Doctor Who "The Daleks" seven part series.

Just finished the second Doctor Who serial, "The Daleks."

Okay, so far, I'm liking the show well enough overall, for what it is, though there are some issues. Lots of zeerust, but that's to be expected. Lots of... hmm... shall we say... outdated gender roles, but I suppose that, too, is to be expected, given that it was created in the 60s.

The Doctor himself is actually kind of an asshole. A curmudgeonly old asshole. At least when he's not being a bumbling fool. And, every once in a while, he rises to the occasion and shows a glimmer of the heroism that is fairly standard of the Doctor in (what I've seen of) the modern version of the show.

The Daleks were... not very threatening at all. Yes, they had their little blasters and killed a few dudes, and, yes, they were planning to radiate their planet and kill everyone but themselves (because the Daleks apparently require radiation to live, which seems to be something they only just found out, after trying to take some anti-radiation medicine, despite them having lived there on that planet for hundreds of years). But... one Dalek was taken out with mud on his visual sensor and being pushed onto a static-inhibiting cloth (because their suits were powered by static electricity in the floor). Other Daleks were taken out by dudes armed with clubs and knives jumping on them and wrestling with the little extended pieces sticking out of them. And then they all died at the end. Not too impressive a showing. I mean, I was pretty much expecting that, given that this was their first appearance in this "new" Doctor Who show, but, hell, even the cavemen in the first serial seemed more of a threat than the Daleks did here. I know other Daleks come back later and they become much more of a threat, but... yeah.

I've always heard the early Doctor Who described as a "kids' show," but there was some pretty dark shit going on, at times, all the same. Dudes being eaten by freakish looking swamp monsters (though, admittedly, off camera, even if that made it almost worse, in a way) and another dude committing suicide by sacrificing himself so that the main male companion could survive. Grim stuff like that, especially for a 60s show.

Well, like I said, I still liked what I've seen so far, so I'll keep going, and I'm sure it will get better as it goes along, on the whole. It's certainly different from the modern show, though, that's for sure.

Doctor Who "Edge of Destruction" two parter

Okay, this one was an odd one. To start with, it was a bottle show, taking place entirely on the TARDIS, apparently for budgetary reasons. Which was fine, as far as I'm concerned. Some of my favorite episodes of the various seasons of Star Trek were bottle episodes. This one for Doctor Who, though, maybe not so much.

The gist is that the spring on a button on one of the TARDIS controls was stuck, which apparently caused them to accidentally fly backwards to the beginning of the universe(?) and threatened to destroy the entire ship, and, as it turned out, the TARDIS itself was trying to warn them of what was going on, in a weird, not entirely helpful manner.

The character interactions seemed really off, to me, especially in part 1. They were all really antagonistic toward one another. Susan brandishing scissors at the others and crazily stabbing a mattress. The Doctor accusing Barbara and Ian of trying to take over his ship and then threatening to boot them out right then, regardless of where they may have happened to be. Ian grabbing The Doctor by the throat for seemingly no good reason. Barbara was pretty much the only one who didn't entirely act weirdly assholish, for the most part.

When Susan had hypothesized at one point that someone or something had entered the TARDIS and was "inside one of us," I figured that was it. Some kind of parasite was controlling them and forcing them to act out of character. I had already sort of guessed at something like that being the case even before she said it.

But, no? Apparently that wasn't the case? Apparently, they were all just being gigantic assholes to each other for seemingly no good reason, aside from something the TARDIS was doing? I mean, even taking into account that the Doctor had been acting kind of assholish from the start, this all seemed more than a bit much, even for him. I don't think the episodes came even remotely close to adequately explaining why they were all acting so hostile to each other, aside from saying "The TARDIS did it." Somehow. Maybe I just missed something.

But, anyway, then Barbara (somehow) interprets the "clues" that the TARDIS was giving them, figures out what is going on and saves the day and makes the Doctor bumble and stammer and try to apologize for the rest of the episode, before she finally accepts, and then all is well and back to normal. Apparently?

Anyway, this is also the first hint that the TARDIS itself is alive, in some way (aside from Ian's "It's alive!" when he touched it in the first episode of the first serial). It's something I already pretty much knew to be the case from having watched the first (Christopher Eccleston) season of the modern show, so that wasn't too awfully surprising or anything.

The music in these two episodes had a rather Silent Hill-ish feel to it, at times.