Embedded Files
Doctor Who and his mates have landed in London! They are super delighted about this, because for some reason they want to be in a rainy, miserable bit of wasteland rather than riding around on spaceships laughing at aliens.
Ian and Barbara, there in the background, are particularly pleased. They are from 1960s London, you see, and they're looking forward to smoking hundreds of cigarettes while nodding furiously to some beat poetry.
Well the joke's on them, because it turns out they're not in the 1960s at all. They're in a super horrible future London where everything is rubbish and everyone is either dead, or wishes they were. It's going to be fun watching them find this out, when a corpse bobs up out of the Thames right in front of their horrified faces.
Turns out the Daleks have invaded, and that's why everything is so rubbish.
They've taken over the whole planet. but still feel the need to fly around everywhere, showing off. "Look at us, we've got a flying saucer."
"We know," say the surviving Earthlings. "You invaded us with it. Stop going on about it. Honestly. The Cybermen were never like this."
These guys are called Robomen. They're kind of like zombies. The Daleks put helmets on them, and now they have to do Dalek stuff. The Daleks talk big, but they are notoriously lazy and hate doing any actual work for themselves.
These two Robomen are clearly skiving, though. It looks like they've just been caught, and they're trying to brazen it out. "We weren't staring at the river and spotting corpses and giving them names and imagining their relationships. We were hunting a human. He just ran off. He was really big, wasn't he Steve?"
This Dalek has been swimming. This is unusual behaviour for the Daleks. Their main hobbies, as far as we know, can generally be summed up using the words 'shouting', 'zooming about' and 'extreme murder'.
This one is branching out and trying new things. Unfortunately, when it surfaces, Doctor Who is standing right there looking at it.
The Dalek tries to pretend it was an amazing trap, and starts shouting about how clever it is. But it knows that Doctor Who will be logging this mentally. Every time it tries to boss Doctor Who about in future, it will know that Doctor Who is picturing this moment, and won't be able to look him in the eye.
Doctor Who and Ian get captured, and now this Roboman guy has to look after them. I don't think he's very confident about his role in proceedings, is he? He's trying to convey "I will not tolerate any messing about," but his expression suggests that if there is any messing about, he will have no idea how to make it stop.
What if they run away in different directions? What if they start saying mean things about his massive metal hat? What if they confidently proclaim that he's the prisoner, and they are in charge? He wishes the Dalek would come back.
Doctor Who is clucking away about how stupid the Daleks are, and how brilliantly he's going to defeat them. Ian is remembering the last time this happened, and how Doctor Who just sat on a chair and watched while everyone else hit the Daleks with sticks and mostly died.
This is the King Dalek. He lives on the spaceship and has a cool stripy skirt, which is the talk of Dalek society. I wonder which came first. Did he become King, and immediately demand an extravagant skirt? Or was he naturally stripy, and became King because everyone was so beguiled by his fashion sense? We'll never know.
I can't remember why he's prodding this Roboman in the stomach. I think maybe this is the place that they turn people into Robomen in the first place. He's just stuck a big helmet on him, and now he's testing him to make sure he's obedient.
If he prods the Roboman, and the Roboman is fine about it, then the processing has worked. If the Roboman giggles and shrieks and says, "Stop it, stop it!" and can't stop laughing, then the conversion probably hasn't taken.
Susan has got split up from Doctor Who and the others. But it's OK because she's met this very handsome pop star looking kind of guy. He's called David, and he's determined to defeat the Daleks.
He keeps telling Susan his plans to find out what the Daleks are up to, and put a stop to it. But she is not listening. Look at her. She's just gawping in amazement at his astonishingly attractive face. In fairness to her, most of the faces she usually sees are either weird asymmetrical aliens or Doctor Who's mad eyed, crinkly old visage. So it's understandable that she might have forgotten what it's like to fancy someone.
But also, this guy is ridiculously good looking. He looks like he knows it too, and has kind of got used to people staring at him in this way. He's probably only trying to stop the Daleks so there'll be a return to normal civilisation, and he can get on with making black and white, arty music videos where he carries a guitar and looks soulfully out over the sea.
This Dalek is taking a selfie. "I am in London!" he's thinking. "Everyone will be amazed at how great I am."
I can only assume he's using his sucker arm as a kind of selfie-stick. That's quite clever. I know it's just a dome with an eyestalk, but I think he looks really happy.
A lot of this story is taken up with the Daleks zooming about in London. It has to be said, they look awesome. The one on the left is gazing majestically across the skyline, thinking about how great he must look. His mate is looking at him like he's asking if they've got time to do the zoo as well, or if they should be getting back to the spaceship.
It does rather seem that the Robomen are doing all the work of rounding up prisoners and enforcing curfews etc. while the Daleks are, essentially, on holiday.
Doctor Who has been asleep for quite a lot of this story. This is pretty standard behaviour. He gets his head down for a bit; meanwhile everyone else gets captured and works out what the story is about. Then he springs back to life and declares himself in charge.
Everyone else is too tired to put up a fight. They're all staring at the floor, thinking, "Why is he repeating everything we just told him, except louder and as if he just thought of it?"
I'm particularly fond of this shot. If anything ever summed up what it must be like to have Doctor Who shouting in your ear, it's David's face here. He's thinking, "When did he even have time to get drunk?"
"We must pit our wits against them!" yells Doctor Who, by which he presumably means, "You must charge towards the Daleks and hope you don't die, while I stay here and eat all this breakfast."
This guy is the Black Dalek, and I think he's probably the most important one. Look at him! He's so cool. You wouldn't mind being exterminated by him, would you? You'd just think yourself lucky to have such an aesthetically pleasing death, and maybe ask people to take as many photos as possible.
Black Dalek is in charge of a big drill, which is going to send bombs into the core of the earth. I reckon he's going to succeed as well. He clearly means business and I bet he's good at everything. He's probably an amazing orator, and knows about wine, and is surprisingly funny when you get to know him.
He's shouting orders, and everyone is super psyched to obey them. More drilling! Prepare the bombs! Polish my hemispheres! Play my victory megamix - maximum volume!
The Daleks haven't reckoned on Ian, though, have they? Look, he's climbed right into their big bomb and you just know he's planning some science based mischief.
This Dalek is saying, "Please could you get out of the bomb? I'm not meant to let the humans go anywhere near it, let alone inside."
Ian refuses to look at the Dalek or engage with it in any way. Daleks can't cry, I don't think, but I bet this one must be getting pretty close.
Barbara, meanwhile, is hanging out with Black Dalek. She's been captured, and for some reason she gets to visit the big Dalek control room. I think maybe she said she had some important information, and they got all excited about it. Daleks love knowing stuff, and then repeating whatever they've learned at increasing volume and pitch until something explodes.
Black Dalek keeps saying, "What is the information please?" but she keeps going off topic and being really vague. Black Dalek looks really frustrated and sad. I don't think there are any girl Daleks, as such, so they have no experience of what to do when one makes you excited, yet confused, and a bit sort of melancholy, all at the same time.
Eventually there is a massive rebellion and everything goes wrong for the Daleks. This one, in particular, is having a terrible time. Everyone is shouting, "Let's throw him down a pit!" And no-one seems to be listening to him saying, "Please don't."
At least I think that's what's happening. I suppose it's possible that they are bearing him aloft, in recognition of his being their favourite of all the evil machines who kept them imprisoned for years. Maybe once this is over, they'll all become friends, and he'll get to live on the new, Dalek free Earth, and integrate with society, through a process of restorative conversations and reconciliation.
No. They thrown him down a pit.
Who are the real monsters, eh?
The Daleks are defeated, but there's one more thing to happen. This is Susan's last story.
She doesn't know it's her last story, though. That's why she looks all confused. Doctor Who is sighing theatrically and saying, "Oh, the times we've had!" and "Things will never be the same without you."
Are Ian and Barbara leaving? Is he talking to the shoe in his hand? Is it simply that we have, at last, hit the point of 'too much gin' and Doctor Who has finally lost his mind?
It is none of the above. Doctor Who goes in the TARDIS, and then locks Susan out.
He then gives a pretty good speech about her living a good life with the super beautiful rock star Jesus that she's been clinging onto all story. Yes, Doctor Who may drift through most stories totally oblivious to everything except the location of the nearest place he can have a lie down. But even he's noticed that Susan has been pawing at David since episode two.
If there's one thing he can't face it's the prospect of Susan crying all over the console room every day, and covering everything in drawings of David's face and poems called 'The Daleks Tried to Steal the Core of the Earth But You Stole My Heart."
The TARDIS disappears, leaving Susan on Earth forever. It's to be hoped that she hasn't rushed into anything, with this man she met a couple of days ago in extremely heightened emotional circumstances.
In this world that probably doesn't have running water, and if it did, that water would be poisonous because of all the corpses in the river.
A place with no extant political structure, making it quite likely that a fascist state will rise, led by bitter and resentful idealogues who cling to the idea of an idealised past and try to recapture that time through regressive and authoritarian systems and policies.
Also it's England, so it will probably rain a lot.
I'm sure she'll be fine.
Goodbye, Susan. You were weird and kooky and occasionally interesting. Try not to trip over literally everything that gets even vaguely in your way.
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