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Remembrance of the Daleks (Classic era serials)

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  • Remembrance of the Daleks (Classic era serials)

    I love this one. The first serial of the 25th anniversary season.

    The seventh Doctor and new companion Ace heads back to 1963. Thought they did an interesting exploration/fleshing out of why the first Doctor and Susan had come to Earth in the first place. Nice little touch like Ace finding the same book (well, it looks differently), at the school, that Susan read in "An Unearthly Child". Should probably rewatch the first part of "An Unearthly Child", with what is established in this episode, in the back of my mind. When the Doctor first appears, he might've just been to that funeral home.

    Fun seeing Ace beating up a Dalek with a baseball bat. Speaking of Daleks, this serial marked the first time that we got to see a Dalek fly. Making the serial not just a great one, but a significant moment for the Doctor's longest serving villains. Thought that the Dalek shuttle was impressive, from a production standpoint. At this time, the show wasn't made for a lot of money (think Colin Baker once summed it up as "basically tea money"), but they constructed this full-size prop (rather than a miniature, that is inserted into the shot of the school) and got a crane to lower it down for the landing.

    Professor Jensen and Allison mentions "Bernard" from the "British Rocket Group". This refers to Bernard Quatermass from The Quatermass Experiment. Guess that Bernard exists in this universe.

    The serial have got two groups of Daleks, that hate each other, due to racism. A subject that is also present among the human characters. We get to see an exploration of racism in the United Kingdom, which I liked to see explored. Ace stays at a boarding house, where she's horrified and disgusted at finding a sign declaring that people of color aren't welcome. I like that subtleness of that scene. Sophie Aldred doesn't say much. Her facial expression says it all. Trying to imagine what that scene would've been like today. Have a feeling that some modern writers would've handled the scene poorly. Probably have Ace give Mrs. Smith a stern lecture, through a preachy speech. Halting the plot, to engage in a pointless endevour (if someone is a racist, you yelling at them for 1-2 minutes ain't going to suddenly make them realize the errors of their ways and change). There is a great quote from the guy who Wrote Philadelphia (1993), about how they felt that they would fail if the film only played to people who already think that it's wrong to discriminate against homosexuals or people with AIDS (i.e. had the same opinions as the filmmakers). For the filmmakers to have done something significant, they had to reach the ones who thought differently. Preachy speeches isn't the way to do so.

    There is Mr. Ratcliffe, an old Englishman... who is a Nazi. He is not German, but English. Making one curious about how many Brits might've held Nazi opinions, back in the day.* I remember a documentary, from back in the day, where they interviewed Swedes... who had served in the German military during WWII (one of whom had been a guard at a concentration camp, if I remember correctly). You know, these are things that are just never talked about in films and television. As a result, they get forgotten.

    * Rather than giving preachy speeches and/or lectures. The writer has presented the viewer with a character, that invites thought. I'm not told what to think, but encouraged to think for myself. Resulting in me going down the line of wondering how many Brits might've held those types of views, before, and maybe during, the war. Were there Brits who joined and served in the German military? Were there Brits who acted as sabotours in Great Britain, in service of the Nazis? I'm tempted to look into it. Simply because a TV show showed me an English Nazi, who had been around during WWII.

    Then there is Joseph Marcell (later of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame) in an interesting little conversation scene with the Doctor, which I quite liked.

    Dursley McLinden plays Sgt. Mike Smith. Sadly, McLinden passed away from AIDS in 1995. There is a tribute to him, in Russell T. Davis' miniseries It's a Sin.

    The girl, that the Daleks use is restored. Sadly, an early 90s short story, in the Doctor Who Magazine, establishes that this character (whom the story gives the name "Judith Winters") as having ended up in a mental institution because of this experience (that is just too tragic). Though, how canon are those things? Lots of tie-in media gets ignored by franchises all the time.

    During filming the battle scene, between the two Dalek factions, they set off explosives, that terrified the area (this happened to have been the 60th anniversary of the birth of the IRA, and people feared attacks) and released a lot of smoke. The locals (thinking it was an IRA attack) called the Fire Brigade. When the Fire Brigade showed up, they saw a lot of smoke... and out of the smoke came three Daleks. I wish that I could've seen that. Not the terrified locals. The image of the Fire Brigade arriving at a location, vision obstructed by smoke. Then seeing Daleks emerging from the smoke. Surprised that no one in the revived series have ever attempted to create a Dalek scene, based on that story.
    Last edited by jon-el87; 12-25-2021, 02:11 PM.
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