1. Ep.15: Emissaries Of Jevo [24:38]
2. “Ultimate Experience” Dr Who Exhibition @ Earl’s Court [9:05]
3. The Art Of Ron Turner [5:40]
4. The Littlest Dalek [2:30]
5. Who’s Dr Who? [3:20]
6.Whose ‘DrWho’?!: 6. What is this, The CyberChronicles?!
I dunno if the Daleks would be grateful for being left out of this one (Stuart ‘claims’ to possess no actual Dalekomix – there’s always ‘Inky Adventures In Time & Space’ which is now well into the colour ones…) but considering their willingness to “spam-it-up” for the Go-Go’s, i can’t see it. And that’s just the trouble – not a Dalek to be seen! Oh there’s the occasional Trod reference and Giant Wasps, but the rest is all Cyberdrongos! Feh! (And whilst I’m in a complaint mood, there wasn’t much of a ‘b/m/e’ to the picture story either. Seems to be one of Stuart’s more slip-shod efforts… and if he’d used Daleks he’d’ve had less problem with footwear altogether.) Highest marks for the Song! One of the better ‘early’ efforts at a Dr Who song – s’got screaming guitars an’ la-la-la’s and it’s by Frazer Hines! Although, I’d love to have heard it done as “Jamie”, y’know, in-character as-it-were (tho’ I s’pose we could do a remix with Silly Connolly on vox) with doses of background samples, like: “Coom-awa’ wee Jamie!”, “Losh, Dawktorr Hoo…”, “Och the noo–then, before-after, termorrer-yesterdee…(can I geet a rrrefund on thaat!?)”, “Och-aye, it’s loverly t’dee, but wee’ll pay fer it termorrer (or the day before)”. 4.The Littlest Dalekardboardreplika: Why the Thals lost the Armaments Race. A Thal Mutant crawls into a Thal T-Mek prototype and goes hunting for Kaleds. The only time a Thalek got the drop on a Kaled Mutant T-Mek! After that the Daleks wiped out the Thals with Pyroflames. On the other protuberance, this could be seen as a paean to the power of imagination (the character’s that is). I love that ‘authentic’ child-built incorrectness of the Plunger & (egg-whisk)Neutralizer being on the wrong sides (mine were!). The kid manages to ‘believe’ his firepower into blowing-up a full scale Dalek-build! Daddy will be pleased… 3.The Art of The Art Of Ron Turner: One of Stuart’s well-researched productions showing never-before-seen-by-me examples of RT’s artwork for various ‘zine & book-covers. No wonder Mr.T. was so good at spaceships, he sure practised a lot! Also excellent for watching the development of RT’s style. I wish I had his Star Trek comics! (Am i allowed to say that here?) Nice photo of Ron with (one of) his last Dalek work(s), the cover of the collected T.D.C. A bonus is the two 60’s Dalek instrumental trax backing this. A worthy tribute, lovingly produced. 2.“Penultimate Impertinence”: This vid has some good long sequences which allow for decent sound-grabs of the ‘atmosphere’ recordings at this event. The most scary things seen, however, are the free-mobile animatronic Children Of The Damned screaming about the place at the start! The weirdest is The(that-Scots-bloke)Doctor talking through his “post-Spike” featureless face (clever really). One thing about the “Ultimate Experience” tho, you’d think at least some of the ‘talking heads’ (esp. The Face of Bo) would be animatronic’d to go with their soundtrax. After all, if these shows are really such a big deal (and with all that dosh the Corporation raked in) such a technical cost should have been sprung for. Seeing the character-props as a display is one thing, but in The Age Of Motion, having no more than a soundtrack-excerpt playing behind a motionless face (no I don’t mean cyberpersons!) just reinforces their artificiality doesn’t it? RogerSmith’s footage is nicely comprehensive in its coverage of the exhibit, giving a better-than-usual idea of how much is packed into these things. (I loved the child going on about the Dalek on the vid’s track at the end.) 1.Missionaries of Jove: “On the planet Jove ten minutes away from Skaro a bunch of nobodies, plus the only character in this story with a name (Kapitan Kiid) must make an emergency-dash across the “unknown regions” – presumably they only know a roundabout way to their objective! – to the planet Florides to wipe out the Floridian economy by poisoning their crop of space-tulips and putting the planet’s proprietary corporation InterStellarFlora out of business. The Jovankas are a race of whiney colonials with an annoying nasal ‘eccent’ who resent anyone prettier, cleverer or more successful than themselves. They are also Space Prats, hard drinking, tough fighting scallywags & psychopaths who love taking from the available & giving nothing back and throwing PantyRaiding-Parties at a moment’s notice. Being fiercely independent Prats they have an antiCorporate streak so wide & purple that it comprises the colour of their Prat costumes which are nonetheless replete with thin yellow ones. This is the other reason they hate the Florideans so much (that and the fact that they never show themselves). It is interesting to note that on Jove everyone knows about the “unknown regions” which makes their claim not to know of the Daleks typically suspicious. For instance, how can Kiid claim not to know of the Daleks when Ensign Anonymous(orig.comic)/Hybrid(AV-vsn) makes an obvious ironic reference (“a Dust of Death, eh?”) to the Daleks’ own experience with Radioactive Rust in Episode 6: ‘Plague Of death’!? Further evidence of typical Space Prat dishonesty ensues… Such as the ridiculous cover-story for their Mission: that they must save the universe from deadly pollen! Even if plants could grow “miles high” (sounds more like the state-of-mind in which they conceive such fantasies!) they’d need an ejection-system more powerful than Superman’s ejaculations to get their dust off into space. Then there’s the trick they play on the Daleks when Kapitan Kiid pulls the old gamma raygun-in-a-stick con on them. Not to forget the incredible Credulity Of The Daleks in believing the Deadly-Space Pollen story. I imagine that they were so lost in their arrogant presumption that no-one would dare tell a giant porky to the Big Lie specialists of the universe that they just had to believe it for the similar reasons we still believe that we are ‘free’people living in a condition of ‘democracy’ (despite the overwhelming historical, political, social & economic evidence to the contrary). Anyway, I’m getting ahead of the story here – presumably in eagerness to get to something believable (like Daleks). Another thing about these “unknown regions” for Regions Unknown they are remarkably well known for being incredibly dangerous, so much so that Kapitan Kiid’s nameless crew almost mutiny when they find out they are going to cross them. (Don’t cross those Unknown Regions, they’re Dangerous - also Unpredictable & Viciously Vengeful, ie, full of Daleks!) The Daleks (at last!) detect the Jovanka Pratship coming from what must also be the Dalek-equivalent of, you guessed it, Unknown Regions, and turn on their handy Jane’s-Comic Spaceships-Identifiertron (and we are here treated to a series of hilarious possible matches by Stuart in a rather fine piece of crossover-animation). The ship is disguised as a Corporate Raider-class cutter going by the name of the ‘Independent’ (which is news to the Daleks). The Daleks latch on to the Independent with their MagnaGrapples and prepare to board, however the fearsome Kapitan Kiid fearlessly raises the Rent (to repel Boarders) and pulls down the Corporate $sign, hauling up the Prat ensign – ‘Shades&Crossfingers – in its place. He then endures another mutinous harangue from Ensign Hybrid who insists that Kiid’s plan is “mad, rad & bad!” Sensing an opportunity to exploit ‘android’ weakness (eg, mortality) and strength (ie, greed) Emperor Flido invites them on board his Flagship-Planet, the H.M.S.‘Oskar’ (Humanoid Massacring Sphere). Only after Kapitan Kiid has quelled another mutiny by force of personality (and fisticuffs) is the Emperor’s ‘invitation’ acceded-to. Lulling the ‘android’ with subtle Dalek blandishments – eg, >>OBEY-OR-YOU-WILL-BE-EXTERMINATED!<< – the Emperor throws a lavish do (minimalist-style) and soon has the unsuspecting Kiid extolling the virtues of Prat life (Rum Sophistry at the Least) whilst teasing the truth out of him. After enough teasing Kapitan Kiid has no truth left to offer and takes a vacation in Dishonesty (his favourite resort). After telling the Emperor the “dust of death” whopper, Emperor Flido asks why the Daleks would want to >>PREVENT-THE-PLANTS-ACHIEVING-WHAT-WE-ARE-DEDICATED-TO-ACHIEVE<< so Kiid fools them twice with the gun-trick, convincing the credulous Daleks that mutated-pollen can dissolve Dalekaenium! The Daleks have a certain susceptibility to stories about Deadly Mutations and are taken in by this translucent ploy. Kapitan Kiid returns to the Independent (and its nameless crew) and pushes on to Florides to save the Daleks from another Flower Power-encounter (of the poisonous kind). Meanwhile, the Emperor’s Pollen Power-investigation team find out the gamma raygun-in-a-stick trick (which explodes in their carapaces). Atypically, the Daleks are not at all grateful for being introduced to new destructive technology, due to their umbrage at being on the receiving-end of Dalek-like perfidy for a change, and send off a Dalek away-team to Do The Villains In – as they would. Kapitan Kiid has to quell yet another of Ensign Hybrid’s mutinies when the Dalek force arrives in the middle of their ‘Economic Adjustment’ operations in order to get the job done. Knowing full well that he cannot afford to lead the Daleks back to Jove and must complete the agricultural-spraying contract or be forced to Walk-the-PlankLength Kiid risks sacrificing himself (oh, and the Crew) and they pay the ultimate price for their foliage. But they were only Prats so that’s alright then. The Daleks are well impressed with the Jovankas’ heroic sacrifice and Emperor Flido ponders if this sort of spirited stupidity is common amongst ‘androids’ and hopes to be able to exploit this weakness of Human Spirit, although there is no explanation for why he uses the word “human” when the Jovankas are called “androids” up to that point – although Kapitan Kiid did make an interesting distinction between “android, human & animal life” during his audience with the Emperor. Nonetheless the Dalek Emperor plots an >>ALL-OUT-WAR-ON-ALL-HUMAN-BEINGS… EVERYWHERE!<< This episode appears to have been one of David Whitaker’s off-days as far as scripting goes – predictable & pedestrian dialogue for the Jevons, with only the Daleks having anything much exciting to say. Both Ron Turner & Stuart Palmer went all-out for interesting visuals & designs to make up for this, with Stuart’s script-enhancing skills rising to the occasion to flesh out the characters and scenes. Lots of fancy new craft, vehicles, facilities & architecture were provided by RT and Stuart has had a field-day modelling and choreographing his versions of these (particularly the Dalek headquarters). Also lots of fancy new camera-moves and angles plus cool sfx make this a visually interesting teleplay and his character-movements are getting better (less awkward) and more dynamic. He’s got the art of lip-sync and facial expression up to a new standard as well. I enjoyed his Orson Welles floor-to-ceiling viewing-angles particularly, amidst some lovely Dalek choreography. One should also attend to the quality of Stuart’s audio-mixes and how the score is truly ‘professionally’ placed to underscore, rather than undermine, the dialogue, fx (for those not in the know “sfx” means Special Effects whilst “fx” is the original (radio-days) designation for Sound Effects) and action. And an overdue nod of recognition (and “yay” of appreciation) for the AV‘stable’ of voicetalent is in order. You can tell how much effort Stuart puts into these works by comparing the comic pages to their equivalent scenes (highly recommended as a way to further appreciate the original artist’s work in greater detail). Lovely little things like finely observing the Dalek info-monitor showing Kirid’s ship, Guardian, alongside various specs whilst a subdivision of the same screen is showing concurrent monitoring of a missile site on the comic, which Stuart translates into a view of the missiles in the Lake of Mutations (from The Terrorkon Harvest). There are delicious moments for me such as the 3 rotated dials on the Dalek control panel that look ever so much like the fractured eyes of the Solenoid Robots from Roger Ramjet! I also got a laugh from the obligatorily-inevitable ‘shaking-spaceship’ set. A very, very good version of one of the more ridiculous and indifferently-written stories from The Dalek Chronicles. | 
