Music Video of the Day: Doctorin’ The Tardis by The Timelords (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adk1ujjmguo

Today’s music video is for the song that Melody Maker called “”pure, unadulterated agony!”

Recorded in 1988, Doctorin’ The Tardis was produced by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, who would later be better known as The KLF. The song is a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music, Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll (Part Two), Sweet’s Blockbuster, Steve Walsh’s Let Get Together, and the famous Dalek war cry. The song was Drummond and Cauty’s attempt to write a number one hit single, as opposed to the more esoteric and socially conscious work for which they were better known.

As Drummond explained it, “We went into the studio on a Monday, thinking we were going to make a house track, a regular underground dance house track using the Doctor Who theme tune… [but] we [then] realised it was in triplet time and you can’t have house tracks in triplet time. The only beat that would work with it was the Glitter beat. By Tuesday evening we realised we had a number one and we just went totally for the lowest common denominator.” Drummond also later said that Doctorin’ The Tardis was, “the most nauseating record of all time.”

While the critics may have agreed with Drummond, the music-buying public loved the song and Doctorin’ The Tardis spent a week as number one on the UK pop charts. Drummond and Cauty responded by writing a book called The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way), which was advertised as being a guide to how to have a number one hit record without having any musical talent whatsoever. Among The Manual‘s advise: Be on the dole and, if you’re already a musician, stop playing your instrument and sell it. The Manual also warned that all of its advice will be obsolete within twelve months.

The video, which cost £8,000 to make, was filmed in Wiltshire and features Cauty’s 1968 Ford Galaxie police car being pursued by some poorly constructed Daleks.

Exterminate!

This is what a real Dalek looks like, son.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures In The Internet Archive #18: Daleks (1985)

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

For my next adventure in the dark side of the Internet Archive, I played Daleks (1985).

I’m the Doctor!? It’s about time! And I’m battling the Daleks?

It’s time to let those dogmatic salt and pepper shakers know who’s the boss! Press any key to continue? Just try to stop me!

Those do not look like Daleks. I guess that stick figure is me, the Doctor.

The game itself is simple. Every time that The Doctor moves, the Daleks move:

If a Dalek touches you, the game is over. The only way to eliminate a Dalek is to get it to run into another Dalek. It is not easy but it can be done, as my high score of 30 attests. It took me a while to get over my disappointment that the Daleks in the game did not say “Exterminate!” but if you can overlook that, Daleks is an addictive and challenging game.

A Movie A Day #54: Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 (1966, directed by Gordon Flemyng)

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

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When London Special Constable Tom Campbell (Bernard Cribbins) spots a robbery at a jewelry store, he runs into a police box to call for backup. But this is no ordinary blue police call box. Not only is there no phone but it’s bigger on the outside than on the inside and it’s inhabited by Dr. Who (Peter Cushing), an eccentric inventor, and his niece, Louise (Jill Curzon) and his granddaughter, Susan (Roberta Tovey). The call box is a time machine that’s known as a TARDIS and Tom just happens to stumble in at the exact moment that the Doctor and his family are heading into the future. When they arrive in London in 2150, they discover that Earth has been conquered by the Daleks.

Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 was the second and last Doctor Who film to be produced by Amicus Pictures. As both a sequel to Dr. Who and the Daleks and an adaptation of the televisions serial The Daleks Invasion of Earth, Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 shares many of the same flaws as the first movie. Of course, the main one is that, as any true Whovian can tell you, the Doctor was not named Dr. Who, he was not human, and he did not invent the TARDIS. He also never had a niece, at least not one named Louise. Hearing the Doctor introduce himself as “Dr. Who” just sounds wrong. The comedic relief also feels as out of place here as it did in Dr. Who and the Daleks but at least Bernard Cribbins’s Tom isn’t as annoying as Roy Castle’s Ian.

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Even taking all of that into consideration, Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 is still a clear improvement over the first film. The futuristic location, with a London made up of the ruins of recognizable landmarks, is well-realized and far superior to the cardboard sets of the Dr. Who and the Daleks. The moment when the Daleks first appear, rising out of the Thames, is a great Dr. Who moment and, for once, the Daleks comes across like a real threat instead of just oversized salt and pepper shakers with attitude. Unlike the first film, the Daleks use their “EXTERMINATE” war cry and they exterminate almost everyone that the Doctor and his companions meet. Since the Daleks are killing Brits instead of Thals, the stakes are higher in Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150.

Even though he was playing a human version of the character and therefore, cannot be considered canonical, I have always liked Peter Cushing’s interpretation of the character. Cushing’s firm but grandfatherly Doctor was quite a contrast to William Hartnell’s strict and abrupt version. (Cushing’s Doctor has always reminded me more of a combination of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee than William Hartnell.)

Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 may have been far better than the first film but it was also a flop at the box office, ending plans for any further Dr. Who movies.

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What if Peter Cushing Had Played The Doctor: A Look at Dr. Who And The Daleks

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

When the long-running British science fiction show Doctor Who premiered over 50 years ago, it was originally envisioned as being a serialized educational program for children. Each serial would see The Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), and teachers Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) traveling via TARDIS to a different historical period and interacting with real-life figure like Marco Polo and the Emperor Nero. The first serial, An Unearthly Child, featured the Doctor and his companions going back to prehistoric times and teaching cavemen how to make fire.

However, the show’s second serial forever changed the direction of the series. Written by Terry Nation, The Daleks introduced viewers to a race of militaristic aliens who, because they had nearly destroyed their planet in a nuclear war, could only exist inside of a tank-like shell. Devoid of all emotion except for hate, the Daleks were best known for their shrill battle cry of “EXTERMINATE!” Despite being defeated and apparently destroyed at the end of the serial, The Daleks returned to face the Doctor many times and the show itself shifted its focus away from teaching history lessons and instead became the show that we all know and love today.

At its height, the popularity of the Daleks rivaled that of the Doctor and his companions. In 1965, when Amicus Productions produced the first Doctor Who feature film, it was a no-brainer that it would feature the Daleks. With a few key changes (mostly to the character of the Doctor and his companions), Dr. Who and the Daleks recreates the plot of Terry Nation’s original serial. The Doctor (played by Peter Cushing), his granddaughters, Barbara (Jennie Linden) and Susan (Robert Tovey), and Barbara’s boyfriend Ian (Roy Castle) go to the planet Skaro, where they help the peace-loving Thals battle the war-obsessed Daleks.

Beyond selling the rights to the story, the BBC had nothing to do with the film’s production. Amicus obviously geared the film towards children, perhaps not understanding that, though Doctor Who may have started out as a kid’s show, the program itself had become much more adult as it grew in popularity. Hoping to make a film that could appeal to a wider (read: American) audience than the original TV show, Amicus changed a few key details. As a result, for fans of the original show, Dr. Who and the Daleks is a true oddity. It provides an alternative vision of what Doctor Who could have been.

One change that did work is that, at a time when Doctor Who was still being broadcast in black-and-white, Dr. Who and the Daleks was in color. Visually, the film has a pop art feel, full of primary color and featuring locations that feel like low-budget version of the villainous lairs that Ken Adam used to design for the James Bond films. This was the first time that the Daleks had been seen in Technicolor and the show even appropriated the film’s Dalek color-scheme when color episodes started to air in 1970.

Other changes do not work quite as well. The Daleks’ famous “EXTERMINATE” battle cry is never heard. The show’s beloved theme music has been replaced with an uninspired score from veteran Amicus composer Malcolm Lockyer. While the TARDIS still looks like a blue police box and is bigger on the inside than the outside, the sleek control console and the familiar grinding noise are both gone. Instead, the inside of the TARDIS is a cluttered mess of loose wires and flashing lights. The Doctor now has two granddaughters and, undoubtedly in order to appeal to children, Susan is much younger than she was in the television series. As well, in the television series, Ian was a science teacher who had no fear of standing up to The Doctor. The film’s Ian is clumsy and used mostly for broad comic relief.

The biggest change is to the character of the Doctor himself. For fans of the series, there is no bigger pet peeve than when unfamiliar critics refer to the main character as being “Dr. Who.” True fans know that the show’s title is a question and not a statement. No one knows the Doctor’s true name or his exact age. What they do know is that Doctor is a Time Lord from Gallifrey and that he stole his TARDIS. Whenever the Doctor’s body suffers too much damage, he regenerates into a new body (and a different actor).

Of course, in 1965, the Time Lords had yet to be officially introduced. The name “Gallifrey” had never been uttered on the television show. The Time Meddler, which was the first serial to introduce another member of the Doctor’s race, only aired a month before the release of Dr. Who and the Daleks. On the TV series, William Hartnell was still playing the First Doctor and it would be another two years before the character would regenerate for the first time. When Dr. Who and the Daleks was released, all that was known of the Doctor was that he was an alien and no one knew his true name.

Even those two facts are ignored in Dr. Who and the Daleks. Instead of being the abrasive alien that Hartnell played on the show, the film’s Doctor is portrayed as being a brilliant but absent-minded inventor who is very much a human being. The film also establishes early that his last name really is Who, with Ian regularly addressing him as “Dr. Who.” We never learn his first name. Maybe it was Larry.

Dr. Who was played by Peter Cushing, who Amicus felt would be a bigger box office draw than William Hartnell. Cushing does a good job playing his version of the character and it’s interesting to compare his kindly performance to both his better known work for Hammer and George Lucas and William Hartnell’s ruthless interpretation of the character. Cushing regularly goes back to save the life of Castle’s cowardly Ian. Hartnell would have just let him die.

Though the film bombed in North America (where, at the time, Doctor Who was still unknown) it did will enough in the UK to lead to a sequel, Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. When the sequel failed at the box office, plans for future movies starring Peter Cushing as the Doctor were abandoned. That was probably for the best. If the Amicus films had been a success, they could have changed the direction of Doctor Who just as surely as Terry Nation did when he first introduced the Daleks. Doctor Who could have reverted to being a show for children instead of becoming the show that it is today.

Still, it is hard not to wish that Peter Cushing could have gotten to play the Doctor in a “real” Doctor Who film. After all, Christopher Lee would have made a great Master.