Doctor Who: The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Aug. 17th, 2012 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morwenMe and my new housemate have been watching Doctor Who from The Start, from 1963. Got up to "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", watching episodes and recons (full recons, apart from "Marco Polo", which we watched the condensed DVD version of).
It is amazing how much more watchable the era is when in order, compared to my previous attempts. It's fascinating to see it using all sorts of storytelling techniques that would be abandoned by the 1970s and 1980s (Dalek Invasion cross-cuts between two exposition scenes where characters are being told more or less the same thing, to liven it up! It won't start doing this type of thing again until the Cartmel era.) The move to colour seems to have really harmed the ability to light things moodily.
Rather wickedly, I showed episode 1 of Dalek Invasion to housemate without revealing the name on the box. (Clearly it was structured so that the Daleks are the episode 1 cliffhanger reveal, but this secret was blown in pre-publicity.) She spent the entire episode figuring it must be the one where the Cybermen are introduced (because of the Robomen) and is now possibly unique in being surprised by the shot of the Dalek coming out of the water.
The ending is abrupt. We're not the first to notice that, of course, but Susan never even got to say goodbye to Ian and Barbara.
It is amazing how much more watchable the era is when in order, compared to my previous attempts. It's fascinating to see it using all sorts of storytelling techniques that would be abandoned by the 1970s and 1980s (Dalek Invasion cross-cuts between two exposition scenes where characters are being told more or less the same thing, to liven it up! It won't start doing this type of thing again until the Cartmel era.) The move to colour seems to have really harmed the ability to light things moodily.
Rather wickedly, I showed episode 1 of Dalek Invasion to housemate without revealing the name on the box. (Clearly it was structured so that the Daleks are the episode 1 cliffhanger reveal, but this secret was blown in pre-publicity.) She spent the entire episode figuring it must be the one where the Cybermen are introduced (because of the Robomen) and is now possibly unique in being surprised by the shot of the Dalek coming out of the water.
The ending is abrupt. We're not the first to notice that, of course, but Susan never even got to say goodbye to Ian and Barbara.
