Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD

Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD is the second of two mid-sixties British films based on the long-running television series 'Doctor Who.' While today's 'Doctor Who' follows the contemporary norm of mostly self-contained stories loosely tied into season-long arcs, the '60s version consisted of 6 episode serials. Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD is a loose adaptation of one of these serials, a six-parter from 1964 entitled “The Dalek Invasion of Earth.” Why a loose adaptation? This film, while a licensed 'Doctor Who' property, was never meant to be part of the series' canon. It deviates from the show's bible in some significant ways and pretty much does its own thing.

How does it deviate? Most importantly, it changes its protagonist. In the early series, William Hartnell's Doctor was a brilliant, irresponsible, and sometimes cowardly alien fugitive who had stolen a space/time machine and run off to see the universe with his teenaged granddaughter. In the film, Peter Cushing's protagonist calls himself Dr. Who. He's a brilliant and benign human scientist who has created a space/time machine and is using it to show his adult niece and ten(ish) year old granddaughter around history.

This Doctor Who is meant for 75-105 minute feature films, not long-form drama. This is fine, of course. The real question is how well it works.

To properly answer this question, I think the viewer must keep in mind what the film is trying to accomplish. It's a low-budget British action movie for children who like 'Doctor Who.'

To that end, Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD does a perfectly respectable job of giving its audience heroic resistance fighters, despicable Dalek aliens, laser guns, and a nice Saturday afternoon's worth of spectacle. Peter Cushing is always wonderful, Bernard Cribbins (who would, in later life, become a series regular) makes a solid hero, the story rocks along pleasantly, and everyone goes home happy. Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD is, in its own way, a fine example of its time, place, and genre. I enjoyed it for what it was.

Doctor Who: The Movie

Doctor Who is a British science fiction series about The Doctor (that’s his name), an alien who travels through time and space, rights wrongs, meets famous people, and has amazing adventures.  The show originally ran from 1963 to 1989, went off the air due to slipping ratings, and resumed in 2005.  It airs on BBC America and has become an unqualified, global hit.

In 1996, however, the show was basically dead.  But The Doctor is hard to kill, and thanks to an expatriate British tv producer in the US, it got a chance to relaunch in America.  Fox and the BBC teamed up to make a tv movie that could serve as a backdoor pilot, but Doctor Who: The Movie aired against the final show of the popular sitcom Roseanne.  It got crushed. 

Ok, enough history.  Is Doctor Who: The Movie any good?  Not really, no.  Eric Roberts, as the villainous Master, is all over the place – menacing one moment and campy the next.  Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, as the love interest and potential sidekick, respectively, don’t have enough charisma to keep up with Paul McGann as the Doctor.  The production’s too cheap to hold up, but not cheap enough to earn it a “good enough for tv” pass.

Now, on to the more important question: is it any good if you’re a fan of Doctor Who?  Sure.  The film stays in continuity with the old BBC tv series and is part of the continuity of the current iteration of ­Doctor Who, so it has plenty to offer those who keep up with such things.  McGann makes for a fine Doctor, the show strikes a decent balance between danger and whimsy, and the whole thing rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half or so.

If you’re interested in checking out Doctor Who, don’t begin with Doctor Who: The Movie.  Instead, see the new-series episode “Silence in the Library,” available on Netflix streaming.  It’s as good as the show gets, and it just may hook you.  If you’re already hooked, Doctor Who: The Movie will fill in a gap and help scratch the itch until the next new episode.  It worked for me.