Escape To Danger No.33

Reading back over a few of these entries, I have encountered two noteworthy things. Firstly, it's about time I looked at a Dalek story again. And secondly, it's about time I looked at a story I really don't like again.

 

So if I combine the two criteria, I calculate that I have no less than three possible contenders for inclusion in the column today.

The fact that I've just watched an episode of Sergeant Cork that features John Bailey as a pusillanimous Victorian held in the thrall of a stronger personality, who is convinced to use his shop as a front for a forging racket, is totally coincidental...

 

While the prospect of John Barrie being confronted by a Dalek dully intoning "Who-Are-You?" would obviously have spiced up Serial LL no end, such a crossover was sadly never on the cards.

 

 

Stock portrait of Frazer Hines, there. (Sonny Caldinez in a fez not pictured).

 

The fact that "The Evil of the Daleks" is so universally acclaimed is one that makes me more than slightly uncomfortable. To this day, I still suspect that my strong antipathy towards the story must somehow be misplaced. Surely I must be missing something that others have found so delightful?

 

 

And yet everytime I watch/listen to it, I can't find it in me to actually like it. (Maybe taking telesnaps into serious consideration would help, but I seem to recall this story was one of many that I made endless VHS copies of, back when high quality reconstructions came my way at a very gratifying rate).

 

 

Even Brigit Forsyth and Windsor Davies can't rescue things once all the execrable Episode 1 malarkey is done with. (And all the hype about Marius Goring being in it never meant much to me either. He's a bit shit, to be frank).

 

 

I could go on (and on), and I suppose I really should continue to moan about the whole tiresome Jamie/Kemel thing, Victoria as boring peril-monkey, Arthur Terrall as utterly pointless, and the whole Dalek plan as being nonsense on a stick.

 

But life's too short, and more and more I tend towards a Humean conclusion of "Sod it, let's go to the pub".

 

Look, if you want me to justify myself, I'll set up a paypal donation link and feel obliged to be accountable as an author. Until then, I'll do as I bloody well like here...

 

 

Who's that? Derek Martinus? More like Timothy Combe who was AFM on this and other stories before he shone as a director in the Pertwee era.

Again, a stock portrait shot that did the rounds a lot. It's not the best one from that particular photoshoot with Debbie Watling (others taken by a lake are really quite lovely), but we'd be straying from the point of this column if we went there.

 

Ah, the Dalek Emperor. Obviously cribbed from the TV Century 21 comic strips from a design point of view, I do however have a certain fondness for it. And the pyrotechnics of the final battle scenes are admittedly rather splendid from the scant cine footage that survives today. (The Rolykins aren't quite as impressive, but I've never let dodgy model effects cloud my enjoyment, and I don't intend to start now).

 

 

Contrary to popular belief, I still can't view this as David Whitaker's finest hour. And I am ashamed to note that during the course of writing this piece, I have also managed to burn a lasagne and almost set fire to a tea-towel.

So that's another nail in Serial LL's synaesthetic coffin...