From World's End: 26 December 1964. They all refer to this iconic moment. Why do 'they' keep on doing that? Have they never seen anything else in Doctor Who? For me, the reason is that it ticks every box that Sci-Fantasy needs to make it work. Oddly, it became a quiet moment for ruminating upon the meaning of everything in the world of The Doctor. It is the moment when 'that Dalek' emerged from the River Thames. We had seen the Dalekanium-encased mischief-makers for only the first time about a year earlier and they had created uproar in every household and school playground ever since. Depending upon how you count it, we had waited for around a year before they made their second, stunning entry. That's a lifetime for a child, or at least a tenth of one for a ten year old. The moody shots of a battle-scarred London built brilliantly towards the episode's climax. The Doctor was puzzled and clearly something evil was afoot. We jumped for joy they were back! Then, as the credits came up and real life threatened to engulf us, we realised that we had been idiots. The nagging feeling that something terrible was about to occur grew and grew so that we were compelled to see next week's episode. When we drifted off to sleep later that night the stark image of something truly alien intruding into our familiar world burned itself into our brains. It was the pay-off to a great episode and it became the fulcrum upon which that series turned. Many talk about the first time that that Dalek sucker was seen on our screens during the previous series as the moment that made the Daleks. It was not. It was this scene and what followed that truly sealed the Daleks' fate in British culture. 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' had so much more going for it than 'The Daleks' ever did. It had a stultifying aura of terror about it and the pathetic sight of people at war collaborating with the enemy who were ready to betray their fellow humans merely for a basket of vegetables was very disturbing indeed. The invader was ruthless as it destroyed everything people knew and there were some memorable battle scenes thrown in for good measure. This was the pay-off that promised so much and never failed to deliver.
Hello, I'm Paul Hammans, terminal 'Who' obsessive, F1 fan, reader of arcane literature about ideas and generalist scribbler. To paraphrase someone much better at aphorisms than I: I strive to write something worth reading and when I cannot do that I try to do something worth writing. I have my own Dr Who oriented blog at http://www.exanima.co.uk
