDIS shocked, and is confronted by a grubby looking man who tells her that his friends have taken Susan and she should follow him if she want's to survive. At that very same time, automatic gunfire is heard from somewhere across the river. Barbara reluctantly agrees to follow the man.
Ian and the Doctor continue to explore the warehouse, finding another corpse with strange headgear that the Doctor determines is a third ear for receiving high frequency messages. The corpse was holding a whip and sporting a very sharp knife in his back. As they examine the body, a giant flying saucer passes overhead.
Meanwhile, Barbara follows the man through decimated buildings until she is led down into a disused underground station. There she is reunited with Susan and meets other men, hiding in a secret compound. They are led by a man in a wheelchair known as Dortmun, who is informed that the saucer landed near the heliport. He confidently says that this time, they will be ready for them.
Susan urges the men to go and find her Grandfather and Ian, and a guy called David agrees.
The Doctor and Ian arrive back at the TARDIS and find that Barbara and Susan have wandered off again. Their concern grows as they find a large poster that reads "It is forbidden to dump bodies in the river". Ian speculates that a great plague could be the reason why there's no one around.
David spots the Doctor and Ian from a window, but see's that a bunch of these electronically controlled men (curiously enough known as Robomen) are converging on their location.
The Doctor and Ian realise too late, and try to talk their way out of the situation. The Robomen are more like zombies and it is clear that they will attack the Doctor and Ian if they don't surrender.
Surrounded and with their backs to the Thames, Ian suggests to the Doctor that they dive into the river, only to discover that they are cover from that angle too as a Dalek menacingly emerges from the depths of the river!
The Doctor and Ian are forced to surrender, but at least it allows the Doctor to turn on his charm and personality, calling the Dalek a "poor pathetic creature" and lording over it like it was stupid for threatening to destroy everyone on Earth. Despite this, they do learn that the Daleks have already taken over the Earth and could if they wanted, kill the humans.
Back at resistance HQ, Susan gets her twisted ankle tended to by a bossy woman called Jenny, whilst everyone listens to Dalek propaganda broadcasts calling for humans to surrender. In the back room, Dortmun talks with the man who helped the ladies to shelter. His name is Tyler.
Dortmun is all for attacking the Dalek saucer whilst it's landed, but Tyler says it's sheer suicide. But now that Dortmun has perfected a new bomb, he is confident that they can crack the Dalek casings open and defeat them.
In the midst of the conversation, David returns and explains that the Doctor and Ian were captured and taken to the Dalek Saucer on Chelsea heliport.
At the heliport, Ian and the Doctor discuss why the Daleks are here when they defeated them on Skaro. The Doctor explains that they went to Skaro millions of years from now, and that this invasion has come at the height of the Dalek civilisation.
As they wait to board, another pair of prisoners are brought to the heliport. One of them panics and is killed by the Daleks. The rest are ushered aboard the ship and placed in a small prison really close to the main control room (good planning that). They are shut in with the other prisoner, Brian Craddock.
At the lab, David and Jenny explain that the Robomen are normal humans but implanted with cybernetics and adapted to obey Dalek commands. They only last so long before the conditioning wears off, which then drives the Robomen insane. Most of them resort to suicide. David cheerfully mentions that the Robomen control is inside the Dalek ship, and that no one who has entered it, has ever returned.
In their cell, Craddock explains to Ian and the Doctor that the Daleks didn't invade straight away. They sent metorites contaminated with a plague to wipe out most of the humans, and then came to mop up afterwards. Now the (local) humans that are caught are either turned into Robomen or sent to slave labour mining camps out in Bedfordshire. He doesn't know why the mines are there or what the Daleks overall plan is.
As they talk, the Daleks discuss the potential to use the Doctor, and set up an intelligence test.
The resistance meanwhile, spurred on by Dortmun make plans to attack the Dalek saucer and rescue the human prisoners there. Barbara comes up with the good idea of using captured robo-helmets as a disguise to lead a group of "prisoners" on board.
The undercover group make their way to the saucer and try to bluff their way inside. The Dalek patrol outside the saucer are suspicious of the Robomen, but are distracted by an attack that Susan and David launch. The Daleks forget about their concerns and order the Robomen to take their detachment of prisoners inside and secure them. The plan worked.
Meanwhile, Ian, and the Doctor find a way to use electromagnets to open their cell door, whilst Craddock looks on and offers pessimistic advice. Once the door is open however, Craddock is only too willing to escape with them. They congratulate each other so much that they are dumbfounded when they are set upon by Daleks and Robomen waiting just outside the cell!
The Daleks throw Ian and Craddock back into the cell and take the Doctor to the Robotising machine.
Thankfully, as the chaos ensues, the rebels manage to get into the control centre with their roboman disguises and rescue the Doctor, along with the other prisoners on the ship. They all try to leg it, but run into difficulty as Dortmun's bombs don't seem to be having any effect. The Daleks begin to fight back and in the confusion, the TARDIS crew get split up, forcing Ian to hide on the ship.
The rebels retreat, with only a handful making it back to the hideout. Barbara is the only TARDIS crew member there. Tyler has had enough and says he's going out to find what survivors he can and make his way north. Dortmun is distraught and puzzled at why his bombs didn't work. He says that he wants to go to the Civic Transport Museum (another rebel base) where he can get more supplies and perfect his bombs. Barbara and Jenny agree to go with him.
On the Dalek saucer, Ian overhears the aliens receiving orders to firebomb London and go to the mines in bedfordshire. The Daleks make their preparations and the saucer lifts off. He decides to leave his hiding place and snoop around, but comes face to face with a freshly robotised Craddock, taking one of the rebels to the robotising machine. Ian fights with Craddock and wins. With little chance of escape apparent, Ian and the freshly rescued rebel (Larry) go back into hiding after throwing Craddocks body out of a disposal chute.
Back in London, Susan and David are on the run from Daleks. They hide and she whines about wanting to get back to the TARDIS and leave, inviting David along with her. David tells her that this is his home and he can't just leave because running away doesn't solve any problems. This makes Susan begin to think about how she's never really had a place to call home. They are suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a rebel known as Baker, who has successfully rescued the Doctor. He delivers the old man back to Susan and leaves the group, intending to get to the Cornish Coast, In reality, he only gets as far as the end of the street before he's exterminated.
Jenny, Barbara and Dortmun make a dash across London. Jenny has made a special effort by wearing a giant black Cond...erm, i mean Balaclava on her head (as if it renders her invisible).
They skillfully dodge goose stepping Daleks hanging around famous London monuments until they reach the Transport Museum.
Once there, Dortmun refines his formula and asks Barbara to take it to the Doctor, wishing for his scientific appraisal. Barbara says that he can give it to the Doctor himself. Dortmun agrees, but as her back is turned, he puts the formula on the table and goes on a suicide mission to take out Daleks with his remaining bombs. Needless to say, the silly man is exterminated.
Ian and Larry arrive at the mines and escape the saucer through the disposal chute. Larry explains to Ian that he's come to find his brother, and that he had a crazy theory that the Daleks were trying to extract the magnetic core of the Earth.
The Doctor begins to recover, and decides that he and Susan should make for the TARDIS, but Susan disagrees, saying that David thinks they should head for the Dalek mines in Bedfordshire. The Doctor gets testy, accusing Susan of putting more trust in David than him, but in the next breath, as David is submissive to the Doctor's authority, he changes his plans to go to the mines in Bedfordshire. The group get ready to set off, but are interrupted by Robomen planting firebombs in the area.
The Doctor stands up, trying to spring into action, but suddenly falls unconscious with a loud groan. The firebomb ticks away on its own, leaving David to disarm it by means of pouring acid on it and smacking it with an iron bar. With the Doctor unconscious, David suggests leaving him concealed in some bushes whilst he and Susan go through the sewers to identify a way out of the city. Susan isn't happy about that one bit, but reluctantly agrees when David assures her that he is safe and that they will come back for him.
Barbara and Jenny (little miss pessimistic) patch up one of the old trucks in the museum and begin to drive their way through the city to Bedfordshire.
In the said region, Ian and Larry are skulking about the mines, commenting on how the Daleks have decimated the landscape and enslaved the local population. They come upon a man called Wells who thinks they are escaped mine workers. He tries to cover for them when a nearby Roboman starts asking questions, and gets a smack across the head with a baseball bat for his troubles. The Roboman demands Ian and Larry be lead to their work sectors as he has orders. Ian all but sticks two fingers up and tells the Roboman to get new orders. This surprisingly works as the Roboman does as he says, silently transmitting his request via his odd helmet.
Ian, Larry and Wells go into a cabin, but the Roboman follows with his new orders to teach the humans a lesson. Ian dispatches him quickly enough though. Wells explains that he was hanging around the cabin as it was the defined meeting place for a black marketeer called Ashton. Ian asks to meet Ashton as he wants him to find a way to take Ian back to London, but Wells informs him that London has just been fire bombed.
On the truck, all is going well for Barbara and Jenny, who are having lots of fun smashing through Dalek roadblocks. Their fun ends however when their position is transmitted to a nearby Dalek saucer which turns up and destroys the truck with its head ray.
Luckily, Barbara and Jenny got out of it beforehand.
In the sewers, David and Susan find a bullet casing, informing them that humans are nearby. Sure enough they are met by Tyler who explains that the place is crawling with Alligators that escaped from the zoo's when the plague was about. Tyler agrees to help find a way through the sewers, but David and Susan soon loose him as he moves ahead. Whilst he is gone David encourages Susan with the fact that one day this will all be over, and that Susan could help with the rebuilding. Susan curiously enough seems to like that idea. The pair move on, and whilst looking for Tyler, Susan nearly falls into the sewer water, and ends up hanging from a broken ladder whilst alligators swim around her feet.
Luckily, Tlyer returns and shoots the reptiles. David rescues Susan and they are both told that Tyler has found a way out and gone back and brought the Doctor.
That night, as Ian and Larry are moving back to the cabin to look for Ashton, they see a hideous mutated creature known as the Slyther (a pet guard dog used by the Black Dalek overseer) hanging around the place.
They slip into the cabin and are threatened by a man at gunpoint to leave again. Ian refuses and confirms that the man is Ashton. He asks him to take them back to London, but Ashton refuses unless he's paid in gold and jewels. Wells turns up and gives him both, Ashton agrees and settles down with them to eat something before they set off. As they are having a good time listening to the black marketeer berate them for how stupid they are, the Slyther turns up and murders him!
Ian, Larry and Wells leg it, but soon run up a track to a steep drop in the quarry. They turn to go back and are confronted by the Slyther once again. In desperation, the pair jump into a mining bucket positioned over an open mine shaft. The Slyther jumps after them but Ian beats it with a rock until it falls to its death. As they are hiding in the bucket, it begins to move down the shaft.
In the sewers, Tyler and David fight off the Robomen that have pursued the Doctor and mange to disable them. The group leave them on the insistence of the Doctor, that they may find salvation (that is if the Alligators don't find them first).
Under the cover of darkness, Barbara and Jenny reach a house near the woods in Bedfordshire just as a terrible storm begins. They seek shelter from the storm, asking two strange women in the house to help them. Jenny is suspicious of the women, who say that the Daleks have left them alone because they make meals and clothes for the slaves in the mines. She is even more suspicious when the younger woman goes to deliver a parcel of clothes in the middle of a thunderstorm. Jenny was right to be suspicious because the woman returns a little later with a Dalek and some tins of food. Barbara and Jenny are taken prisoner and led to the mines.
Once the bucket stops, Ian jumps down the rest of the way to the mine floor. When Larry tries it, he injures his knee. Once in there, Ian is curious of the fact that there is no ore processing equipment, only things to move rocks. The pair hear a patrol of slaves coming along and decide to try and blend in with them. They are soon stopped by a Roboman who happens to be none other than Larry's brother: Phil! Larry tries to talk to Phil, to reason with him, but the Roboman is having none of it. He says he's going to punish Larry, but then shoots him with a machine gun. With his last breath, Larry strangles Phil to death and allows Ian to escape.
The Doctor, Tyler, Susan and David have finally made it to the countryside. As Tyler and the Doctor hunt around, David has a playful fight with Susan, ending with them unexpectedly kissing.
They are interrupted by the other two's return and begin to piece together a plan of action to stop the Daleks delving into the Earth and releasing its molten core.
Back in the mine, Ian spots Barbara and Jenny working as slaves. Before he can make contact with her, Barbara comes up with a plan to explain to the Daleks that she knows of an immanent rebel attack. She convinces the Daleks to take her and Jenny to the Dalek Supreme (black Dalek).
Ian continues to search for a place to hide, ducking into a silver piece of machinery and narrowly avoiding detection by the Daleks moving around the mining area. He overhears the Dalek Supreme revealing their ultimate plan to detonate a bomb near the crust of the Earth, and remove its molten contents. Once this is done, the Daleks intend to replace it with a huge machine which will enable them to steer the Earth like a spaceship!
Before he can do anything about it, Ian realise's that he's chosen the bomb as a hiding place. The casing is slid shut by the Daleks who intend to drop it down the mine and detonate it.
Thinking on his feet, Ian begins pulling wires from the bomb, alerting the Daleks to his presence. They open a trapdoor in the bomb to get rid of him (don't even ask why it's there), but he uses it merely to escape on a rope. The Daleks shoot the rope and send him falling down the shaft, where he gets knocked unconscious as he hits the bottom (it wasn't a very deep shaft after all).
Barbara and Jenny are taken to the Dalek Supreme who demands to know the details of the intended attack. Barbara spews out a load of old codswallop to buy Jenny enough time to mess the control panels up. Their plan fails and they are captured.
But, instead of killing them, the Dalek Supreme has a pure moment of Bond Villain-ness and decides to imprison them instead, leaving them to die in the coming explosion.
The Doctor and Tyler go into the mine to see what they can do, whilst they send Susan and David off to melt an aerial that sends power to the Daleks. They use the last of Dortmun's bombs to do it.
By now, the Daleks have retrieved the bomb and repaired it. They prepare to drop the bomb down the shaft again and successfully release it, but not before Ian has regained consciousness and managed to block the path of the bomb with some nearby pit props. Unaware of Ian's cunning plan, the Daleks beat a hasty exit from the mine to get a safe distance away before the molten core swims to the surface.
Once the Daleks have gone, the Doctor and Tyler make their way into the control room, freeing Jenny and Barbara. Susan and David's mission is a success, and the Daleks begin to feel their power draining. They begin to rush back to the control room to find out what's happened, but are rendered completely powerless as they approach the Doctor.
Whilst the aliens from Skaro are sitting ducks, Barbara and the Doctor use the command console to order the Robomen to attack the Daleks. All over the world, Robomen begin to rise up against their masters, and the slaves are finally free to revolt.
All that's left now is to deal with the bomb.
Wait...Ian turns up and tells them of his success in diverting it away from the Earth's crust. It will however still explode and take the mine with it. The group hurry to the high ground, and the bomb detonates causing a volcanic eruption in England that takes the Dalek saucer with it.
The group return to London, and with help of the rebels, manage to free the TARDIS from the rubble as Big Ben signals the end of the invasion. Susan seems sad to leave David, and the Doctor see's this, inferring that she needs someone to take her in hand. He skulks off to the TARDIS along with Barbara and an oblivious Ian, leaving Susan alone with David.
David pleas with Susan to stay, saying that he loves her and wants to marry her, and that this could be a place she calls home. Susan admits that she loves him too, but she can't stay because her Grandfather needs her. As she goes to enter the TARDIS, the doors close and the Doctor's voice is heard outside. Through the scanner, the Doctor explains to Susan that she will always be his Granddaughter, but he wants her to have a home.
He promises to return, and then dematerialises the TARDIS, leaving Susan alone in a destroyed London, with only one shoe and a useless TARDIS key.
David consoles her by saying that the Doctor knew she would never let him go, so he made the decision for her.
Susan embraces David and they walk somberly into the distance, leaving only the discarded TARDIS key behind.
Trivia
- There's so many iconic trappings of typical Doctor Who stories that begin here. For example, the Daleks begin to regularly use the phrase EXTERMINATE; this is the first of many, many stories to have filming in a quarry; the first companion change is at the end of this; and the Daleks are of course seen on Earth for the first time here, but they still brought their cardboard cutouts.
- William Hartnell injured himself when they filmed the escape down the ramp of the Dalek saucer. He was allowed to rest up for a bit afterwards (episode 4) and could carry on with the filming.
- Almost every fan will know the, story about the Daleks in Trafalgar Square, but I'll tell you anyway. The production crew didn't have any kind of permission to film in the city centre, so they turned up very, very early and shot the scenes as fast as they could before any "bobby's" turned up!
- The Dalek operators inside the props also found that by standing over a grate, they could conveniently go to the toilet without having to go through the pain of leaving the contraption!
What worked
- Watching this on DVD, we know that Daleks are in it, it says so in the title, but for kids in 1964, it seems that they had no idea that the Daleks were returning, so it could have been an amazing surprise to see them back on the screen, and an even more chilling one to see them running around London exterminating people. Having said that, there's a good chance that the adverts for the story made a big show about the return of the Doctor's arch enemy.
- The first episode does well to build up the mystery of just where the hell the TARDIS has landed them. The sight of the saucer, and the shot of Battersea are spectacular if you watch them with the CGI added. They are less so when seen as originally intended for obvious reasons
- It's nice to see that the Doctor is actually happy for Ian and Barbara getting home safely, and it makes it all the more poignant when Susan is left behind, because London is exactly the place where Ian and Barbara want to go, but they can't get to.
- It's also kind of cool to see Dortmun as a leader. His disability was a very interesting character trait that went some way to showing that you don't need to be the biggest and strongest to prove your worth
- The scene's with the Robomen are hilarious to watch if you pretend that they are sarcastically imitating their masters voices!
- The fact that Jenny didn't join the TADIS crew after all. In the original script, she was intended to stow away on board the ship, but after watching her and Barbara argue for four or five episodes, I'm glad she didn't, even Susan's hysterics weren't as annoying
- Despite the fact that the method used to get rid of Susan was clumsy, the ending does turn out to be quite poignant and sad, especially when you think that William Hartnell really couldn't understand Carol Ann Ford's reason for leaving and was very sad about it. Having watched the episodes in sequence now, I did feel a sense of loss, like an old friend moving away. But hey ho, there must be no tears, or anxieties...
- Those robomen helmets
- The Dalek voices aren't as menacing this time around
- The music on this story is all over the place and often missing from key dramatic moments.
- The sound of the Dalek guns is pathetic!
- The Slyther has become something of a cult hero, but the fact remains that it just doesn't fit in anywhere. It's a totally random piece of the story that blips in and blips out. No wonder they cut it out of the movie.
- All the lift shaft antics with Ian are farcical.
- Last but not least, just... what there is in the way of a plot. I mean...what? just, what?
Overall Feelings
So the Daleks are back and the fact that the nation is now firmly gripped by Dalekmania made this inevitable. What works well is that Nation (Terry) had the forethought to use something that works very well in science fiction - he took the ordinary and paired it with something very extraordinary. So, Daleks evil space aliens turn up in England and wreak havoc.
Another good thing about the script is that it gives the common man a place to shine. There's no lords of Whitehall organising the resistance. It's down to the thinking men like Dortmun and the common man like Craddock to put up the resistance. And that's where this story becomes stark raving obvious that it's a parody of the Blitz that hit London in the 1940's. If this isn't enough for you, watch the Daleks do German salute's as they march through London; and listen to them use phrases like "exterminate" and "the final solution".
On the face of it, there's tons to like about this story, for all the reasons mentioned above, and the fact that it instigates so many things that we now know and love about Doctor Who. Some of the most iconic imagery and memorable dialogues belong to this story too. But it's all just window dressing.
To liken it to modern day is to say it's like a blockbuster film sold solely on the merit of its special effects. The Dalek Invasion of Earth knows what its audience wants and it damn well gives it to them. The problem is, like films based on effects, nobody cares about the plot, and this plot is so unbelievable that...well, it beggars belief!
Rating
6 out of 10
The plot is beyond belief, and the execution of certain dramatic scenes (mainly prisoners of the Daleks) are shockingly bad. The music doesn't amaze, but hey...Daleks in London goosestepping along goes a long way to making it better.
Rewatchability Factor
8 out of 10
The episodes do go on a bit long, but there's a lot of now iconic scenes and quotes in it, so it makes the story enjoyable to watch and pretend you're hearing them for the first time.
Watch this if you liked...
- Doomsday (Doctor Who Series 2)
- Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (The Who family are back on the big screen, with another identical plot and this time they've brought Bernard Cribbins)
- Turn Left (Doctor Who Series 4)
Were you sad to see Susan leave? Do you think it was the right time for her character to go? If so, why?
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