The Dalek Invasion Of Earth (1964) Review

The Dalek Invasion Of Earth is easily the best-directed, well-written, well-acted Hartnell serial I have seen so far. The story is absolutely riveting, the camera shots of Daleks on the Westminster bridge put Daleks in Cardiff to shame, the character development(don't get me started on Susan, I don't want to break down) is unimaginably good.

It's the ultimate story. Can it get any better? Right now, it really doesn't seem like it. Okay, so there are issues too. The first episode is kinda slow, the Robomen are really sucky(also, did the new Cybermen rip them off in The Age Of Steel with the Cybus network?) and some of the resistance folk I didn't really care for, but it's mostly dated pretty well. They keep the whole 22nd century thing believable by not really showing it, but showing it all the time at the same time.

The lack of internet and phones and all the advanced technology we have makes perfect sense, since the Daleks destroyed it all.

Now let's get to the characters themselves. William Hartnell has some really great scenes, particularly the one where he passes through the Dalek IQ test and when he locks Susan out of the TARDIS(that final speech will never leave me). I've fully grown to love him as the Doctor, I really have. When I finally get around to Patrick Troughton, he has some big shoes to fill.

Ian gets his own little subplot. I'd describe it, but there's one more flaw in this serial: it's very hard to keep track of what really happened. I have no clue how Susan and David turned off the dishes on the Daleks' backs or what everyone planned to do other than to get into the mines.

Barbara, I think was very good, pulling Jenny out of the depression she was in. If she was in depression. Again, hard to follow and little conclusion to her subplot.

Susan...

So yeah, this one ranks up there alongside Marco Polo and the first episode of An Unearthly Child as a magnificient classic Doctor Who adventure, not least because it's the very first invasion of London. Well done, Terry Nation. Well done.