Pertwee's Dalek stories

[Whofan]

It seems that opinion on Pertwee's Dalek stuff is divisive among fans. "Day" seems to be the strongest, but partially because of the nifty time paradox idea. A problem is, however the Dalek voices, which seem to be lacking the proper modulation. Frontier In Space doesn't have them until the final episode and only briefly, as set up for "Planet" which is kind of a retread of "The Daleks" and is kind of a goofy serial all around. "Death" fares better, and it's kind of cool to see the Daleks painted silver like their 60's counterparts, but the serial is still lacking. Funny thing is, these would be the last non-Davros Dalek TV serials (Unless you count the cameo in The Five Doctors) until "Dalek" (Although the audios and novels did have some Dalek adventures in-between).


It might be just that Pertwee, Letts and Dicks weren't huge fans of the older traditional monsters....indeed the Pertwee era spawned a number of classic monsters/villains on their own, such as the Autons, Silurians/Sea Devils and of course, The Master.

 

[captcalhoun]

i like Day and Planet. and Frontier, although that's more of a Master story...

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Day is absolutely tremendous - one of the best ever in my view. The voices never sound the same way twice, because they never wrote the modulator settings down. True, apparently. So that doesn't bother me very much. Three Daleks keep an entire planet subjugated - that really shows what hard bastards they are.

 

[Leroy]

I heard they are giving the option to have redone Dalek voices for Day in the upcoming DVD release are they still doing this?

 

[WillsBabe]

I love Day. It's one of my most favourite episodes. I'm jazzed to hear that there is going to be a dvd release, finally!

 

[starsuperion]

I think that Day is definitely the strongest.. however frontier in space is quite engaging..but lacking in more Dalek action..

the Death serial is nice.. I rather enjoyed the story, it had hard core science fiction elements to it.. with the living city..

the Planet of the Daleks was pretty cool too.. yes in certain spots it was kinda campy, but overall I enjoyed it. It made me wonder what ever happened to the Thals? They would seem to be a great plot device for doctor who as the only race who hates the daleks most in the universe, and who has technology on par with theirs being from the same world..

anyhow, it wasn't that bad in my opinion..

In day, my favourite scene is one in which pertwee hangs out in the Manor house, drinking port and eating cheese, while still able to judo a guerilla warrior from the future and swill a gulp! fantastic!!

 

[Cutter John]

I think the problem with most of Pertwee's Dalek stories was that they were written by Terry Nation. Who quite honestly ran out of dalek story ideas back in the mid 60's. Day was actually done by a different writer.

Though I did love the bit in 'Death' where they replaced their disabled energy weapons with machine guns. Why couldn't they have always been that clever?

 

[Whofan]

Tom's were also by Nation-but I think they changed quite a bit during script-editing...."Genesis" has more of a Robert Holmes touch, I think, and the same goes for Destiny which is very much Douglas Adams.

 

[Cutter John]

Tom's were also by Nation-but I think they changed quite a bit during script-editing...."Genesis" has more of a Robert Holmes touch, I think, and the same goes for Destiny which is very much Douglas Adams.

I wish I could remember the details, but I recall hearing the story that his original draft was returned because it was pretty much the same story he'd submitted a half dozen times before.

It always amazed me that the writer who cranked out so many cookie-cutter dalek tales went on to create Blakes 7.

 

[Candlelight]

Day never sat well with me, mainly because it started life as a simple time paradox story and only became a Dalek story late in the day at the request of management (which is probably why the Daleks don't really interact with anyone important until the last episode).

Planet is one that I've seen least, but I recall it to be a mishmash of pretty much all Dalek stories to date.

Death is probably the best of the three, and it was good to see a near-sixties colour scheme again.

 

[Marc]

Day never sat well with me, mainly because it started life as a simple time paradox story and only became a Dalek story late in the day at the request of management (which is probably why the Daleks don't really interact with anyone important until the last episode).

Planet is one that I've seen least, but I recall it to be a mishmash of pretty much all Dalek stories to date.

Death is probably the best of the three, and it was good to see a near-sixties colour scheme again.

Was thinking it strange that I had no recollection of the seeing the Pertwee Dalek stories. Just realised why.

In Australia we more of the Baker stories rerun that the Pertwee and the last time they did a complete run through the Daleks were still embargoed because of the dispute with the Nation estate so they were skipped.

 

[diankra]

Tom's were also by Nation-but I think they changed quite a bit during script-editing...."Genesis" has more of a Robert Holmes touch, I think, and the same goes for Destiny which is very much Douglas Adams.

I wish I could remember the details, but I recall hearing the story that his original draft was returned because it was pretty much the same story he'd submitted a half dozen times before.

It always amazed me that the writer who cranked out so many cookie-cutter dalek tales went on to create Blakes 7.

SOmebody, early on, tipped Terry Nation off about how there are only seven stories. Realising that he'd soon be repeating himself anyway, he started doing it from script two...
But, the flip side to that is that Terry Nation did write seven really great scripts. It's just that he rarely did more than one for any one series...