Not even bad in a good way

Nice effects though.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

"Dr. Who and the Daleks" was the first of two Doctor Who films made by Amicus Productions in the mid-sixties; the second was "Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D". Both films starred Peter Cushing as Dr. Who, not William Hartnell who was the current television Doctor. Although they make use of many key features of the television series, such as the Tardis (a machine disguised as a police box and capable of travelling in time and space), and the Daleks, the Doctor's most iconic enemies, the films are not generally considered to form part of the official "Doctor Who" canon. Patrick Troughton, who succeeded Hartnell on television, is regarded as the Second Doctor, not the Third. I think the reasons are firstly that no mention is ever made of Cushing's character being a Timelord- he is always assumed to be an eccentric human inventor rather than an alien- and secondly that he does not feature in any "regeneration scene" as all the other Doctors do. The film opens in a setting about as far removed from the hi-tech world of science fiction as one can get, the cramped living-room of a small London house, decorated in a style desperately old-fashioned even by the standards of the 1960s. Dr. Who and his granddaughters Susan and Barbara are proudly showing his latest invention, the Tardis, to Barbara's boyfriend Ian. The accident-prone Ian accidentally activates the machine and the three suddenly find themselves on an alien world which turns out to be Skaro, the home planet of the Daleks. (The name is not actually used in this film, but "Skaro" is the name given in the television series and the second film).The planet is actually home to two races, the aggressive, warlike Daleks and the more peaceful humanoid Thals. (The Thals have much in common with the Eloi in H.G Wells's novel "The Time Machine" and in the film made of it in 1960). We learn that the Thals have not always been so peaceful; at some time in the past a nuclear war, fought between them and the Daleks led to the devastation of the planet, which remains heavily contaminated by radiation. The Thals are able to survive the fallout through the use of anti-radiation drugs, but the Daleks are forced to remain within their city. Because of their previous experiences the Thals have adopted a philosophy of pacifism and refuse to fight back even when threatened by the Daleks, until the Doctor is able to convince them of the soundness of the Just War doctrine. Further elucidation of the plot will probably be unnecessary; anyone familiar with the conventions of "Doctor Who" will realise that it revolves around how the Doctor and his companions assist the Thals to frustrate the evil schemes of the Daleks. This was the first "Doctor Who" story to be made in colour; the TV series continued to be made in black-and-white until 1969. It was also revealed that the Daleks have their own colour-based class system; the leaders are black, secondary commanders red and ordinary Daleks blue. Cushing's characterisation also looks ahead to the future; his Doctor, eccentric but kindly, is quite different to Hartnell's rather testy old man. Some later incarnations of the Doctor, especially Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and Peter Davison's Fifth, may well have been influenced by Cushing's portrayal. Another feature that predicts the way the programme was to go is the use of humour, something that was increasingly to become a feature of the series in the seventies and eighties. (By the time of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor, a frequent complaint was that it was becoming too jokey). Roy Castle's Ian is, to begin with, a rather comical figure, clumsy and cowardly, but later he proves to have hidden reserves of courage. Castle, I must say, proved more successful than did Bernard Cribbens who played the equivalent role in "Daleks – Invasion Earth". I also liked Roberta Tovey's sweet young Susan, proof that not all child stars have to be brats. The television series was famous (some might say notorious) for its low budgets, especially in the special effects department, and the film was obviously made in a similar tradition. We only, for example, see the Dalek city from the inside, and what we see seems to have been put together by an enthusiastic Blue Peter presenter out of sticky-backed plastic. Pace George Lucas, however, one does not need a budget the size of a small planet to make effective sci-fi, and "Dr. Who and the Daleks" is really quite an enjoyable good-against-evil adventure story with a loveably eccentric hero in the best British tradition. It lacks the silliness and preposterous plot elements which sometimes marred Daleks – Invasion Earth". Forget all the arguments about whether the film is "canonical" or not. This is really vintage Doctor Who. 6/10

I might be more forgiving of the poor story adaptation than some other reviewers, because the TV show had more than its share of turkeys mixed in with the good (even great) stories. However, the producers of this film apparently decided that the only essential elements for a Doctor Who movie were a police box and some Daleks. Change those two details and there would be absolutely nothing else about this movie to tell you this was a Doctor Who adaptation. I'd call myself a fan of the series, but I'm not die-hard about it. When I discovered that this existed -- one of two Doctor Who films featuring "Hammer Horror" star and "Grand Moff Tarkin" Peter Cushing -- I was definitely curious. I will give it this, the super-saturated color makes it look great, and the Daleks' hot-rod paint jobs are simply awesome. Lava lamps even add a fun and campy "period" touch to the Daleks' impressive command center set. The visuals alone earned 5/10, but nothing else about this film really deserved a rating. Even putting aside the whole "Time Lord/Human" thing, the characters bear absolutely no resemblance to their already-established TV namesakes. The Doctor comes across not as an absent-minded professor, which I'm sure was the aim, as opposed to William Hartnell's imperious TV manner. Instead, Cushing's addled portrayal makes it completely implausible that the Doctor could have invented a blender, much less a time-space machine. Ian's goofy portrayal was lifted straight from the Dick Van Dyke show, a sharp contrast from the strong TV character. The movie version of Barbara was simply awful, as she was basically both helpless and useless - nothing like the TV version's intelligent and resourceful woman. Susan was the only character who didn't lose too much in translation, although there was no apparent reason to cut her age basically in half. Even the Daleks are badly played, mainly due to their unnecessarily slow rate of speech and lack of the famous "Exterminate!" catchphrase (the fire-extinguisher guns don't help). They're too mechanical and lack the barely-controlled malice of TV Daleks; there's no sense of menace from them at all. The TARDIS is recognizable only from its blue police box exterior, as the interior is basically a backyard shed's tangled collection of random junk. You half-expect to see a bicycle hanging from the ceiling, or a rake propped against a wall. The clean lines of the original TARDIS control room, its iconic control console with moving column, and even its characteristic "wheezing" sound effect don't exist at all. The characters, acting and stories made Doctor Who the phenomenon it was (and remains), but all of those elements were poorly executed here. Watch this for its glorious Technicolor visuals and maybe for the novelty factor, but it takes more than some Daleks and a blue police box to make Doctor Who.

As this film opens it quickly becomes apparent that this incarnation of the doctor is very different from the television version; he is not a Time Lord but an elderly, human inventor living with his niece Barbara and his granddaughter Susan and his name is Dr. Who; not The Doctor. When Susan's new boyfriend, Ian, visits he is shown the latest invention; TARDIS; a machine capable of transporting to any time or place. Ian accidentally activates the machine and they fine themselves on a strange alien world. It appears to be long dead but as they look around they find a city. They return to TARDIS but it doesn't work; Dr. Who explains that a part is broken so they will have to go to the city to find the mercury it needs to work. Here they run into the Daleks and learn that there was a war between the Daleks and the Thals which left the planet a radioactive wasteland; the Thals have found an antidote to the radiation but the Daleks can't leave the city and must live in special protective machines. They hope to use the doctor and his travelling companions to lure the remaining Thals into the city so they can eliminate them once and for all.It took a while to accept this version of Dr. Who as he is so different to the television version; Peter Cushing did a good job in the role and Roy Castle was fun as comedy relief Ian; of the girls young Roberta Tovey seemed to perform better as Susan although Jennie Linden's Barbara didn't really have much to work with in her underwritten roll. The opening scene made it clear that this would be fairly tongue in cheek when we see the two girls reading science books and the elderly doctor is reading The Eagle (a comic). In common with most sci-fi of its time there is no explanation as to why creatures on an alien world would be speaking English just as there is no surprise on the part of the characters when this happens. Taking advantage of the fact that the film is in colour, unlike the TV show at the time, the Daleks come in a wide variety of colours; they weren't a particularly formidable opponent once the final battle came unfortunately; all the heroes had to do was grab the and turn them to face each other and let them kill each other! The Thal where aliens of the 'almost human' variety with little charisma; this meant they weren't interesting characters. Overall I was a bit disappointed with this; possibly because I was expecting something closer to the television version; it wasn't bad though and a laughed a few more times than I'd expected.

Yo, this movie's title: the main character in Doctor Who is named The Doctor. The shark in Jaws is not named Jaws; the main character of Die Hard is not named Die Hard. So, this film joins the ignoble ranks of Krakatoa, East of Java, &...no, wait, that's the only other one I can think of...as a film to make a goof right there in its title. This should be a clear warning flag to fans of the show regarding how much respect the material is afforded: Peter Cushing plays this "Dr. Who" as some sort of kindly old professor, & apparently, this film also believes he's human, not Time Lord. The entirely unmenacing Daleks have been downgraded from hate-driven killing machines to something more reminiscent of inept Bond villains, constantly trying to capture - not kill - "Dr. Who", occasionally puffing some sort of gas that does nothing & colliding with each other. In spite of all that, though, there is some sort of enjoyable Hammer alchemy going on here. Pretend that it's just some SF film with nothing to do with the Doctor Who series, & it's a mildly diverting ninety minutes. That's really the best course of action in watching this.