The Dales That Invaded All The Earthmen

The Dales That Invaded All The Earthmen

The Complete And Utter History Of Dr WHO? (Part Eleven)

It was ineviable that Nerry National's Dales would make a return to our screens and the BBCeeb pulled out all the stops by nipping round the back of the studios with a camera and filming some dirty bits of the river Thames.

This story, which come in six parts, saw the TARDIST land under a bridge and John and Gelatine twisted their uncles. Meanwhile Dr Who and Ewen went into a shed and faced the additional menace of the terrible ROBOMEN!

But the Nation's childrens was waiting with basted breaths for the return of the Dales and soon one come up from the middle of a pond. Viewers at home soon noticed that these Dales looked subtly different to the ones previous as they had been redesinged to let their operators go for a pee in the nearest grating due to new Health and Safety instructives.

Also new in this story was the Slycker, which was a rubber thing what wobbled in a menacing fashion. This led to various Slycker spin-off merchandising in the form of assorted rubber goods, the majority of which are no longer in older fans' collections as they have thankfully mostly perished.

There was also the Dale Supremo, whose lair was in a mine in a quarry in Bedfordcestershire, which is where beds was first invented, hence the name. He was different to the other Dales in that he had a different paint job courtesy of Toby Heart the populist painter who invented 'Blue Peter', which were named after his favourite colour.

Some peoples have interpreted the whole idea of an Occupied Earth as being what would have happened if the Second World War had been done different, but this is obviously not the case as Winston Churchill had some Dales on his staff in the later story 'The Victorian Dales' so I think that is just people not paying attention when it was first broadcastered.

This was the first 'Drs Whos' story to be done as a film after the one before that, though this time Phillipha Medoc played a man in a coat who told everyone to hold his rifle by the barrel, which betrayed that he was a shifty sort. He also wanted Dr Who's name so he could put it on his Christmas card list, but Dr Who didn't tell him, as he has an air of pure mystery.

During the final episode ('The Flashing Points') John and Gelatine fell in love with Scotland and decided to stay there, much to Dr Who's Joy (who was briefly considered as the new companion).
So, the TARDIST faded away a bit lighter that week, and that were the end of 1964. But next week would be 1965 and who knows where our heroes would find their selves?

(Well, the 'Radiotimes' magazine did, obviously, as they had to put something on each page in them days)

Next Episode:

"But I do know that smell..."

(By Andrew Trowbridge)