Rent Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks (1988)

remember remember - Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks review by CP Customer

At this time the good Doctors greatest threat came not from the Daleks or the Cybermen, it was the BBC itself. Despite budget cuts too the show and opposition from the powers that be, the team struggled on regardless. The then producer John Nathan Turner was for the most part unfairly treated by the fans at the time, who held him to blame for the obvious faults with the show. However he can be responsible for accepting some rather poor quality scripts it has to be said. Also the stars received some flack and I had have hated to have been in their shoes dealing with the lack of quality scripts they got lumbered with, Both Sylvester and his predecessor had the same problem. The knives were out and the Doctor in danger.

But despite all this rubbish going on, they squared their shoulders and got on with it. Let's be honest now, even David Tennant and Matt Smith have had scripts that haven't been so well received. But despite all of this there were still gems amongst the dross, this being one of them. It still suffers from minor faults (a super powered baseball bat for one) but the visuals are not too bad, the sight of a dalek ship landing in a school playground is quite impressive. And for the most part there's some sound acting here. McCoy though not on the top form he was in in The Curse of Fenric or Ghostlight still delivers a fairly sound performance mixing humour, with the scheming that his character had amicably enough. If anything perhaps Sophie's performance is the one that's slightly under par. But the support cast are excellent, particularly Simon Williams, George Sewell and the much missed Michael Sheard although his role is sadly limited. The Daleks are as deadly as ever as a civil war breaks out on the streets of 1960's England, and there's a nice sense of nostalgia as Susan's school and a certain junkyard become the background for the conflict. Watch this one with an open mind and remember that if not for McCoy and the previous incarnations, we wouldn't have the show come back with Christopher Eccleston at the helm. Watch and hopefully enjoy.