"I lost my shoe."
The first half of this episode is very rushed. There are some good things that happen in it, but you can't help but feel that they were trying to clean up the Daleks before they get to the rest of the story.
The Daleks' reason for being on Earth makes no sense. Angela came up with a much better justification for the Daleks coming to Earth; because they found out that it was where Barbara and Ian came from and they wanted to get a bit of their own back after the humans manipulated the Thals into overthrowing the Daleks. The Pirate Planet showed us that a planet/space ship can be cool, but going across the galaxy to pimp out some random planet just doesn't flow.
Instead of focusing on the negative parts of the Daleks' defeat, I'll just go over the things that I liked.
In an attempt to distract the Daleks long enough to get close to the robo-men's oral control unit (don't ask) Barbara starts spouting off this nonsense about the forces that are aligning against the alien pepper pots. General Lee, Hannibal and others are poised to strike once the Boston Tea Party has gone down. The Daleks are so alarmed at the numbers of forces that are aligned against them that Barbara almost has time to give the robo-men a "destroy all Daleks" order.
When Barbara and the Doctor are able to try the oral control again (that's a sentence I NEVER want to say again) they try to imitate Dalek voices. It's a hoot. Barbara tries talking while rhythmically patting her mouth with the flat of her hand. The Doctor just goes for a tinny monotone that works more-or-less.
I liked the little things about the Daleks that just work for them. The fact that to restrain Barbara and Jenny they just put a magnetic collar on them that attaches them to the wall. They obviously don't care if this is hurting them or not hurting them, it's just the most efficient way of keeping them out from under "foot."
I liked the fact that Ian, after a fairly strenuous sequence of events which led to him splitting his jacket down the back took the time to retie his neck tie as he was rushing off to Dalek Control.
The Daleks get defeated and then it's back to the one corner of London that survived. Fortunately the TARDIS was there. Wells and the freed slaves remove the debris from around the ship and the travelers are saying their goodbyes.
Susan and the Doctor have a nice moment talking about shoes and how unruly her life has gotten since she left that school of hers. Ian tries to strike up a conversation with David. Barbara knows that Susan will want some privacy to say goodbye and gestures for them to get into the ship. He's oblivious. She isn't as subtle the second time.
David asks Susan to stay. He loves her and she admits to loving him. She wants to stay, but feels obliged to stay with her grandfather; he needs her.
The Doctor watches this from inside the TARDIS. Resigned he hits a switch and the TARDIS doors close. Susan rushes to them only to be told (through the TARDIS speakers) that the doors are double locked and she can't come back in.
The Doctor says his goodbye to Susan in a monolog that are easily the most quoted lines in the Hartnell era. He knows that she won't leave him so he's forcing the issue. It's the most powerful emotional moment of the series to date. It made Angela cry and even I, a stoic New Englander, went misty.
The TARDIS dematerializes and Susan just places her hand where it was before walking into the space that it occupied. She removes the TARDIS key from around her neck and drops it into the ship's metaphorical footprint. She takes David's offered hand and walks off to her future.
Next up: The Powerful Enemy
No comments:
Post a Comment