A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 50. The Waking Ally (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Episode Five)

I should mention right up front that I have no idea who the waking ally referred to in the title is.  It could refer to the Doctor, who is actually awake and fairly active throughout this half hour, but I don’t think so.

This is the episode of this serial that I feels goes off the rails a tiny bit because it’s the episode with Dat Cottage.  You see, while Barbara and Jenny are making their way to Bedfordshire they come across an old woman and her daughter in a ramshackle cottage in the woods.  They barter with the woman, giving her some food, for a place to sleep.  But, you see, these two--who were assigned to make clothing for the mining parties--betray them to the Daleks for some Nazi Pepperpot Food, and they end up working in the mine--just as Ian and Larry find their way down there.  And don’t forget the Doctor, Susan, David and Tyler; they’ve made their way to Bedfordshire and, when Susan and David aren’t engaged in horseplay, they figure out what the Daleks are doing...mere moments before Ian is dropped down a mine shaft locked into a big ass bomb.

That cottage sequence is the only moment I’ve seen in this serial so far that comes off as water-treading to me.  Yes, this is Terry Nation calling back to the Vichy, but it’s unnecessary.  I kept wondering why Barbara and Jenny couldn’t have just ended up crossing path with the Daleks themselves, maybe with the wild dogs the old woman talks about in tow.

This rewatch I buy the Susan/David relationship--the playful teasing at the midpoint of this episode strengthens the chemistry between Ford and Fraser, and I absolutely adore the way Hartnell is encouraging the two to become a couple unobtrusively.  I also, by the way, liked the fact that Susan gets a few punches in during a sewer fight with some Robomen and overall behaves like she has more interests than crying and screaming.

I am still digging on Barbara, who utilizes Dorfman’s notes to get into the main control room of the complex with the intention of sabotaging it.  Jenny seems to have lost a lot of her fire, though, and doesn’t act as the cynical counterpoint to Barbara’s optimism about humanity.  Ian doesn’t do a whole lot save for wandering about and getting into a fight with some Robomen that causes Larry’s death, a death that hits another resonant note with Nation’s theme.

With the plot finally revealed, it seems kind of silly...but it also seems that it could be very, very scary to the children this serial was still intended for.  It also made me wonder if the DC Editorial Staff in the mid-90‘s were Whovians given a certain aspect of the Death of Superman event.

If this is the worst that this serial dishes out, I’m kind of impressed.  Despite what some of my friends say, this may be the best of Nation’s stories so far.