Daleks and the First Doctor

[dbskyler]

I'm currently watching the First Doctor story "The Daleks" and enjoying it quite a lot. The Daleks have never been my favorite monsters, but I think I "get" them now for the first time. They really are creepy with the way they glide around, and the way their eyestalks move to look at you when they talk. Plus, it's so fun to see the "firsts":



-- The Daleks use the word "exterminate"!
-- A Dalek is blinded by putting something on its eyestalk (mud, in this case)!
-- We get a hint of what's inside! (I'm glad to learn that right from the beginning, Daleks were not machines, but creatures inside the machines.)

I'm looking forward to the rest (I'm right in the middle of part 4 right now), but I just had to stop here and post because guess what the Doctor just said? The Thals are walking into an ambush, Susan wants to warn them, and the Doctor said, and I quote:

"The Thals are no concern of ours. We cannot jeopardize our lives by getting involved in an affair which is none of our business."

I'm like, who is this???? Because it's certainly not the Doctor! It's fascinating to see how much his core character has changed since these very early days.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, that's nice. :-) Yay.

And, :lol:, yes! He does learn never to smoke again after being bashed over the head while lighting his pipe in An Unearthly Child, but some lessons he never gets... :-)

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Just finished watching it! So, that's the Daleks destroyed, then. Good thing, too, because just imagine what would happen if they weren't all as completely dead as they appear to be? :D

I also got to watch the *real* Genesis of the Daleks, aka the DVD extra on how the Daleks got created. They interviewed Raymond Cusick! And Verity Lambert! And Sydney Newman! And some other people! It was very interesting, actually. Apparently Daleks were supposed to have something besides plungers to hold things with originally, but they ran out of money, so had to go with plungers. *g* Mostly, though, I was impressed with how much thought and care went into their creation. That's another hallmark of Doctor Who, isn't it? Never mind that you're working on a silly sci-fi show with no budget; just go make it as good as you can.

[thisbluespirit]

Hurrah! And, yes, just imagine - they might even try to invade Earth next! That would be terrible.

Aw, cool. I have the DVD - I can't remember which of the extras I've watched, and haven't. The Beginning boxset came armed with an impressive amount of things like that. But :lol: at the plungers. That is so typical.