Cheap Doctor Who - The Dalek Invasion of Earth (DVD) (Rex Tucker, Julia Smith, John Gorrie, Ron Jones (II), Alan Wareing, David Maloney, Richard Martin (IV), Peter Moffatt, Derek Martinus, Fiona Cumming) Price

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Customer Reviews of Doctor Who - The Dalek Invasion of Earth

THE MOST SADDEST ENDING IN DOCTOR WHO EVER MADE.
THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH starring Original Doctor William Hartnell was the very first episode to have one of the show's Who characters leaving the show. This was another Dalek adventure that the time lord found himself once again facing his greatest enemies. Like Invasion of time and The Green death, This is a adventure where the characters leave when they fall in love. In the sequel to the episode that made Doctor Who a hit in 1963 "The Daleks", The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara arrive in a future London only to discover the Daleks have wiped it out and are at war with a band of rebels. Where the Doctor agrees to help the rebels led by David Campbell stop them from blowing up the planet. Dramatically good, This was Carole Ann Ford's final apperence as The Doctor's granddaughter Susan and her acting at the end made this one of the most saddest endings in the show's history. It was very emotional when the Doctor forces his only family to stay behind to start a new life with the leader of the rebels. A classic Daleks sequel.

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The first truly great Who series there was
After the first Dalek episode, which was somewhat weak other than the novelty factor, it was refreshing to see this Dalek adventure in which the Daleks have taken over Earth and are in the process of finishing off London. Made almost 40 years before Danny Boyle killed most of London off in his remarkable "28 Days Later," this episode does the same thing in London circa the year 2152, after the Dalek invasion is nearly complete. Quite creepy to see a Trafalgar square empty of all but Dalek life. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan fall in with a group of rebels trying to survive against the Daleks and the robomen -- humans that the Daleks have turned into half human/half robotic overseers working against their own, like the Jewish capos in Nazi death camps. The Nazi similarity to the Daleks is played up fully for the first time here and the action moves all the way through. The sets are quite wonderful, and the sense of menace is strong enough to get past the rather cheesy special effects that were all the BBC could afford in the '60's. But it's easy to put that and the Daleks' obvious shortcomings aside is this great thriller in which the rebels are running out of time against the Daleks' plan and the imminent destruction of the human race.

By this point in the series, the actors had matured and developed a true bond with each other. Susan gets to fall in love (in a 60's kind of way) and William Hartnell seems to have a hit a good balance between being crusty and arrogant and concerned for human welfare, in spite of his rather obnoxious habit of saying "hmmm?" after all his sentences. If only they'd have let Susan stop shrieking all the time -- I was actually hoping they'd let her get eaten by an alligator. You can't blame the actress, however -- it was several decades before the doctor's female companions finally were allowed to stop shrieking. And Susan, being a teenager, got to shriek more than most of them.

There is a tendency on Amazon to review Doctor Who episodes a little more favaorably than they probably deserve, given how much we all love the series, but this one really works on so many levels. Besides being a barely saved episode and only the second one featuring the Daleks, it allowed the Daleks to function in different ways and started to give them personalities and structure. The rebels aren't one-dimensional and have various character attributes that keep them interesting. There is also a disk of fascinating extras with this one, including talks with the set designers and writers as well as various cast members on how the how was shot and what some of the difficulties were.

One of my favorite Doctor Who purchases to date, and a good chance to see the original cast when they'd knitted together and gotten rid of the early kinks. Highly recommended.

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Magnificent!
This is one of those titles I looked forward to long before I knew of any definite plans to release it on DVD. I've always felt that, along with the Patrick Troughton story "The Seeds of Death", this is probably the best-photographed story of the entire 26 year history of the show; this is despite the fact that the cameraman's shadow can be seen drifting in and out of certain shots, but this can be forgiven since it is only the vastly improved DVD resolution that makes it visible at all, a problem that didn't exist when it was originally broadcast.
It was the first Doctor Who story to contain a significant amount of location footage, which enhanced its credibility; to see Daleks swarming around familiar monuments and landmarks leant the story authenticity, and the exterior lighting conditions throughout are flawless, and contribute greatly to creating a tense atmosphere of apprehensive foreboding.
I would also like to say that I have always been outspokenly opposed to the modification of old films and TV shows for any reason, so when I learned that some of the special effects had been replaced with newly-created CGI images, I was a little disturbed. But when I saw the results, I was floored: the new sequences are integrated so seamlessly and applied with such restraint that I have been forced to reconsider my objections. Furthermore, this DVD allows the viewer to choose between the original special effects sequence originally broadcast and the new updated CGI sequences.
This terrific feature, along with the high quality of the transfer, is an excellent example of the extreme care the BBC has taken in presenting these stories on DVD. They have taken an almost reverential approach in presenting this beloved British national icon to the rest of the world, and this is yet one more reason to buy this DVD.