The sixties - the United Kingdom was in the grip of an invasion: DALEKS! Doctor Who mania was sweeping the land, and of course everyone was there to jump on the bandwagon. While a shameless attempt to cash in on the craze, Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 does have something to offer, too.
For those of you just catching up - from 1963 to 1989 (and a couple of false starts thereafter) the BBC ran an immensely popular family program called Doctor Who. The main character is called The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He travels the universe in the TARDIS, a wondrous spaceship that can go anywhere in time and space - provided that the Doctor can steer it correctly. During his adventures, he and his companion (usually a young human female with weak ankles and good lungs) combat evil and injustice wherever they find it. Key to the longevity of the series - Doctor Who can do what the James Bond movies have done several times. When fatally injured, Time Lords have the ability to regenerate, totally changing their faces and personalities, allowing the ability to swap out the lead roll when the actor wants to leave the series. So there have been several Doctors with different faces (ten, so far), but all of them the same character.
Oh, and the name of the show is Doctor Who. The main character is simply called The Doctor.
Okay, all that stuff I just told you? Forget it. The two Dalek movies operate under their own continuity and their own rules outside of the television show. Dr. Who (Peter Cushing, trying to get some breathing room from his numerous Hammer classics such as The Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein) is an eccentric time traveling human scientist, and creator of TARDIS, a British Police Box that has been modified so that it is able to travel through time and space.
We open with Police Constable Tom Campbell (played by Bernard Cribbins, who returned to the television show in the 2007 Christmas special Voyage of the Dammed and returns in the upcoming series 4 / Season 30) fails to stop a smash-and-grab robbery and runs to a police box for help from the station. Unfortunately for him, the box is actually Dr. Who’s TARDIS and he’s about to take off into the future with his nieces Susan (Roberta Tovey returning again from Dr. Who And The Daleks) and Louise (Jill Curzon, who had a bunch of bit part rolls in the Saint and Adam Adamant, but this is her biggest thing by far)
When the TARDIS lands in the year 2150, Dr Who and his associates find the Earth invaded by DALEKS! The bad boys of Skaro have subjugated the entire planet, forced the remnants of humanity to eke out an existence underground and are digging to Earth's core for mysterious (and obviously insidious) reasons. Falling in with a ragtag group of rebels, the TARDIS crew is forced to separate and make their way to Bedfordshire to thwart the Daleks and save the human race from extermination!
For the longest time, while I was a fan of Doctor Who, I never saw much of the first three Doctors. The local UHF networks around here pretty much exclusively ran from Doctor Four onwards, skipping the earlier black and white shows entirely. So I was never familiar with the original William Hartnell story for many years, only knowing the story through the Target novelizations and the various showings of Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 on the late Saturday night Thriller-Chiller Theater.
Peter Cushing is always wonderful in whatever he's playing, and it's clear that he's having a blast playing against type and getting to do the Kindly Old Grandfather instead of a being in yet another vampire slaying roll. He does an eccentric Dr Who quite well, playing it not at all like the irritable crotchety old man that William Hartnell played the Doctor as.
The film is much darker than its predecessor, it's not graphic or anything - just much more heavy. Unfortunately the Komedy pratfalls and antics that Bernard gets stuck with really stand out because of it, and those moments really seem out of place and annoying. The film is also much larger in scope than the first studio bound movie. UFO attacks high over London, Daleks everywhere, and loads of action scenes make the movie move along briskly. Okay, the plot still doesn't make a lick of sense, but it didnt in the original version either!
The other problem with the story is that it speaks in shorthand. The original episode that the movie was adapted from was six half hour episodes long, and while it did suffer from padding and dragged in places, the upside is that Terry Nation had lots of room for character building moments. The ending moment between Susan and the Doctor is heartfelt and emotional, and one of the better scenes of the show's 40 year long run. The movie's ending is . . . not nearly as good.
THE DVD-
Just like Dr. Who and the Daleks, Anchor Bay serves up a nice copy of the film in 16x9 anamorphic and it looks great. The colors are vivid and sharp and there's no damage at all to speak of.
Not everything is perfect mind you - there is one HUGE flaw to the source master that Anchor Bay used. In the original film, the opening went something like this: Pre-credit robbery, Tom passes out on the TARDIS floor, credit sequence, movie begins. The copy that Anchor Bay mastered from goes: Credit Sequence, pre credit robbery, tom passes out, fade to black, fade up to movie begin. It ruins the "cliffhanger" moment and throws the pacing of the film off. It's not a big deal, but it is very, very annoying since the opening was one of the better moments of the film.
THE EXTRAS -
Anchor Bay uses the same Peter Cushing bio and the same "History of Dr. Who" informational text that were present on the Dr. Who And The Daleks disc. There's also a trailer, a small collectors booklet with some basic information. Sadly no commentary track this time out. Still, if you're looking to pick this disc up, you'd do well to get the box set that comes with the two Dalek movies and a third disc with the documentary Dalekmania, that goes into the frenzy surrounding the show in the sixties and the making of the two movies. That's a much better deal than just the one disc by itself.
THE BOTTOM LINE -
Even with its problems, Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 is still a great slice of sixties science fiction entertainment. Even if you can't tell a TARDIS from a Time Loop or an Auton from a Sontaran, you'll still enjoy this charming and fun science fiction romp.
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