Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
Okay, let me be clear about something. I love the first ‘Daleks’ story with William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford in ‘Doctor Who’. It’s one of the best William Hartnell/First Doctor era stories in the classic TV series. One I’ll happily revisit on DVD and Britbox. 🙂
For ‘Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary, it was decided to present a colour version of ‘The Daleks’ on BBC Four. Now this is something I wasn’t fussed about when I heard it being announced, since I prefer the original seven-part black-and-white version of the story and I didn’t need it to be in colour.
But since it’s the 60th anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’, I thought I might as well check it out to see what it’s like. I expected this to be a straight-forward colourisation of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV story and that there wouldn’t be many changes to it. I like how this story was shown in its black-and-white form.
Sadly, I was disappointed to find that the colour version of ‘The Daleks’ is compressed to 1 hour and 15 minutes and it cuts out a lot of memorable dialogue I know from watching the black-and-white version. Trust me, I’ve seen ‘The Daleks’ umpteen times to know when the cuts were made in colour.
I appreciate this is like an attempt to make ‘The Daleks’ a movie of sorts or to make it like a new series TV episode of ‘Doctor Who’. But frankly, I prefer ‘Dr. Who and the Daleks’ with Peter Cushing as a colour version of the original ‘Daleks’ story. The cuts in the colourised version are so distracting.
And it’s not just the cuts in terms of the final edit that bothered me. There was too much music to put up with whilst watching ‘The Daleks in Colour’. Mark Ayres provided some additional music, sound design and mix to the colourised version and Murray Gold provided us the closing title music.
Why did we need to have additional music, sound design and mix in the colour version of ‘The Daleks’? The incidental music by Tristram Cary and the BBC Radiophonic sound design in the original seven-part TV story is fine. I didn’t feel the need to boost the story with upgrades in music and sound.
This could have been a straight-forward colourisation of the seven-part ‘Daleks’ story, in league with colourised versions of Christmas films like ‘Holiday Inn’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, and colourised versions of some Laurel & Hardy films. It baffles me why they didn’t do it that way for this TV story.
Yes, there’s the issue of whether to transmit all seven episodes of ‘The Daleks’ on one night or two nights, but I would have been happy either way if the BBC did a straight-forward colourisation of the original ‘Daleks’ story. At least all the dialogue, the original music and sound design would be intact.
I will say some positive things about the colourisation of ‘The Daleks’ in the 2023 edition. It’s interesting how they colourised it compared to seeing it in black-and-white and most of it is good, right from the Daleks being silver with blue baubles to Barbara wearing her pink cardigan in the story.
I liked it when the Daleks opened fire with green death rays in the colour version as opposed to nothing coming out of their gun-sticks in the black-and-white version. I always prefer that when seeing the Daleks in ‘Doctor Who’ nowadays and I’m pleased they included it for this colour version.
It was also nice to see how ‘The Daleks in Colour’ ended with a preview of what’s to come in the 1960s era of the classic TV series, featuring colour images of ‘The Keys of Marinus’, ‘The Sensorites’, ‘The Reign of Terror’, ‘Planet of Giants’, ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, ‘The Rescue’, ‘The Romans’, ‘The Web Planet’, ‘The Crusade’, ‘The Space Museum’, ‘The Chase’, ‘The Time Meddler’, ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, ‘The Ark’, ‘The Celestial Toymaker’, ‘The Gunfighters’, ‘The War Machines’, ‘The Smugglers’ and ‘The Tenth Planet’. There’s even a cameo of Patrick Troughton’s Doctor at the end. 🙂
So, ‘The Daleks in Colour’ wasn’t an entirely satisfying experience for me when checking it out on BBC Four. I’m glad I’ve seen it and it satisfied my curiosity, but I wish this was a straight-forward colourisation of the first ‘Daleks’ story without the editing cuts, additional music and sound mixing. 😦
I’m likely to check out the original black-and-white version of ‘The Daleks’ more than its colour counterpart. 😐 By the way, I noticed Nicholas Briggs voiced some Daleks in the 2023 colour edition of the original ‘Daleks’ story. I didn’t need to check the end credits, since I knew it was him already. 😀
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
Hi Tim,
I’ll be honest… I really enjoyed watching the colour version of ‘The Daleks’.
Don’t get me wrong, I can agree with a lot of what you said. I actually liked that different music was used, although I felt there were some scenes that didn’t need it. Also, I didn’t mind that is wasn’t the full 7-episode serial that was colourised. Although they could have done 15 more minutes.
I’m hoping to buy this on Blu-Ray next February. I know the original B/W version is going to be on the release as well, but there are other features on it that are exclusive.
Xavier
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Hi Xaver,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the colourised version of ‘The Daleks’. Glad you enjoyed watching it. I suppose it’s down to me having watched the original black-and-white story umpteen times and having seen colourised versions of black-and-white films like ‘Holiday Inn’, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and the Laurel & Hardy versions that I was expecting all seven episodes to be colourised and not condensed in an hour and fifteen minutes with new music and sound effects. Maybe over time, I’ll grow to like ‘The Daleks in Colour’ more. I just found the new music and sound effects distracting, and I prefer the story in its relaxed pace in the original version where no cuts in the edit were made.
Hope you enjoy revisting ‘The Daleks in Colour’ on Blu-ray when it comes out in February.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
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That’s always the trick with recutting older media. 20th-century ‘Doctor Who’ is filmed more like a RSC stageplay than a Hollywood blockbuster and will be for twenty-six years. Productions are geared more strongly towards modern approaches with modern tools (naturally) which can get a bit fraught when handling content that was produced more than half-a-century ago. Where edits were made by hand with a scalpel and tape, rather than bits and a mouse.
It’s why, conversely, “Day of the Daleks: Special Edition” looks so good. Not only did they go out and shoot additional footage with the necessary props, costumes and locations, they also tried to film it on the cameras used by the original production team. I’ll be interested to see if the original monochrome serial gets a 5.1 sound mix (Tristram Cary did do the incidental score for Hammer’s ‘Quatermass and the Pit’, after all; he was a cinematic composer).
“The Daleks” is a film split into seven portions. Cutting it down to just over an hour was always going to feel a bit clunky. Especially given how well-plotted Terry Nation made those first four episodes. Personally… I think the story is only 30-minutes too long. Cut down to six episodes and it’d be more or less perfect. Just long enough to have the audience’s attention, keep it and let it go before attention began to wane.
I’m very interested in seeing what they could do with “The Web Planet”, though. Unlike “The Daleks” which has a comprehensive soundscape and very tight editing for its era, everything on Vortis is quite sparse. Both visually and audibly. Far kinder to any efforts to recut and colourise.
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Hi Wolfie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the recent colour version of ‘The Daleks’ shown for the 60th anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’. I know I’ve been critical about ‘The Daleks in Colour’ and perhaps I’ll revisit it with an open mind and with more positive things to say about it. But I wish it was just a straight-forward colourisation of ‘The Daleks’ story rather than having to condense it to 1 hour and 15 minutes and featuring new sounds and music that didn’t really need it. Heck, if the BBC wanted it to be like a new series TV story, they could have made it a three-part story instead, especially with editing out material to make the original more like six episodes instead of seven episodes as you suggested. I enjoyed revisiting ‘Holiday Inn’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ in colour on DVD and Blu-ray recently and they’re straight-forward colourisations of those Christmas films, which speaks volumes compared to when you check out ‘The Daleks in Colour’.
Oh, the Special Edition version of ‘Day of the Daleks’ is one of my favourites and I enjoyed revisiting it in the Season 9 Blu-ray box set recently. I prefer watching that over the original TV version that had less effective Dalek voices and the new CGI and film sequences in the Special Edition version are superb. I admit it was nice to see colourised scenes of other William Hartnell-era ‘Doctor Who’ stories in the closing moments of ‘The Daleks in Colour’, especially ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ for obvious reasons related to ‘The Giggle’ (but that’s something I’ll share for another time). It would be nice to see what they can do with ‘The Web Planet’ if they were colourise it in full. Hopefully, it’ll be more impressive compared to what’s in the original black-and-white TV version of the story.
Many thanks for your comments.
Tim 🙂
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Hi Tim,
Thank you for a review which, though I have not yet viewed the colorized version of “The Daleks”, seems to reflect appreciation of those subtle factors which contribute to the making of a masterpiece. As you are an aficionado of the classic DW, perhaps like myself you discover lost masterpieces as time progresses. Serials which age like wine, or a Doctor who increases in value to one after re-viewings of said Doctor’s serials over time. Incidental music and lack of unseemly background music are crucial elements. As for good dialogue, her price is far above rubies, including those “throw away” lines which one recalls when even the plot is forgotten years later. Trimming seven approximately 25-minute episodes down to 75 minutes. Hmmm. The First Doctor’s adventures have risen in my enjoyment of them over time. Like “Babes in Toyland”, you would think William Hartnell’s Doctor weighed in similarly to receive a full serial’s colorization. But no. As Lister on Red Dwarf would have commented, “Philistines!” These classic serials are like works of art to some of us. We see the brush strokes and texturing employed when raw materials were limited. New Who? Well, it’s not art IMHO. Thanks again for the well-considered and well-rounded review, fitting for a Classic DW serial!
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Hi John,
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts on the original ‘Daleks’ story. Glad you enjoyed my review on the colourised version of the story. It’s a shame about the recent colour version of ‘The Daleks’, as I would have enjoyed it if cuts weren’t made to dialogue in certain scenes and I wish changes weren’t made to the sound mixing and music.
As much as I’ve enjoyed DVD special edition/movie versions of ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Planet of Fire’ from the Peter Davison/Fifth Doctor era, I’m likely to watch the full-on four-part versions of those stories more, since mostly all the scenes in those stories are intact and they feel more complete compared to their updated movie counterparts. It’s why I prefer to check out the DVD special edition versions of ‘The Five Doctors’, ‘Battlefield’ and ‘The Curse of Fenric’ more, as they have more scenes and are more complete compared to their original counterparts.
Again, maybe my thoughts on ‘The Daleks in Colour’ will change as time goes on, but I struggle to understand why a full-on colourisation of all seven episodes of the original ‘Daleks’ story wasn’t done, as I would have enjoyed that and it would match to what the colour versions of Christmas films like ‘Holiday Inn’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ have done.
Many thanks for your comments.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
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Thanks for your further thoughts!
You made me recall what maybe should have been an obvious reflection on my part, which is, don’t I and others (re SciFi TV/film) seek out Director’s Cuts, deleted scenes like the one from The Meddling Monk, etc, rather than the opposite trend? Well, I can take it as an experiment. As you noted, as an attempt to trim it down to a conventional one-film length. It just leaves us classic DW purists miffed though, and not too sure the product will garner new classic DW fans, although that’s one possible goal in doing it.
I’m on the other side of the pond, and suddenly a local TV station showed the two Peter Cushing Dalek films multiple times last month. It may have been a coincidence, but then upon finding out about the BBC Four showing just recently, the pieces of the probable puzzle fell into place. There were some great set designs in those two films which I appreciated for the first time. Maybe I’m CGI weary, and the great color variety of the sets and Daleks suddenly impressed. I didn’t know about the similar movie version of Planet of Fire, thanks for sharing that. Looking forward to viewing The Daleks in color in February, liking that you mentioned those color-specific highlights, but for the meantime have the original. Thanks again.
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Hi John,
Glad you enjoyed my extra thoughts on ‘The Daleks in Colour’.
Yes, I appreciate it being an experiment as to how the original ‘Daleks’ story would be done as a new TV series episode and maybe if there’s an option on the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release where all seven episodes are colourised without the additional music and sound effects, I would appreciate it more. Somehow I doubt that’s going to be a thing when the colour version of ‘The Daleks’ does get released in 2024.
I greatly enjoyed checking out the 4K restoration of the two ‘Doctor Who’ films with Peter Cushing and the Daleks at the cinema last year and recently on Britbox this year. It was nice to remember Peter Cushing’s contribution to ‘Doctor Who’ for the 60th anniversary in that way and even though the two films aren’t part of the main continuity of the TV series, I still have a soft spot for them.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
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I remember first seeing the Peter Cushing Dalek movies when I was a kid. To this day they still earn a lot of interest and indeed for how Cushing was the first of the “Other Doctors” outside the main franchise.
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Hi scifimike,
Yes, it’s amazing to think that Peter Cushing was the first Unbound Doctor for ‘Doctor Who’ in the movies back in the 1960s. I’m pleased I’ve included a cameo of him and the movie versions of Ian, Barbara and Susan in my 60th anniversary story ‘The Thirteen+ Doctors’.
Many thanks for your comments.
Kind regards,
Tim 🙂
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