N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
You have to give Terry Nation his due – he could certainly write an atmospheric first episode! Suicide, murder, decay, the suggestion of plague, a flying saucer, a sprained ankle: it all adds up to yet another tense opening 25 minutes. I particularly like the moment where Ian reveals he’d rather not know what’s happened to have caused London to fall into such desolation – it’s telling that his despair at seeing something so familiar so ruined (and so relatively close to his own future) is more powerful than his natural scientific curiosity.
“I think we’d better pit our wits against them … and defeat them!”
The Doctor, The Daleks
It’s a pity that the story eventually becomes rather silly, with the Daleks attempting another one of their hare-brained schemes to pilot the Earth based on a dubious grasp of planetary physics. (It won’t be the last time they try that!) Indeed such is the tortuously convoluted history of the Daleks, it’s hard to know where this invasion fits into it. In episode 2, The Daleks (not to be confused with The Daleks), the Doctor airily dismisses this invasion of earth as being a million years before the events of their previous encounter with them. Is that a guess? Is he right? Do subsequent stories change all the continuity anyway?
Of course, for ‘invasion of earth’, we should read invasion of Southern England, specifically the Greater London area. This won’t be the last time that particular geographic synecdoche is used to denote the whole world, aliens becoming especially enamoured of this tiny isle later in the 60’s and 70’s.
But for every great moment such as the Daleks trundling across Westminster Bridge or Trafalgar Square there is a moment like Susan’s terror of the baby crocodile in the sewers. Does she fear she might lose a toe perhaps? (There is also some rather amusing silent fighting going on in The Waking Ally.)
“I see something’s cooking.”
The Doctor, The Waking Ally
Aside from the now-iconic location footage of Daleks visiting the sights of London, it’s the serial’s ending that impresses the most. The last few minutes of Flashpoint are amongst the most powerful the show has ever had.
Whilst it’s true that Susan’s character was never really developed to its full potential – The Sensorites offering a rare exception with her use of telepathy – she certainly gets a memorable send-off. I loved the Doctor’s wry comment that something was ‘cooking’ when he first noticed Susan and David’s behaviour together (they were of course actually cooking as well), but it’s the scenes where the Doctor says goodbye to his granddaughter that are the most affecting, with William Hartnell quite brilliant in a speech that manages to be both poignant and stoic.
Who said emotional Doctor Who only began in the 21st century!
The Dalek Invasion of Earth sees Doctor Who pass the fifty episode mark, have its first sequel and witness its first companion leave the show. All things considered, it remains a momentous story, one that belies its somewhat variable quality.
