There’s going to be a lot of upset with those new daleks, the main one being that there will be six new action figures to collect (including the genius olive drab one with the webbing), and an accusation that the whole thing is an exercise in merchandisng along the lines of the Star Wars prequels (which no-one should watch, ever).
But listening to episode writer Mark Gatiss wax lyrical about wanting to make the new versions be like the movie daleks, I’m right there with him. The telly ones always looked like they’d been pulled out of an old damp lock-up and hastily painted-up for filming (because they had been), the movie ones were colourful, big and badass (apart from a fault that makes the skirt-globes misaligned at the back, but that’s a geek-only thing probably…), and had guns that actually shot something rather than relying on a sound effect and grimacing extras being exterminated.
The new daleks are a bit like Chris Achilleos’ and the TV21 daleks as well, so the retro feel is there on several levels for folk of a certain age.
I like the fact that the daleks are proper daleks now as well, they really had been made very weak in the new Doctor Who, they should be confident fascists, not a disorganised rabble of half-hearted right-wingers looking for someone else to blame for their misfortune.
But, the episodes are still way too short, running around and shouting to try and cram all the story into 45 minutes. We need BBC3 to show an extended version late at night for folk with an attention span longer than 7 seconds.
By the way, if you don’t hear from me again, the BBC will have had me killed for using their images, despite both you and I having paid for them.
Stories need a couple of episodes with a cliffhanger ending at halftime! That’s pretty much everyone I know who thinks that. I’ve warmed to the new writer already, was a good interview with him last night and I’m not missing anything about… er, who? See I’ve forgotton.
I think it’s better too, but aye, we need some cliffhangers.
I hope they keep up the energy and enthusism for the whole series.
Spifires in space still has me grinning :o)
Doctor Who’s too scary for me – I’ve never been able to watch it
Ach, you’ll be fine with all these new bright colours.
Spitfires in space was a bit too ‘Independence Day’ for my taste… never mind, I quite enjoyed the rest. I was chuffed at identifying the Jammy Dodger ‘Tardis Self-Destruct’ immediately :)
I trust you spotted the other movie references – “Broadsword to Danny Boy”… ;O)
Aye, it was full of stuff, Mark Gatiss is such a geek.
I thought the Spitires was more X-Wings versus Death Star :o)
oh thanks a lot for spoiling the surprise, pete!!!!!
here in australia, we’ve only just started the series for the 11th doctor, and haven’t gotten to the dalek story!!!
It was no surprise here either, we had multi-coloured daleks all over the place for a week before it :o)