Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Doctor Who: The Daleks in Color Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 20, 2024

Revisionism has been front and center in my review queue for the last couple of weeks, courtesy of the hotly debated releases of The Abyss 4K, True Lies 4K, and Aliens 4K, all of which were pretty aggressively "tweaked" by James Cameron for their debuts in 4K UHD. I mentioned in some of my reviews how Cameron's decision seemed to have provoked considerable umbrage in the same way that George Lucas' also hotly debated "upgrades" to the Star Wars: Original Trilogy had decades earlier. That would seem to suggest that to many aficionados, "revisionism" is almost always a "bad" thing, though it might be interesting to quiz any home theater fans who happen to be in the intersection of the Venn Diagram offering circles of James Cameron, Star Wars, and Doctor Who fans how they feel about this latest effort from BBC, which has not only colorized (and/or "colourized" as is the preferred spelling on this disc) the second Doctor Who serial from circa 1963-64, they've also pretty radically redacted it from its original seven 25 minute or so episodes to one 75 minute or so outing. Perhaps as a standard definition consolation prize of sorts for those who do tend to think of revisionism as something less than desirable, BBC has included a DVD in this package that features the original black and white serial in its entirety, along with some extra supplements.

One of the interesting throwaway lines in the making of featurette included on the Blu-ray disc is how the creative time behind this "new, improved" version of The Daleks wanted a product that would appeal to kids who simply don't accept black and white offerings any more (guess that leaves "little" items like, say, Citizen Kane out in the unviewed cold). Putting aside whether or not younger types will "settle" for black and white, what's actually most interesting in the comment is its overt allusion to the fact that Doctor Who, at least in this early stage of its development, was in fact a "kids' show". As such, it's probably unfair to compare the writing and performance styles to more contemporary iterations of the seemingly immortal series, since it's at least arguable that the 21st century Doctor in particular may have been crafted to appeal to adults as much as any youngsters.

All of this said, there's therefore an undeniably silly quality to much of The Daleks, though that said, there's also a rather interesting and maybe even provocative subtext to this serial that would seem to argue against pacifism, at least if you're being attacked. The First Doctor (William Hartnell) is also not above a bit of subterfuge in order to get his "companions" to follow his lead, which of course then ends up with them all being taken prisoner by the unavoidably comical Daleks.

Doctor Who: The Daleks in Color Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Daleks in Color is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of BBC with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.33:1. This is a somewhat schizophrenic feeling presentation to assess on one level, since it's obviously sourced from an older archival element that was probably not crystal clear to begin with, and which even modern technologies can't completely improve. The vagaries of the tape source are quite apparent in this "upgrade", and perhaps even exacerbated at times by the colorization, which can only draw attention to fuzziness and a kind of wavering quality to the edges of things (whether those be props or actual humans). Close-ups without a lot of movement tend to fare best in terms of consistent detail levels, while many midrange and wider framings can be positively blurry at times. By far the best thing about this presentation is the rather impressively robust "new" palette. When I first starting writing for this site around a decade and a half ago (!), I routinely reviewed colorized releases from the likes of Legend, a label that few probably even remember, and while I found those efforts to be rather good as far that era's colorization technologies went, these episodes are by far some of the most nicely suffused colorizing I've personally seen. There are still anomalies aplenty to be spotted where hues can vary and not even fully "penetrate" whatever object they're supposed to adding color to, but on the whole, this is a nicely inventive reimagining of the series, with a color design that was evidently based at least in part on actual color photographs taken of the serial when it was being shot. Kind of weirdly, they've decided to start things out in black and white for a few seconds before morphing to color (see screenshot 19). I'm assuming these were perhaps culled from kinescopes or something similar, leading to a number of kind of ugly mottled moments like that seen in screenshot 18.

Doctor Who: The Daleks in Color Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

If videophiles may be somewhat "iffy" with the appearance of The Daleks in Color, audiophiles should be generally very well pleased with either the Dolby Atmos or DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 options on this disc. Admittedly, the Atmos track in particular is not going to be reference quality material, but both of the surround offerings substantially open up the soundstage, with a variety of ambient environmental effects clearly emanating from the side and rear channels. There was evidently some new recording done for this version, and the good news is it's been integrated seamlessly into the pre-existing soundtrack. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, though of course the Dalek voices are comically mechanical sounding. Optional English subtitles are available.

Doctor Who: The Daleks in Color Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One (Blu-ray)

• The Making of The Daleks in Colour (HD; 11:36) is a rather sweet piece featuring a number of the technical wizards who worked on the colo(u)rization process, and who obviously all have a deep, abiding love for Doctor Who. There's a really touching moment somewhat late in the piece showing 98 year old David Graham, the original voice of the Daleks, who contributed some lines to this new version as well.

Disc Two (DVD)

All seven original black and white episodes are offered in standard definition, along with the following supplements:


• Creation of The Daleks (SD; 17:12) is a fun archival piece with some humorous moments with Sydney Newman, BBC's Head of Drama in 1963 (though he sounds distinctly American).


• Gallery (SD; 5:32)


• Audio Options is the rather weirdly titled menu item offering access to commentaries on episodes 2, 4 and 7, as follows:

  Episode 2 - The Survivors: Commentary by Verity Lambert (Producer), Christopher Barry (Director), Gary Russell (Moderator)

  
  

  Episode 4 - The Ambush: Commentary by William Russell (Ian Chesterton), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman), Christopher Barry (Director), Gary Russell (Moderator)

  
  

  Episode 7 - The Rescue: Commentary by William Russell (Ian Chesterton), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman), Richard Martin (Director), Gary Russell (Moderator)

• Information Text is able to be toggled on and off.

Doctor Who: The Daleks in Color Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is the most diehard Whovians may be more upset with the redaction of the original than by the colorizing of it, but that said, the Readers Digest version offered on the Blu-ray disc really doesn't omit anything major, and in fact may support the thesis offered in the making of featurette that the sixties original was kind of slow and ponderous, and maybe even a bit padded. Technical merits are actually kind of hard to adequately assess per our normal criteria, but I'd say the actual colorizing is on the whole rather impressive. Audio is great, and both the making of featurette on the Blu-ray and the commentaries on the DVD are especially interesting, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.