Planet of the Daleks (TV story)

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Synopsis

The Doctor and Jo team up with a guerilla group of Thals, seeking to knock out an army of 10,000 Daleks in hibernation on planet Spiridon.

Plot

The TARDIS materialises in a hostile jungle on the planet Spiridon. Jo sets out alone to find help for the Doctor, who has fallen into a coma. She meets a party of Thals and is left in hiding aboard their crashed spaceship while they go to the Doctor's aid. The Time Lord, now recovered, learns of their mission to destroy a party of Daleks sent here to discover the native Spiridons' secret of invisibility.

File:Planetofthedaleks title.jpg
A Thal with the Doctor

Another Thal spaceship crash-lands in the jungle, and the survivors bring news that somewhere on Spiridon there is an army of ten thousand Daleks. Jo meanwhile meets a friendly Spiridon named Wester, who cures a deadly fungus disease that she has contracted.

It transpires that the Daleks' army is frozen in suspended animation in a cavern below their base. The Doctor, with the help of the Thals, explodes a bomb in the cavern wall and thereby causes one of the planet's natural ice volcanoes to erupt, entombing the army in a torrent of liquid ice.

The newly-arrived Dalek Supreme and his aides are left stranded on Spiridon as the Thals steal their ship and the Doctor and Jo depart in the TARDIS.

Cast

Crew

References

  • The Dalek Supreme makes an appearance. It first appeared in DW: The Chase.
  • The Doctor mentions Ian, Barbara and Susan in confirming he was the Doctor to visit Skaro and to be known to the Thals.
  • The Thals know of Earth but believe it to be a myth.
  • The Daleks have stored their greatest ever invasion force, about 10,000 strong, on Spiridon.

Story Notes

  • This story had a working title of: Destination Daleks.
  • Louis Marx Daleks are used to simulate an army (This same technique was used in DW: The Evil of the Daleks).
  • Although not generally recognized as such, Planet of the Daleks continues the storyline begun in Frontier in Space, essentially making this the second half of a single 12-episode story arc.
  • A new, almost musical sound effect is introduced for the Dalek energy weapon. This is the only time it is used. In the next Dalek story, Death to the Daleks,their energy weapons are not used at all.

Ratings

  • Episode 1 - 11.0 million viewers
  • Episode 2 - 10.7 million viewers
  • Episode 3 - 10.1 million viewers
  • Episode 4 - 8.3 million viewers
  • Episode 5 - 9.7 million viewers
  • Episode 6 - 8.5 million viewers

Myths

  • The Dalek Supreme was operated in this story by Tony Starr. (Starr could not have operated the Dalek Supreme in the scenes set in the Spiridon jungle, as he was not present when they were recorded. He did operate a Dalek in other scenes in Episode Six, and was credited for this in Radio Times, but there is no evidence that it was the Dalek Supreme and, particularly given that he was uncredited on screen, this seems unlikely. It is probable that John Scott Martin, who was credited as Chief Dalek in Radio Times, played the Dalek Supreme in all instances.)

Filming Locations

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • The Doctor seems to have forgotten that he was following the Daleks to their base of operations in episode one. Given that in the previous story he was grazed in the head by a gunshot it is entirely possible he could have lost some of his recent memories.
  • With the exception of the climax to episode one, none of the Daleks are ever seen using their newly acquired powers of invisibility, even when hunting for the Doctor and the Thals through the jungle. The power is still experimental for them.
  • Trapped in the TARDIS with a dwindling air supply, the Doctor takes time to change clothes (Time Lords probably have a larger lung capacity than humans) (also, if the Doctor thought he was trapped, and going to die. He should die in clean clothes.)
  • When the Thals take cover on the plain of stones in episode four a huge, dark shape (probably a technician) appears behind the painted sky.
  • The second Dalek, pursuing Jo and Latep in episode five, knocks into a polystyrene 'rock' and moves it out of position. The Daleks have been seen to be very powerful, perhaps enough to knock a rock aside?
  • The strings that operate the doors of the Dalek ship are visible, and the Dalek Supreme's lights are especially out of sync with his dialogue. And the Dalek he exterminated couldn't be the section leader as the leader was trapped in the laboratory, so who was the Dalek the Dalek Supreme killed? The new section leader. Bad timing on his promotion, though.
  • In part one Jo rattles a person thus revealing a dead person. If she did not know he was dead would she not just say hello? Most people would touch a person before saying anything, especially since, if he's not dead, he's more than likely unconscious.
  • When one Dalek fails to stop it knocks another backwards.
  • In episode 6, when Latep slides a bomb at an advancing Dalek, he slides the bomb on its side. However, in the following shot, the bomb is in an upright position.
  • Another word for 'liquid ice' is - water . However, they actually explain in the story how they're using the term: the "liquid ice" has a temperature well below what would be the normal freezing point of water, yet still remains liquid.
  • 10,000 seems a ridiculously small figure for an army that intends to conquer the galaxy Even with a small force the Daleks are still a force to be reckoned with.
  • The rather obvious use of toy Daleks.
  • When the Dalek levitates up the shaft to get the Doctor and the Thals, the harness used to levitate it is visible.
  • Why is Jo so surprised to see a Dalek that she doesn't recognize? She's only met them once and there were only three in that story.
  • When the Doctor and Codal attack the Dalek in the prison cell, the mid-section of the Dalek is seen to move off its base.

Continuity

  • Spiridon is revisited in DWM: Emperor of the Daleks and BFA: Return of the Daleks.
  • The Doctor says he'll reverse the polarity. This is a piece of Doctor techno-babble commonly used. It has been the subject of spoofs and its frequent use may even be an in-joke. To reverse the polarity simply means to connect electrical wires to the wrong terminals of an appliance.
  • In DW: Remembrance of the Daleks the Seventh Doctor constructs a device to disorientate a Dalek. He says 'I built something like it on Spiridon'.
  • In this adventure the Doctor's legs are temporarily paralysed by a Dalek blast. He is shot by a Dalek on only one other occasion (though he is shot at on numerous occasions). That is, in DW: The Stolen Earth, when the blast initiates a regeneration. In The Daleks the legs of Ian Chesterton were likewise paralysed.
  • The Thals feature in a television story for the first time since DW: The Daleks. They say they come from Skaro, implying that either the war between the Thals and the Daleks is still continuing, or that the Thals have expelled the Daleks from the homeworld. The latter is supported by the Doctor's observation that the Daleks 'have returned' to Skaro in DW: Destiny of the Daleks. As in The Daleks, the Thals are portrayed as fair skinned with golden hair.
  • In The Daleks, also written by Terry Nation, a Dalek casing is used as a disguise, the mutant having been removed. In that story, Ian Chesterton posed as a Dalek.

Timeline

DVD, Video and Other Releases

VHS release

Released in November 1999 as part of the second Dalek Tin set, alongside Revelation of the Daleks.

DVD release

Episode 3 of this had been unavailable in colour. It was announced in Doctor Who Magazine that this story is to be released on DVD alongside Frontier in Space in a boxset titled Dalek War, with a newly recolourised edition of Episode 3. The colourised version was produced by the Doctor Who Restoration Team and Legend Films, one of the leading colourisation and film restoration firms (and is also is notable as the producer of RiffTrax). [1]

Novelisation

Planet of The Daleks novel.jpg
Main article: Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Doctor Who Restoration Team

External Links

Template:Season 10

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Dalek television stories
For the purposes of this list, a "Dalek story" is one in which one living, authentic Dalek plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story. For this reason, stories such as The Space Museum are not counted due to the Daleks' appearance being defined by their importance to following stories, while stories such as The Wheel in Space and The Waters of Mars are absent due to the Daleks' only contribution being references to past Dalek stories. Stories like The Wedding of River Song, Hell Bent, Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers are also not included due to the Daleks' appearance being restricted to a single scene of no consequence to the plot of the story, while the TV movie is also absent due to the Daleks only being heard from off-screen.
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Because of the ubiquity of this race, no attempt will be made here to list every appearance in every medium. Instead, we focus on televised appearances here, and invite you to explore a complete list of appearances elsewhere.
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