I've never seen this story before 2008. No, really. I hadn't. I'd seen the movie starring Peter Cushing that was based on the story, and devoured the novelisation as a child so that I think I knew bits off by heart. I'm amazed at how different it is. I can't imagine what it would be like to see it for the first time without knowing what the Daleks are, and will be, yet I felt the creeping menace as Barbara explores the strange city on her own (on her own! Gosh, they have a lot to learn.) Then the first reveal, actually with the Doctor, Ian and Susan. Clever, and to show their ruthlessness from the get-go.
I love the way Ian and Barbara talk about how they should deal with adventuring, and the contrast with the Doctor's incessant desire to explore and how he therefore drags the others into his adventures. He's like a small child in how he manipulates the others... mercury. None in the TARDIS. Oh, yeah, right. I can see why kids fell in love with him back then. But dang that fluid link with Ian losing it. Susan and the Doctor's relationship is just wonderful when they're alone together, working out how to disable the Dalek city. And then at the end she starts to call Barbara by her first name... just when Barbara is snogging one of those Thals
Susan is fascinating, too. She's retained her otherworldliness but is still a dreadfully misunderstood and fragile teenager. Barbara's chat with her in the first episode is lovely, as is her having to confront her fears about the jungle and storm and getting the drugs back to her grandfather and friends. Her strange explosions of giggles are, well, strange.
The TARDIS scenes are wonderful, but the food machine is caught in the late 1950s and early 1960s notion of 'the future'. Part of the delight of food is the actual texture, not just the flavours and nutrition. The science is also of that era like the neutron bomb and recognisable geiger counters. However, the human story is good. The radiation sickness - particularly brave given the Cold War of the time. Then there's the gloriously innocent stuff about the surveillance. Another time, wasn't it? But what the hell was that about mutations coming full circle?
The pace is so leisurely - some would say slow - which is just the different era of story-telling on the small screen. It does rely so much on the spoken word, less on showing the action, it reminds me of radio plays. The sets are so obviously styrofoam rocks and painted backdrops or recycled bits of same corridors, but while the style of acting is theatrical rather than natural they somehow distract away from the relatively weak settings. I am talking from 2008 here; again with the radio script style, which pretty much allows the audience's imagination to fill in the gaps and smooth over the rough edges.
The Thals are hilarious. Love the way they have groovy uniforms, plus the dolly birds who - for the sixties - do seem to have brains and aren't afraid to speak their minds. Actually, when you compare Doctor Who to Star Wars over a decade later, the fact that both these stories so far had fairly good speaking roles for women beyond the main cast means the BBC was way ahead of Hollywood. And there's sex! Well, pretty blunt innuendo. I have just been struck how similar the Thals and Daleks are with the Sevateem and Tesh in Face of Evil. But there are fascinating explanations for why the Daleks want to wipe out the Thals - it's a by-product of their actions for their own survival. So, is it bad we hate them just because they look different to us and need different atmospherics to survive? Well, they do want to exterminate all other life so and the Thals were wistful about some other way.
Those continuity sticklers among fans should hate Doctor Who from this start: Susan's gabbling to Ian about the key (21 holes for the key, if Ian gets one of the 20 wrong ones the lock will melt... oh yeah?); nothing about Kaleds, but plenty about Daleks. The Dals?
I wonder how much Nation was inspired by WW2 and National Service. The Nazi racial purity stuff is obvious, but there are other indications, particularly with some of Ian's talk and action. I wonder if Ian was in the army before becoming a teacher, or had done National Service. He ought to have done the latter at least, which would explain quite a bit.
All in all, I can see why people stuck it out from the start. It is a fairly ho-hum adventure, but it has it all in there. The characters are interesting, and you want to get to know them. The situations they get themselves into. Well, of course you'd want to keep on tuning in.
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