The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Dear Gary—

And so it is goodbye to Susan. I wish that I knew your opinion of Susan, Gary. I realize I have maligned her throughout, but it’s not her fault and it certainly is not Carole Ann Ford’s fault. It is simply the way her character was developed, or not developed. I understand why the creators wanted a young girl—someone the children could relate to. This is surely nobler than later minds that needed a hot young woman who the fathers could relate to. However they made a few mistakes. One was casting an older actress to play an obviously younger character. The other was underestimating children. Kids wouldn’t connect merely based on the age of a character. From all reports children adored William Hartnell’s Doctor despite his age. Substance is just as important. A young girl for the children is a good idea if the young girl has some dimension.  (I often wish the child Amelia had been retained as a companion for Matt Smith’s Doctor.)

Of course the character of Susan is really ageless.  Being a Time Lord (as we can only assume from future knowledge of Doctor Who) she could be any age and in any regeneration. She is a young teen by Earth standards, and since that is where we first meet her and that is what Barbara and Ian know her as, this is how we perceive her. And in this our story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, she has a proper send off. Yes, she has her share of twisted ankles and screaming at unexpected threats, but she also has a romance. A sweet and delicate romance that plays out without ever having to explicitly ram it down our throats. For all the Dalek threat and rebel activity thrashing about, there are so many understated layers of emotion artfully filling out this gripping drama.

Our little Susan is growing up. She is also longing for a time and place of her own. She grows weary of this constant travel.  David offers her “a place, a time . . .identity.” But, Susan counters, “Grandfather’s old now ; he needs me.”  Grandfather is not as old or as needy as she thinks. It is touching to watch William Hartnell’s Doctor gradually come to realize that he must part with Susan for her own good. We can witness this realization, unspoken but present through his looks and gestures as they give new meaning to his words. And then, he ‘double locks’ the TARDIS doors against her and sends her off to have roots of her own, to “live normally like any woman should do.” He advises her to ‘”go forward in all your beliefs” and to prove to him that he is not mistaken in his. “One day I shall come back,” he promises. But he never does.

 Parenthetically, Gary, I always wondered in the modern era of Doctor Who, about the fate of Susan. The Doctor today emphasizes how he is the Last Of The Time Lords, but what of Susan? And any young Susans she might have had? For that matter, what of Romana off in E Space? I suppose we can only assume that in this final fatal last Time War all Time Lords scattered throughout time and space and dimensions were called back and did not survive. Or maybe someday the Doctor will remember that he has a granddaughter back in 2164 London and will return for a visit, or find a way back to E Space and make little Doctors with Romana.

But to return to our story. Not only is Susan’s character finally allowed to develop and grow, but the story itself is compelling and the atmosphere is marvelously gritty and eerily, fantastically real. Our year is 2164 and our place Earth. (Another marker to note, Gary, in our Doctor Who timeline.) The opening shots of this familiar yet strange place are fantastic, from the decaying bridge, to the overgrown shore, to the alarming signboard warning against body dumping, to the chilling sight of a man not a man grimly and vacantly walking into the filthy river and to his death. In just a few powerful seconds our stage is brilliantly set.

I find Ian particularly interesting in the early going of this story. “Why? Why do they do it,” he exclaims disgustedly upon returning to find the girls have gone. I don’t know why, but I find this irritation of his endearing. Just a few words, gestures, and inflections reveal so much to us about Ian and the group as a whole, their relationships and history. Another fascinating aspect to Ian early on is his total disinterest in the fate of his world. The Doctor, ever curious, wonders what has happened to this London of 2164, but no, Ian states, “I don’t want to know.” This intrigues me, these flashes of irritation and disinterest on the part of Ian to begin our story. He gets over them, and goes on to play an integral part in saving the Earth from the Daleks, but how wonderful that his character is given this chance to explore the inner workings of his mind as he has been whisked out of his own time and space, faced countless dangers, traveled throughout history, explored alien planets, and now he is back on his own planet in his home city but still out of place.

There are so many things to discuss about this story, Gary; it’s hard to know where to go next. I suppose an obvious point of discussion is the Daleks.  This is our second meeting with this arch enemy, and we learn that it is taking place a million years prior to our first encounter, at least by the Doctor’s reckoning. I’m not sure how this fits in with the Dalek timeline. We will come to learn that the Daleks were created by Davros on Skaro back during the war with the Thals, which would mean that in 2164 the Daleks had not yet been created. However with time travel involved, we can only assume that the future Daleks have traveled back in time, just as the Doctor has. So are these Daleks from the time before or after their first meeting with the Doctor? Is the first Dalek adventure in these Daleks’ history or future? The Daleks in our first story had been wiped out, at least on Skaro. Are these Daleks who are now invading Earth Daleks who survived that extermination, or are they Daleks who had gone out to explore other worlds prior to that first meeting with the Doctor? Perhaps it is best not to think too much about such time traveling matters. They all get mixed up in that time swirl of the Doctor and who knows where they get spit out.

When last we saw them, the Daleks were confined to their metal city on Skaro. Here they are digging through mines, traversing the streets of London, even emerging through the waters of the Thames. By way of explanation we are told that the disc they now sport on their backs has allowed them to adapt to various terrains. Of course this begs the question, if the Daleks of one million years prior had such discs, why didn’t the Daleks from our first story have them? But again, too much thinking . . . the Doctor’s time swirl . . . . In this story, too, we are first introduced to the term ‘Dalekanium’—the metal used in the Dalek’s outer casing. And we first get to meet a ‘different’ Dalek, in this case the black Dalek. One final thought regarding the Daleks, Gary. It’s more of a question, really. Why? Why do they do it? (To quote Ian.) Why do they dig down to the Earth’s core in order to replace it with a power system to pilot it through the universe? Why?

There are so many things I could discuss about this story, Gary. How I wish you were here. But I guess I’ll wind things up with a few brief observances. The robomen, for instance. Did you happen to notice how similar in concept and design they are to Cybermen? And the Doctor, as always, has a few gems, despite sitting out one episode of the story. “You’re a genious,” he is told. “Yes,” he responds, “and there are very few of us left.” Someone else calls him Doc. “Thank you,” he says, “but don’t call me Doc. I prefer Doctor.” A second reference to himself as the Doctor, solidifying it in our Who annals.

But it is the touching send off of Susan that will always define this story. The Doctor’s granddaughter. The reason we, along with Ian and Barbara, are on this magnificent ride. The beginning. The end. The end of the beginning. It started in a junk yard. It ends along the decaying shores of the Thames. Good bye, Susan. “Go forward in all your beliefs.”

Go forward . . . .