Wednesday, September 2, 2009

KKK3 - Day of the Daleks 3



Aubrey Woods plays a superb Controller in this story - smooth and smarmy when he has to be (like convincing Jo, successfully, I might add, that the rebels are her enemy and not him), and cold, calculating, and stern when dealing with Ogrons and other subordinates. Woods and Jon Pertwee have a fantastic scene in Episode Three where The Doctor, growing increasingly intolerant, pushes the Controller to admit what The Doctor already knows - that the Daleks are the ones in charge of Earth in the 22nd Century.

Not immediately explained is why the Controller (and especially his female control room staff) seem to have silver faces. Are they androids? The women certainly sound like they are. The Controller's face is less silver-y, but can't Aubrey Woods ever appear in anything without having to put on silver makeup? (Witness his appearance as Kantor in the 1978 Blake's 7 episode Gambit - surely the campest and gayest 50 minutes in British television history.)

Also not explained is if this 22nd century Earth that's been conquered by the Daleks is the same one that we see in 1964's The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I'd like to say yes, which would give the series a rare dual perspective of one event in history. We see the rebellion at its lowest ebb in Dalek Invasion, forced to hide in sewers, trying to invent bombs that never seem to work against Dalek casing. The rebellion in Day of the Daleks is going much better and seems much more organized, and the rebels even have time technology on their side, so it would appear to be much earlier than the 2165-ish era seen in Dalek Invasion. But then, if the Doctor defeats the Daleks at the end of each story (presumably. I haven't watched Part Four yet, but I can kind of guess what the outcome will be), how can the two invasions be related?

Or can I just use the phrases "Time War" and "Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey" to retrofit everything and not have to worry about it?

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