Planet of the Daleks

Doctor Who’s tenth season commenced with “The Three Doctors”, the official anniversary story. In many ways, however, the real anniversary story is “Planet Of The Daleks” – a nostalgic space romp with the Doctor’s most famous adversaries, an epic six-parter in the style of the Daleks’ 1960s stories. 

The Daleks entered the colour era with “Day Of The Daleks”, but their spectacle was much diminished as the BBC only had three Dalek props at their disposal, and story-wise they were obscured by the Controller and the guerrillas. “Planet of the Daleks” returns them to centre-stage, their domination of Spiridon recalling the almighty Dalek Empire of “Evil Of The Daleks” and the twelve Dalek props enhanced by the special guest appearance of the impressive Dalek Supreme. Their next TV serial, “Death To The Daleks”, would see the Daleks reduced to a small crew on the planet Exxilon, and after the introduction of their creator Davros in “Genesis Of The Daleks”, their plans for total domination became replaced by internalised power struggles. “Planet Of The Daleks” is the last time we see the creatures as a force to be reckoned with.

The story follows directly from “Frontier In Space”, although describing it as a sequel is pushing it a bit. The “Frontier”/”Planet” story arc was an attempt to echo the audacious twelve-parter “The Daleks’ Master Plan”, hence these two stories have been given the unofficial umbrella title, “The Master’s Dalek Plan”! The scene of Jo in the TARDIS with the unconscious Doctor are quite touching, as we have seen this partnership become very close since their first meeting, and foreshadows the third Doctor’s ‘death’ before the giant spiders the following year. More pertinently, the scene towards the end, when Jo considers Latep’s invitation to stay with him, is a nice build up to the events in the next story, “The Green Death”.

The jungles on Spiridon are among the most effective seen on the series – imagine how much better “Kinda” would have looked with a lush jungle set like this – and the plants that squirt fluid have the ‘yuk factor’ important to any Doctor Who story!

The story reintroduces the Thals, the Dalek’s enemies and fellow inhabitants of Skaro, whose ancestors appeared in the second story ever. The third Doctor’s era is one of the most continuity-free in the series’ history, and Jon Pertwee made the role so utterly his own it was easy to forget that there had been previous incumbents, and the references to the first Doctor, Ian and Barbara is a lovely touch, almost like being reminded about old friends. The Thals are well portrayed by the actors, considering that they do not have much personality, although Bernard Horsfall is excellent as Taron, particularly when the Doctor gives him his philosophical lecture about bravery, and when he has to strike a balance between his duty as a leader and his feelings for Rebec. Tim Preece as Codal also has some good moments, but Prentis Hancock’s headstrong Vaber is not much different from Salamar, his equally one-dimensional character in “Planet Of Evil.”

The highlight of the story is the chase sequences set in the Daleks’ city on Spiridon. Most of these take place in the episode, which only survives in black and white. In a way I’m glad about this, as the entrance to the Dalek city looks much more impressive in monochrome, and the steel corridors are reminiscent of “The Daleks” and “Power Of The Daleks”. As I said before, “Planet Of The Daleks” is an old-fashioned space romp, and scenes such as the attempt to escape from the Daleks by ascending the chimney with the canopy are more reminiscent of scenes from “Dalek Invasion Earth 2150 AD” or the Dalek comic strips of the 1960s!

The only problem with the story’s structure, apart from the fact that six parters are almost always very tiresome in one setting, and tend to feature a bit of padding towards the end, is that the Doctor, Jo and the Daleks spend too much of the story apart. One of the highlights of the third Doctor’s stories is Jon Pertwee’s wonderful interaction with Katy Manning, which had matured into a strong, believable friendship from the tutor/student friction of “Terror Of The Autons”. Nevertheless, Jo’s scenes with the invisible Wester are nice, although she does seem separate from the story for a bit too much of the serial. The story also lacks those wonderful Doctor/Dalek showdowns, which are always a highlight of Dalek stories, from Hartnell’s “Conquer the world, you poor pitiful creatures?” to McCoy’s “Unlimited rice pudding, et cetera”.

As mentioned earlier, there are Daleks aplenty in this story – although most of them appear to be immobile. This is a great improvement on “Day Of The Daleks”, and things brighten up (literally) in episode six with the appearance of the Dalek Supreme, a modified version of the impressive movie Daleks, although his lights flash out of sync with his dialogue, which is a bit distracting. The Daleks’ voices have been giving a grating quality and are a big improvement on their last story. The concept of an frozen army of thousands of Daleks also gives the story much of its epic quality, and the shots of the cave full of model Daleks is quite effective in suggesting the scale of this army.

After the Doctor gives the Thals a typically Doctorish lecture on war, the Doctor takes a homesick Jo back to Earth. But the viewer is left with a couple of tantalising loose ends. The Dalek Supreme escapes, knowing that they still have an army of the Daleks they can defrost at any moment. More importantly, we are no closer a resolution to “Frontier In Space”. What happened to the Master? How come we never hear from the Draconian Empire again? Surely both Draconia and Earth would be after the Master for trying to start a war between them, and you can just imagine the Doctor being dragged into it, caught between the two empires and his arch-enemy? Maybe one day someone will complete the trilogy?