Day of Reckoning (The Dalek Invasion of Earth Episode 3)

The one where the Doctor begins to acknowledge his granddaughter's need for independence...

Director Richard Martin's handling of the rebel assault on the Dalek saucer is much more dynamic here, with prisoners being released and various explosions and flashes. Spencer Chapman's great multi-level set is glimpsed at its best for the first time, but the direction still has a rough-and-ready feel which seems to be Martin's trademark. His roving camera is a clever idea to try and capture various set-pieces, but too often the camera misses, or almost misses, what's going on (a case in point are the gunshots fired off-camera which kill the saucer's lights). It just feels clumsy and under-rehearsed.

The action outside the saucer is better, with rebels attempting to lift and topple the Daleks, good old Barbara chucking grenades, and smoke effects adding to the confusion. The feeling of chaos on set sort of adds to the atmosphere of panic in the story, but there's still that hesitance in execution. One runaway extra stalls his escape to allow a Dalek enough time to catch up with him and kill him, for instance. I acknowledge that 1960s cameras were big, bulky, unwieldy things (as were the Dalek props), but I've seen similar set-pieces in 1960s television executed with much more panache than here.

Francis Chagrin's funereal score continues to be the star of the show, using organ and tom-toms to atmospheric effect. It's easy to see how the Daleks of 1964 scared children behind the sofa because Chagrin's music is menacing and unsettling, and it's often sound and music which leaves the greatest impression on young minds. The metronome-style tick-tock rhythm to the tom-tom beat during the location scenes is fabulous.

Barbara, Dortmun and Jenny flee the abandoned rebel base and make for the Civic Transport Museum to try and find other survivors, but to no avail. However, the location filming in central London depicting their journey is magnificent and tense. We see Daleks giving the Hitler salute at the Albert Memorial (Victoria would not be amused), patrolling Embankment with the Houses of Parliament in the background, and swarming round Whitehall. Indeed, Barbara and Jenny's flight with Dortmun's wheelchair along Whitehall is fantastically shot from below, and the addition of Dalek graffiti on various landmarks is a clever bit of set dressing. I'd go so far as to say these two minutes of location footage in the middle of this episode are among the most thrilling and important in Doctor Who history. Once seen, never forgotten (although it's a shame we never actually get to see Daleks in formation on Westminster Bridge, as in the famous publicity pictures).

There's a visceral feeling of danger built up in this episode. Susan and David hear the massacre of a protesting man in the distance, asking the Daleks why they've killed his brother, and the idea that a Dalek could be round the next corner is palpable. The throwaway death of Baker is bruising too. He risked his life to save the Doctor, and then hoped to flee to safety on the Cornish coast, but he is captured and exterminated in cold blood by the Daleks.

We also get the first proper stirrings of Susan's desire for something more, something better, than her life with the Doctor. She tells David: "I've never felt there was any time or place I belonged to. I've never had a real identity," giving Carole Ann Ford some meat for the first time in probably months. David replies: "One day you will. There'll come a time when you'll be forced to stop travelling and you'll arrive somewhere!" That very-nearly kiss at the end is tantalising, but very telling.

Susan sees an idealism in David that attracts her, as well as a pragmatic truth in what he says. Maybe he represents what she's been looking for since she first gave voice to her thoughts in Marco Polo? Later in the episode she and the Doctor clash over whose plan to follow next. He wants to return to the TARDIS, David thinks they ought to find their rebel friends. Susan concurs with David, and it is at this moment that the Doctor realises he's beginning to lose his granddaughter to maturity and adulthood. He recognises the change in Susan, but instead of fighting it, he lets it in, and defers to David for the way ahead. This whole theme is performed beautifully by Ford and Hartnell, and mirrored by an exchange between Barbara and Jenny. "What's the point in running away all the time?" asks Barbara, to which brittle old Jenny retorts: "I'm not running away, I'm surviving." Something that could easily be said by Susan to David, who disapproves of her ability to jump in a time machine and escape trouble whenever it appears.

There are so many magical moments in this particularly long episode (almost 27 minutes!). There's the moment where a Dalek mistakes a headless mannequin for a human, and calls it "sub-cultural" (the Daleks' waspish barbs didn't begin with Doomsday!). There's the tragedy of Dortmun's suicidal attempt to destroy the Daleks with his new grenade. We see the Daleks watch and wait to see what he can do, but as soon as he produces the bomb, he's exterminated. There's something terribly poignant about Dortmun's wheelchair rolling backwards into the gutter.

And then there's the disembarkation of a swarm of Daleks and Robomen at the end of the episode, making a handful of Dalek props feel like an army. Make no mistake, Day of Reckoning is the episode where the Daleks truly come into their own as Doctor Who's ultimate monster. It's well written, well directed (as well as Richard Martin could manage anyway) and well acted, with some fantastic sets and stunning location filming. I've no idea what the day of reckoning is, but this certainly makes for pure, classic Doctor Who.

First broadcast: December 5th, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The London location filming and Barbara and Jenny's flight through the deserted streets is stunning and instantly memorable.
The Bad: Richard Martin's hesitant direction takes the edge off some of the action sequences yet again.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

NEXT TIME: The End of Tomorrow...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: World's End (episode 1); The Daleks (episode 2); The End of Tomorrow (episode 4); The Waking Ally (episode 5); Flashpoint (episode 6)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-dalek-invasion-of-earth.html

The Dalek Invasion of Earth is available on DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Dalek-Invasion-Earth/dp/B00009PBAN