Season 9 - Days 304 to 329

Broadcast Dates: 1st January 1972 - 24th June 1972

Relative Dates: 21st September 2012 - 16th October 2012

Day Of The Daleks

 

 

Finally, the Daleks were back in Doctor Who! After being pretty much written out of the series in season 4 it was another 5 years until they were finally revived. It’s difficult to imagine that now, when the Daleks crop up nearly every year, that viewers had to wait so long to see them again.

 

I have a confession to make here also. The DVD of this story has two versions. It has the original version as was broadcast in 1972 and also a special edition which includes some newly filmed scenes, new effects and new Dalek voices as voiced by Nicholas Briggs who voices the modern Daleks. I had an internal debate as to which version to watch. In the end I decided to go for the special edition as I hadn’t seen this version yet and I was excited to see what it was like. This felt like a little bit of a cheat as I wasn’t watching the original version but by this point I was taking every opportunity I could to inject more excitement into my quest.

 

Secondly it has to be said that this is a bloody brilliant story! James Cameron completely ripped it off for The Terminator as the plot is very similar. In the future, the Daleks rule the Earth so a group of rebels travel back in time in order to kill the guy who they believe crippled the Earth and allowed the Daleks to take over.

 

It has to be said that the original Dalek voices were a bit pants so watching the special edition removed this problem. It seemed that because the Daleks had been out of the series for so long that the production team had somehow forgotten how their voices sounded.

 

Another strange thing happens at the start of episodes 2, 3 and 4 which might be hard to explain but I’ll do my best. At the end of every episode, as we see the cliff hanger there is a musical “sting” which leads you into the end credits. The director, for some bizaare reason, kept this sting at the recap of the previous episodes cliffhangers. So the episode would start, for example, with a group of Daleks ranting about extermination etc when suddenly it would sound like the closing credits were about to kick in again only for the episode to continue. It’s very strange and I’m not sure why they didn’t take it out for the special edition version as it does take you out of the story a little.

 

The Daleks have new henchmen too which will be seen in a few later stories, the Ogrons. These are pretty much your standard mute henchman (although they do grunt a bit) but they are quite scary with their large size and looks. They remind me quite a lot of the Orcs from The Lord Of The Rings actually. So that’s James Cameron AND Peter Jackson who have ripped this story off!

 

One of the most interesting human characters is the Controller from the future as played by Aubrey Woods. When I first saw this story I remember getting really annoyed about where I had seen the actor before. It turned out he was the guy who owned the candy store where Charlie bought his golden ticket in the original Willy Wonka film. Here he is working for the Daleks, but it’s clear he’s not all bad and his final stance against the Daleks at the end of the story is one of the highlights.

 

It’s so much easier to find things to write about the stories I enjoy!

The Curse Of Peladon

 

 

This story was the very first old Doctor Who that I ever watched. Back when the Paul McGann tv movie was released in 1997 and I first got interested in Doctor Who, I tried to snap up some of the few VHS tapes that were available to me at the time and this was the first one. As such, watching this story again, I got a lovely feeling of nostalgia. This is something I imagine that older Doctor Who fans have a lot but I was growing up during a time when the show wasn’t on so I don’t have many opportunities to get nostalgic over it.

 

The Doctor and Jo take another visit to an alien planet, in this case Peladon (you never would have guessed would you?). I’m not quite sure how the TARDIS takes them here actually as at this point the Doctor is still meant to be exiled to Earth. Im sure they explain it away somehow.

 

Peladon is very much like medieval England in its look and feel. The king of Peladon is about to sign an agreement to enter the Galactic Federation. I believe this was an attempt to mirror the real life events of Britain joining the European Union but I know very little about politics so I’ll steer clear of that!

 

The king is very keen that Peladon should join the Galactic Federation but his high preist Hepesh warns that doing so will bring the curse of Aggedor upon the world. The Doctor and Jo, enter the city whilst pretending to be the delagates from Earth which is not the wisest of moves as pretty soon the delagates are being killed off one by one. Two of the delegates are from Mars (i.e they are Ice Warriors! Seen for the first time in colour...they’re green! Who knew??)

 

One of the other delegates is Alpha Centuri. Never has a character cried out for an action figure than this guy. Neither a male, nor a female but a hermaphrodite hexapod, this character is hilarious and has a very “unique” look that in no way resembles a penis wearing a shower curtain!

 

The Doctor’s suspicions fall on the Ice Warriors but, proving himself to slightly prejudiced, the Ice Warriors turn out to be the good guys. It’s nice to see a nice bad guy for a change. I can’t imagine meeting a friendly Cyberman.

The Sea Devils

 

The Master is back and this time I was quite pleased to see him! The Doctor and Jo go to visit him in his jail (which I think may have been on an island..possibly). The facility recruits only those people who can withstand the Master's hypnosis, which is a pretty good idea! The Master promises that he has turned over a new leaf and it is testamont to the performance of Delgado that no matter how many times I see this story I still believe that he really has turned to the good side.

Unfortunately the head of the prison soon succumbs to the charms of the Master and is helping him to contact the Sea Devils. The Sea Devils basically have the same back story as the Silurians, i.e they are a race that lived on this planet before the evolution of humans. I think they look a bit cooler than the Silurians and to see them rise out of the water is a chilling moment.

Not much else I can say about this really (as I desparately race to catch up with this blog) apart from the Master and the Doctor have a nice little race in some boats, getting very wet! And of course the Master escapes at the end of the story.

The Mutants

I was seeing this story for the very first time when I watched this one. It was one I had had for a while on DVD but never seemed to get round to watching and when I started this challenge it seemed to make sense that I should just wait until it's turn came around.

The Doctor is given another mission by the Time Lords, to deliver a message to someone. I can't remember who. I've only seen this once! Don't judge me! Bad fan!

There is some bloody awful acting in this one. I mean really really bad! I can't remember the actors name or character and I could look them up but to be honest that's more effort than I'm willing to go into right now.

The Time Monster

Yes...I know what you're thinking; Is that penis with a radar dish at the end?? Nope it's the Doctor's timey wimey detector that he uses in this story to locate the Master who is meddling in time to bring a monster into this world..I think. Again, I've only seen this two times and it's been horrible each time.

In the later half of the story we end up in the lost city of Atlantis. Again. (The second Doctor visits Atlantis in The Underwater Menace).

It's mainly crap but there are some nice scenes including the Doctor relating some childhood stories to Jo. We also see Seargent Benton reduced to the age of a baby and then brought back to his grown up self without any clothes on to much hilarity *sigh*

So that was season 9. My God! That took me ages to finish. I've got another 6 seasons to cover before I catch up with myself on this blog. I would say "come back soon for season 10" but it will probably take me another month to do so don't hold your breath!