Doctor Who: The Daleks

Had been years since I’d seen the original but could remembered the important story beats and glacial pacing. As with Ed’s edit of “An Unearthly Child”, nowhere at any time did it feel to me like a large chunk had been taken out, the resulting cuts giving a narrative that now moves along nicely.

The Daleks, the story that introduces the most iconic of Doctor Who monsters.

The Daleks in two parts pares only a few of the lesser moments away, while keeping intact the core of the plot. The most notable removal being early in the story, a short sideplot where Susan gets frightened when she thinks she's been touched by someone in the jungle, but no one believes her. All that's left in is a stray line the Doctor says to her at the food machine with no context. Some of the Thals dialogue gets trimmed as well, but there's still plenty there. Most of the Dalek interactions are still present, some excellent, some rather tedious.

The added incidental music is mostly well placed, although there is one spot I felt is really cued too early, which made me think it was a sound effect, throwing me out of the scene for a second. I didn't find any flaws in the visual editing, and the added episode title cards work seamlessly. The episode break is well placed and timed in the story.

Even cut to less than two hours The Daleks will still feel long, I think. The story twists and cliffhangers are pretty contrived and obvious. The early Daleks talk way too much for what's strictly needed for the plot, but let's chalk that up to it being the first story of its kind on Doctor Who. Considering that just about an episode's worth of material is gone, it still seems like a light touch up. MusicEd has done excellent work on this.