The Dalek Invasion of Earth Part 2: The Daleks (click here for Part 1)
That dastardly dalek comes ashore and lambastes the helmet-zombies for allowing humans to come so close. The Doctor confronts the dalek. The dalek claims that “resistence is useless”, since they have already conquered the earth. The dalek says that “we are the masters of earth. We are the masters of earth”. The Doctor and Ian are taken into custody by the helmet-zombies.
The survivors and Barbara and Susan are listening to all this on a radio at their hideout. Susan’s leg is still hurt from falling from the tree. A bossy blonde woman wants Barbara and Susan to get to work. Tyler and the wheelchair guy are looking at a new bomb the wheelchair guy has made. He claims it will destroy the daleks. He says that Tyler has been down here so long he’s “beginning to think like worms”.
A whole bunch of daleks are gathered outside a ship. Some key KEY bit of dialogue now, uber-Who fans take note:
Ian: But Doctor, I don’t understand what we are seeing; we saw the daleks destroyed on Skaro.
Doctor: My dear boy, the events we saw on Skaro took place millions of years in the future. What we are seeing now is about in the middle of their hisoty.
Ian: I see, they certainly look different don’t they.
So that should clear up at least some time-line confusions. This is obviously BEFORE that.
A key change to the daleks here: they have little discs on their backs. They have increased mobility, and are no longer bound to bumber-car-like reliance on static electricity. The Doctor notes that “this is an invasion force and they have to adapt to a different planet”.
It is all perfectly consistent.
One of the beggarly types who got captured with Ian and the Doctor tries to make a run for it. That was a silly move, as Ian notes. “Kill. Him!” shouts one of the daleks. We get the negative-film effect as seen in the video for Bowie’s Ashes for Ashes here. And the man is killed. “Any. Fur-ther. Resistance. Will. Be. Dealt with. In the same way.” These daleks aren’t messing about.
Time for another leaden scene with Susan and Barbara and the survivors. They have one of the helmets. As I predicted in the last episode, the daleks can use them to control human thoughts and actions for a limited period of time, after which they go insane and die. They smash themselves into walls or throw themselves into the river. The helmet-zombies are known as Robo-men. Close up of Susan looking concerned here.
The Doctor and Ian are being escorted inside the dalek ship into a prison cell. The Doctor is walking in a rather aloof and imperial manner. The daleks have cottoned on that The Doctor is not human and that his intelligence is far above normal human intelligence.
They have a companion here “Jack Quaddock”. The Doctor reprimands him for being pessimistic. Ian asks him about how the invasion happened. “Meterites came first”. Cosmic storms. The daleks then dropped germ bombs and wiped out whole continents. Ian wants to know why the doctors and scientists didn’t respond sooner. “It was too late”.
Very cheesy cut to Susan asking similar questions in surivivor hideout now. The plague divided and conquered communities. Cities were razed to the ground. Daleks destroyed any who resisted. Some were captured and turned into Robo-men. A lot of BASIL EXPOSITIION here.
“WHY!” pesters Ian. “WHY! What do the doctors want on earth?!” He’s like Pinnochio bugging Gepeto. “Why? Why?” They seem to want something under the ground. They want to mine for something.
The daleks issue a statement over the wireless now. They threaten to flaten London to the ground if they don’t comply with their latest directives. They want all survivors to come out of hiding.
The wheelchair chap claims his new bomb gives them superior fire power. They need to get to a helipad to launch it. Barbera comes up with a plan to disguise themselves as Robo-men to get to the pad undetected. Sly.
Ian and the Doctor stumble on this set of test tubes encased in glass. They are trying to work out what it is. The Doctor think it’s some sort of key for daleks in case they got locked in.
He comes up with a plan to smash it on a particular refractory angle: 80 degrees. There is a joke about Boyle’s law punning on “boil”.
The Doctor is extremely pleased with himself. They manage to get some metal bars from this crystal thing.
Jack Quaddock: Ere, how do you know so much about them? The Daleks I mean.
Ian: Oh, we met them once before.
Doctor: Yes, and we happened to outwit them too … please go away will you.
I love his diffidence on occassions like this. Lots of stuff about magnetic force and static electricity now with a door and these bars. And hey presto they open the door.
They are immediately accosted by robo-men and daleks. Ian and Jack are locked back in the cell and The Doctor is taken on his own.
They take his coat off. They want to make him into a robo man! As this is going on the survivors are about to launch their sneak attack. They do so using the new bombs.
Confusing battle here, not sure what’s going on.
The Doctor seems to be out cold and laid on a table. NEXT EPISODE: Day of Reckoning.
