Trawling back through my childhood memories, it's hard to be sure exactly which Doctor Who story was the first one I really remember watching on first broadcast. I have a very strong mental and emotional image of the Sea Devils rising from the waves and also of a Dalek emerging from an old darkened train tunnel but I can't be sure, based on those two single moments, that they are actually from watching The Sea Devils (1972) or The Day of the Daleks (1972) respectively or just as likely, from one of the many Blue Peter episodes to feature clips from the show's rich history. What muddies the waters even more is that in the intervening years, I have watched all of the remaining old stories any number of times on Video, DVD and even, on occasion, as a novelty TV repeat. Something that just didn't really happen back in the day.
However, when you get to the 1973 story; The Planet of the Daleks, I have a good dozen or so moments which stick indelibly in the mind and that still, when pondered, vibrate with the same emotional thrill as first felt when I was 5.
Killer jungle plants, crashed spaceships, invisible Spiridons and an invisible Dalek being slowly revealed. The Doctor sneaking between hundreds of slumbering Daleks as they begin to wake, claustrophobic ice-caves filling with water and brave Thal commandos being killed in action. Daring escapes up lift shafts with Daleks in hot pursuit, Daleks being drowned in smokey waters and their gory insides scooped out into the light of day. And even if you didn't actually see it, you still saw in your mind's eye. It was a fever dream of wonderful dark treats to a 5 year old who never once hid behind the sofa or even held up a cushion. I was there, eyes wide and fully engaged in the moment while the fish fingers went cold on the plate on my lap. The show was a Saturday teatime ritual with siblings and my mum all sitting down to watch together, at least for a few years.
After a while my sister found it silly, my older brother found football and my younger brother was too young to care. I kept turning up.
I'm not sure why Doctor Who spoke to me quite so personally back than and more importantly why I adored the threat of danger, the monsters and the horror and death of it all. It seems very young to be so enthralled by all of that dark stuff and yet I was and carried on being.
At this point in 1973, The Planet of the Daleks was just a series of set pieces to me, perils stacked upon perils, fragments of a larger story I didn't fully follow but which I fully understood emotionally; the danger and the heroism. It was more than enough and it carved a space for its self in my young mind.
Some years later I read this;
The novelisation of the story by Terrance Dicks, must have one of the finest covers in the whole range, with its vivid palette and illustrative special effect death ray. The threat of imminent extermination for the heroes is still right there on that cover. An emotional trigger back into the story. It was first published by Target in 1976 with Chris Achilleos providing the art. I don't think I added it to my collection until around 1979 but when I did it became a prize to be treasured, read and gazed upon at length.
Around about a year later in 1980, I was gifted a copy of this;
The St Michael's Doctor Who and the Daleks Omnibus was originally published in 1976. I can't remember the name of the girl who gave it to me at school one day. Her brother had been having a clear out and she had remembered from a previous year's 'show and tell' class, that I liked the series. I hadn't been aware of the book before then but even as a second hand copy, a little worn and torn around the dust jacket, it was still a wonderful thing to possess and I hope I was suitably appreciative and grateful. Its a glorious thing full of illustrations and photos, Dalek histories and Dalek stories. One of the stories was of course; The Planet of the Daleks, and of all the illustrations that went with it, I think I find this one the most striking;
And not least because it triggered the memory of dread emotion from some 7 years previous when we thrilled at what was inside a dead Dalek. And even if we didn't quite get to see it again, its still plainly horrific.
Ogling a good piece of artwork was what used to keep us going while we waited for the future to bring us affordable home videos and DVDs. And now that it has, and a library of all the available stories is only an arms reach away, it would be a terrible shame if we then forgot the magic of those earlier medium or the thrill of that first watch.
Steve
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