After the popular success of Dr. Who and the Daleks, the first big-screen reimagining of the cult BBC TV serial, producers Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg went to work on a sequel. Peter Cushing returns as the grandfatherly (and very human) Dr. Who and Roberta Tovey is once again his spunky granddaughter, but the rest of the cast is new. Jill Curzon takes the place of the Jennie Linden and Bernard Cribbins is the police officer who stumbles into the TARDIS, thinking it a police call box, and is transported to the future. London is a deserted, war-torn ruin under occupation by the Daleks and their humanoid army, the Cybermen.
Adapted by Subotsky from the six-part TV serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth by Terry Nation and again directed by veteran Gordon Flemyng, it's a bigger and livelier film than the first one, with a twist-filled plot involving an underground human resistance army, informers betraying our heroes to the Daleks, and a plot to destroy the Earth. Cribbins provides brief comic relief but otherwise becomes the film's action hero while Dr. Who teams up with the Resistance to free the humans enslaved by the Daleks and stop their destructive plan. Andrew Kier costars as a crusty member of the resistance who grudgingly watches over the Doctor's granddaughter.
Where the first feature was shot entirely on studio sets, this film opens up with battles in the rubble of London under attack by the Daleks (recalling real-life World War II London) and an odyssey across the occupied countryside. The Dalek spaceship special effects are more sophisticated than the TV show but the miniatures are hardly realistic, more like a Godzilla movie or the British TV adventure Thunderbirds. And apart from an extended bit of visual comedy with Cribbins disguised as a Cyberman, it is more serious, more adult, and significantly more dramatic and engaging than Dr. Who and the Daleks. Despite that, it was a box-office disappointment and ended the big screen run of England's favorite Time Lord.
Kino Lorber gives the film the special edition treatment with a new 2K restoration, commentary by British film historian Kim Newman with Robert Sherman and Mark Gattis, who both wrote scripts for the Doctor Who revival, the hour-long documentary Dalekmania (1995) on the making of the two Dr. Who features, video interviews with actor Bernard Cribbins and author Gareth Owens, and a featurette on the restoration. A strong option purchase.