"There'll come a day when you're forced to stop traveling and you'll arrive somewhere."
The resistance attack on the Dalek saucer quickly turns into a rout. The bombs that Dortmun invented manage to do something between diddly and bupkis. Ang thinks that the exploding bombs look like they are just releasing powder, Knowing the kind of budget that the Beeb gave the series back then, this is entirely possible.
There is a nice cutaway to the rebel headquarters where we see the wheelchair bound Dortmun playing chess on a pocket sized game board. Around him those who couldn't join in on the assault are dealing with their worries in their own ways.
They do manage to get the prisoners released. Most of them end up being killed, but they died free. The Doctor gets pulled away in the confusion. Ian is forced to get back on the Dalek ship and hide in a space under the floor. It's kind of like the smuggler's hatch on the Millenium Falcon only this was over ten years before Star Wars and the Daleks have no reason to make a space like this.
Tyler, Barbara and Jenny make it back to Dortmun at revolution HQ. Dortmun is insistent that he will be able to improve his bomb, but he needs time. He suggests that they go to one of the fall back points and see if other survivors show up there. Tyler goes off on his own leaving the other three to try to cross Dalek controlled London to get to the Civic Transport Museum.
Susan and David ended up together after the assault. They start back to rebel HQ, but the Dalek presence is too strong. At one point the two can hear a lone man yell at the Daleks for killing his wife. The Daleks kill him as well. Susan begins to cry and David pulls her into him as much to keep her sobs from attracting Daleks as to comfort her.
This is the moment when David falls in love with Susan. It isn't stated outright, but the look on his face says it all. Susan is obviously feeling something too; she offers to take David in the TARDIS, something that has never happened before. She didn't even make that offer to Pin-Cho her Chinese BFF from Marco Polo.
There's some good dialog between the two. It's all set up for Susan's departure at the end of the story, but it's well done. The phrase "journeys end in lover's meeting" passed through my head.
Somebody named Baker shows up with a groggy Doctor. Baker decides to make his way to Cornwall alone. Baker then leaves only to encounter the Daleks 30 or so feet away.
WTF.
Baker's sole purpose in life was to bring the Doctor to Susan and then die. They couldn't have just left it open. Maybe he made it, maybe not. Screw you Terry Nation; in my world Baker made it to Cornwall met a plucky woman named Diedre and had mad crazy adventures fighting the post-Dalek alien invaders before settling down in the south of France to raise four children and make wine. Really good wine.
Ian decides to leave the Dalek floor when the coast seems clear. He's barely out of the floor when a robo-man walks in with a prisoner. The robo-man is the jerkass formerly known as Craddock. Ian and the prisoner, Larry Madison, over power robo-Craddock and short circuit him.
I though that the robo-men were made from the smarter prisoners. Well maybe they had to make do after the attack. The bombs may have done jack to the Daleks, but they may have been lethal to robo-men. Needs must. The next question is, how long was Ian in the floor? It didn't seem like that long. Obviously it was enough time to capture and subdue Craddock, take him to the OTHER robo-man conditioning room (Ian's floor hideout is right by the robo-man conversion bench, if Craddock was converted here, then Ian would have heard about it and not seemed surprise), turn him into a robo-man and then have him start converting others.
I'm not thinking about that.
So Larry stowed away on purpose. He knows that the saucer will be making it's way to the Bedfordshire mines where his brother Phil is working. Phil has a theory that the Daleks are trying to remove the Earth's magnetic core and decided to go to the mines to find out for certain. What a crappy theory.
Dortmun, Barbara and a black hoodie wearing Jenny run across London. There's more location work as we get to see the three pass through various landmarks dodging Daleks. The "chase" music was this bongo fusion piece that is a bit hard to describe. When I heard it come up as the Daleks were seen crossing a bridge I thought that it was an odd choice, but as we saw the push that the humans were making in getting to the museum I changed my mind.
The scene is tense and moves quickly. Kudos to the director and to Verity Lambert.
They don't seem to have been at the museum very long when Dortmun declares that he has perfected his bomb. The problem, he says, is that he doesn't know much about the metal that makes up the Dalek's cases. He calls it Dalekanium.
He asks Barbara to give his notes to the Doctor. He hopes that another scientist would be able to appreciate his work. He then gives the girls the slip and goes out into the street yelling for the Daleks. They arrive.
He wheels himself closer and then lifts himself out of the chair. He stands on buckling legs, tosses his cane away and starts to throw his improved bomb. The Daleks fire as he throws and the bomb falls short of it's target.
Barbara and Jenny go into hiding as Daleks search the building that Dortmun came out of.
On the saucer Ian and Larry hop out at Bedfordshire, uncertain as to what they'll find there.
The Doctor begins to feel better. Susan passes on David's suggestions and the Doctor is aware that there is another man in his granddaughter's heart(s.) As they make their plans two robo-men arrive carrying a bomb the size of a child's coffin.
I liked this episode, despite Baker and Craddock. The guest cast is excellent, especially the actors playing David, Jenny and Dortmun. The scenes between Susan and David and (eventually) the Doctor were well done. Susan has a priceless look on her face when she realizes that her grandfather is deferring to David's judgement for her.
Next up: The End of Tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment