#serial b

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

And some episodes I haven't seen since last week.

The Daleks (now in glorious Dalekolour™)

I'll warn you up front, I'm generally not a fan of colorizations/special editions/re-edits so expect a bit of a grumpy post. But I'll try to be fair, I promise.

The episode starts with some extremely dodgy animation instead of the original linking material. It also starts with the intro in color, switches to black and white (apart from the credits which are in color) and then fades in the color and... why? An unnecessary and distracting flourish. The Wizard of Oz did this better nearly 90 years ago.

The colorization itself is quite good, I assume they were working off production documents (the Daleks are in their original colors, of course) but regardless the whole palette is a good match for SciFi film and TV of the era, as opposed to something more muted, moody, or modern. Compare and contrast with Forbidden Planet (1956), Queen of Outer Space (1958), or Star Trek (1966). The upconversion to HD video (and 50FPS?) went as well as it could, some parts of the episode are soft focus with lots of film grain but so was the original.

The music and sound design however is terribly distracting. Not an improvement on the original in any way, it's wildly out of place both stylistically and technically, at points directly in competition with the dialogue. Also, the Daleks received extensive re-writes and in some cases were re-voiced by Nick Briggs which is.. odd. I do have to admit enjoying the inclusion of the cloister bell in the initial fluid link sabotage scene, however, even if was a retcon.

Some of the re-editing was ok, some was intrusive. Constant cutaways to b-roll as if you were likely to forget something that happened 5 to 10 minutes earlier (or just might get bored watching a take longer than a minute) were a major distraction. Some of the digital additions, for instance adding footage to the Daleks' screens, worked well. Others, like William Hartnell "dodging" a Dalek beam that hadn't been there 60 years ago were forced. The digitally animated TARDIS dematerialization is actually worse than the original analog video mix effect. The pace is extremely quick now, much of the tension and suspense of the original story is lost along with the "Dals" origin of the Daleks, for better or for worse. But all in all, it's all right I suppose. I wonder if I would have been easier on it if I hadn't just watched the original.

The "And then the story continues.. for 60 years" teaser was nicely done. A great mix of moments from the First Doctor's stories including some tidbits from missing or rarely seen stories. Hat's off to whoever got the clip of the Beatles from The Chase in there.

Next up: The Sensorites, for real this time.

[davros42]

Rewatching Classic Doctor Who, some episodes I haven't seen in years, some of the animated reconstructions I haven't seen at all.

The Daleks AKA The Mutants AKA The Survivors AKA Beyond the Sun AKA The Dead Planet AKA Serial B

Now we're cooking. Famously produced against Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson's mandate against "bug-eyed monsters", the show really hits it's stride here. A classic sci-fi plot, a deserted planet, two warring 'races' - one heroic, generically attractive, vaguely pacifistic, and (outwardly) human, the other evil, deformed, mutant mecha pilots - and the main cast, interloping as will become the standard.

(Yes, the Daleks are mecha, you heard me)

The First Doctor (in prime spoiled brat teenager mode) sabotages the TARDIS to have an excuse to explore a mysterious city, finds the Daleks, escapes from the Daleks, helps convince pacifists to start a war to get the missing TARDIS part back, and genocides the Daleks for the first time (but never the last time). He says that maybe he'll return to Skaro at some point to see the descendants of the Thals, not knowing that he absolutely will keep returning to Skaro forever and ever and ever because the fans (and the Terry Nation Estate) demand it.

The Daleks are really good here, in their first appearance, not yet flattened out to caricatures of themselves. They plot and plan - prisoners of their own city, they get high on anti-radiation drugs and freak out, they talk about extermination but rarely do it. Their famous battle cry is still a few serials away, after all. Their openly xenophobic nature is alluded to, but not their dominating feature yet. Given later depictions of the Daleks, it is quite humorous to see folks engaging them in melee, wrestling them to the ground, blinding them with mud. You won't see a Dalek battle this good until Ace and her baseball bat.

Visually, the Daleks make a striking first impression, not appearing fully until the second episode. Coming seven years after Robby the Robot and two years before the Robot from Lost in Space, the Daleks are state of the art in prop/costuming design and it is easy to see why they became immediately iconic.... even if half the Dalek population are cardboard stand ups. The entire serial is pretty strong on the design/costuming/special effects front. Even if we get treated to the "run in place while we move the background behind you" trick again, the Dalek beam melting and blistering a wall panel, the whirlpool, and TARDIS dematerializing make up for it. They don't look like much by modern standards, but state of the art for the time (and the budget!).

Next stop, the edge. One I remember fondly, let's see how it holds up.