This adventure takes place before the initial serial...and its first episode is, in many ways, a remake of the first. But as a first episode, it’s still better than the first episode of ‘The Daleks’
The crew lands on the banks of the Thames in what appears to be modern times...but there’s something wrong. There’s no signs of activity one would expect of a major city, and the Thames is in a particularly bad state of neglect. Susan wants to go exploring and accidentally pulls a portion of decaying bridgework down on the TARDIS, preventing them from returning to it. When the Doctor and Ian go search a nearby warehouse for an acytelene torch to cut through the rubble, they discover that it’s 2164...and come across a body wearing a strange helmet that the Doctor suspects allows people to hear high frequency sound waves. When they return, they find Barbara and Susan--now nursing a twisted ankle--has been spirited away by a mysterious group of people and they’re surrounded by a number of these men wearing those strange helmets....
...and then something very familiar raises up out of the water.
You know what makes this more than ‘the crew investigate a curious situation/site to discover the Daleks are there’ episode? The fact that so much of this episode is shot on location on film. The fact that we’re seeing our heroes running through recognizably real landscapes not only gives this a bit of a gravitas the first episode of ‘The Daleks’ doesn’t, while also gives us a sense of reality to those scenes, including the Thames set, that are obviously studio-bound. And Nation gets more into this opening sequence, as we are introduced to a couple of characters and a new concept in the (not-yet named) Robo-Men that act as the Daleks’ muscle in this serial.
And after the disordered, disconnected ‘Keys of Marinus,’ there is a focused nature to Nation’s script that moves along the story beats and gives us some rather nice touches--starting with the very beginning and the poster warning people not to dump bodies into the river. There’s even some neat dialogue (After Barbara admits she can cook, one of the refugees ask Susan ‘what do you do?,’ to which Susan replied, ‘I eat.’) and nice character moments, especially with the introduction of Dortmunn (Alan Judd), who comes off as a very British, very grumpy Dr. Strangelove.
And then there’s that last moment. I’m sure you’re not surprised it’s a Dalek, but keep in mind these serials were aired without their overarcing names revealed....so I could imagine it being a big ol’ shock to viewers in 1965.
This is another one of those seminal serials, and this first episode gives it a pretty good start. Of course, it’s six episodes, and we’ve seen how those lengthier stories tend to fall apart. I am keeping myself open to this continuing to be quality.
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