We could be anywhere in the universe and at any time. Rather exciting, isn't it?
Since Hammer had snapped up Nigel Kneale's Quatermass serials one decade earlier -- and were preparing their third big-screen adaptation, Quatermass and the Pit -- rival production company Amicus jumped on the BBC's Doctor Who, acquiring the rights to produce a pair of films based on the series. The first, scripted by producer Milton Subotsky, was 1965's Dr. Who and the Daleks, which took its plot from the seven-part serial "The Dead Planet" by Terry Nation. If its most significant innovation was the introduction of the Doctor's most iconic foes, the belligerent, armor-clad Daleks, then the film's is that their protective suits come in an array of candy colors, which director Gordon Flemyng emphasizes by filming them almost exclusively on brightly lit sets. (No skulking around in the shadows for these genocidal genetic freaks.)
Speaking of the sets, their design the one aspect of the film I can point to that is unequivocally top-notch. The seemingly uninhabited city explored by the unaccountably human Dr. Who, his two granddaughters, and the older one's boyfriend when they wind up on an unknown planet both figuratively and literally dwarfs the actors, which is a feat considering one of them is Peter Cushing (who plays the title character like a dotty, absent-minded inventor). He's joined by his Dr. Terror's House of Horrors co-star Roy Castle as Ian, the bumbling boyfriend of Barbara (Jennie Linden), whose main function in the plot is to be less useful than her younger sister Susan (Roberta Tovey). After all, if Susan and her grandfather hadn't conspired make sure they stayed long enough to look around, then none of what we see would have happened (although they might have succumbed to radiation sickness when they got home without knowing why, which is pretty dark when you think about it).
As for what happens in the film, it dramatizes the age-old conflict between a warrior race (in this case, the Daleks) and a group of pacifists (the elf-like Thal) that has to be convinced that it might be wise to fight back against the guys that want to wipe them off the planet. Before it can be introduced, though, Subotsky's script plays up the comedy, starting with a sly joke about how Susan is reading Physics for the Inquiring Mind, Barbara's book of choice is The Science of Science, and Dr. Who (who's literally called that, which is just wrong) is thumbing through a comic book. Also comical, although probably not intentionally so, is that the Daleks are so trigger-happy that it's insanely easy to trick them into shooting each other. Frankly, I'm amazed any of them survived to return for the sequel.
