The horrors of Dr Who
- Publication: Reading Evening Post
- Date: 1979-09-10
- Author: Linton Mitchell
- Page: 2
- Language: English
NOT ONLY are the Daleks back with us on Saturday nights nastier than they have ever been before, the monstrosities in tin cans have managed to add to their vocabulary.
As those of you who watched Part 2 of the new story, Destiny Of The Daleks in the Dr Who series on BBC1 on Saturday night will doubtless have noticed, the Daleks don't simply say Exterminate" any more.
They say "Seek Locate Exterminate." And they have also come up with another phrase which put me in mind of some of my past employers - "Humanoids are a useful work force they have no other use."
Frankly, though. I think that Mr Nation, fine story teller that he is, has gone a little overboard this time on the horror stakes. I know that his Daleks serials have never meant to be a bundle of laughs, but the setting for this current one is like something out of Siberia, with a touch of Buchenwald, and towards the end of the second part a hint of Devil worship to come, thrown in for good measure.
I am also well aware that Dr Who is not meant to be strictly children's entertainment It falls outside the time zone devoted solely to programmes for the kiddeywinks. Yet while I have little sympathy for parents who let their children sit up late to watch a controversial play. and then complain about how disgusting it was. think that 6.10 pm is a bit early to start packing the youngsters off to bed.
I also think that the children, and indeed their parents, are entitled to assume that a long-running series centred on a funny-looking man in a long scarf, an attractive girl on whom he never bestows as much as a chaste kiss, and a time and space machine in which the pair travel to all sorts of strange places for all kinds of wonderful adventures, is not going to give them nightmares.
And if Mr Nation has no pity for the poor little mites because he thinks that they should be in bed by then, then he might at least spare a thought for older viewers.
Like me, for instance.
Saturday's episode gave me the shivering willies. Yes. I accept that the Daleks are a Totalitarian race. Inferior beings (humans) are only fit to work until they drop. As long as they do their work it doesn't matter whether they eat or starve. That's up to them. The analogy with past (and present) dictatorships on Earth is well taken. The point has been clearly made.
Let us now hope that we will see the captives arise and destroy the Daleks. Blow them up, push them down the shafts in the mines which they are so busy digging.
Before that happens however, I fear that more horrors are to come.
Saturday's episode ended with the discovery of a cob- web-shrouded, demoniac-looking figure called Davros. He it was, we are told, who invented the Daleks (with a little help from Mr Nation). And lo, as the finale music came up, Davros moved his horrible fingers ...
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- APA 6th ed.: Mitchell, Linton (1979-09-10). The horrors of Dr Who. Reading Evening Post p. 2.
- MLA 7th ed.: Mitchell, Linton. "The horrors of Dr Who." Reading Evening Post [add city] 1979-09-10, 2. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Mitchell, Linton. "The horrors of Dr Who." Reading Evening Post, edition, sec., 1979-09-10
- Turabian: Mitchell, Linton. "The horrors of Dr Who." Reading Evening Post, 1979-09-10, section, 2 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=The horrors of Dr Who | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_horrors_of_Dr_Who | work=Reading Evening Post | pages=2 | date=1979-09-10 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=16 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=The horrors of Dr Who | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_horrors_of_Dr_Who | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=16 March 2025}}</ref>
