Who Review: Planet of the Daleks

The wounded Doctor lies on a pallet in the TARDIS console room while the TARDIS whisks him and his frightened companion to the planet Spiridon. There, Jo goes in search of help, only to be attacked by plant sap. Little does she realize that this sap will start to expand until it covers her, as it is beginning to cover the TARDIS. The Doctor awakens to find himself sealed inside, and his supply of oxygen running out. He is rescued by a group of men whom he recognizes as Thals from the Dalek home planet, Skaro. The Doctor encountered the Thals the first time he visited Skaro, back when he traveled with Ian, Barbara, and Susan. That time he helped the Thals defeat the Daleks. Now it seems the Daleks have enslaved the native Spiridons to discover their secret of invisibility, and are preparing a virus that will kill all life on the planet. With these weapons added to their arsenal, along with the thousands of Daleks hidden and waiting in suspended animation, they plan to conquer the galaxy. Can the Doctor, Jo, and this small band of Thals defeat the mighty Daleks and save the universe–again?

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

The story that began with “Frontier in Space” continues with “Planet of the Daleks.” The two form a sort-of six-part saga, though I don’t think they are so intimately connected that they can’t be watched as stand-alone stories. Certainly “Planet” picks up some plot threads from “Frontier,” but nothing that requires watching the whole of “Frontier” to grasp. All you need to know is that the Daleks are using Spiridon as a base for the army they have amassed in their quest for galactic domination.

“Planet of the Daleks” sees the return of Terry Nation to write for his famous monsters. One of the hallmarks of a Terry Nation script is a tendency to eschew hi-tech solutions and go for resourcefulness. Hence, the Doctor and his Thal friends fashion a parachute out of clear plastic (okay, so it wasn’t supposed to be plastic… but it was, you know what I mean?) so they could utilize the updraft from the heating system to escape the Dalek “city” via a vertical chute. They disable a couple of Daleks by pushing them into a frigid lake, then sneak into the Dalek city by hiding under fluffy purple Spiridon blankets (the invisible people use them to keep warm in the cold nights), with one of their number inside a Dalek (having removed the Dalek blob first). The Doctor wards off night creatures using a flaming torch when the blasters fail them. The Doctor even ignores his own sonic screwdriver to use a regular screwdriver (that one of the Thals just happened to have handy) to unscrew his recording device, out of which he fashions a radio signal jammer to disable a Dalek. Is it any wonder Terry Nation went on to write for MacGyver?

The story itself has, I think, fewer plot problems than “Frontier.” Terry doesn’t throw in useless plot threads just to pad the story. There is at least the appearance of cohesiveness, where a discovery in an early episode can impact a solution in a later episode. For example, the discovery of the cooling vents, which the Doctor and friends use to escape. These same vents deliver the icy goop that the Doctor will use to put the Dalek army in a very long-term deep freeze at the end of the story. Also, early on, the Thals plant bombs which the Daleks subsequently discover. The Daleks only detonate a couple of them, and Jo manages to salvage the rest. One of these bombs will be used at the end to blow open the cooling duct that will deep-freeze the Daleks.

I’m still a little mystified about the Doctor’s injury at the beginning. It’s possible he was shot by the Master, but it’s just a head wound. He’s recovered from worse before. Though this scene at the beginning of episode one gives us the chance to admire the TARDIS IKEA furniture.

There are a couple of unnecessary deaths, not because they didn’t serve a purpose in the plot, but because the situations in which the characters died were not life-or-death. Marat was gunned down by a Dalek because he didn’t want to crawl under a door to escape. He had plenty of time, and there was plenty of space between the door and the floor. Marat’s death was necessary for the plot because he had the map showing all the Thal bomb locations. But they could have at least made it look like death was his only option. And then there was Vaber’s death, shot by a Dalek as he tried to escape in the forest. My problem here is that the Doctor and the other Thals were later shot at by Daleks in the forest from about the same distance, but somehow the Daleks missed them all!

By the time “Planet of the Daleks” aired (April-May 1973), Katy Manning had, I believe, decided to leave the role of Jo Grant. I don’t think this had been announced to the public yet, which makes it all the more intriguing that a relationship between Jo and Letap, one of the the Thals, would be allowed to develop. This relationship resulted in Jo having to decide whether to go back to Skaro with Letap, or go with the Doctor. Had the audience known of Katy’s impending departure, they might have wondered if this was it. But Jo returns with the Doctor. And yet, once inside the TARDIS, she tells the Doctor she wants to go to Earth. “Home.” This scene truly marks the beginning of the end of Jo Grant’s time with the Doctor.

Not must-see who, but better than average, I think. Worth seeing if given the opportunity.