Planet of the Daleks (TV story)

Planet of the Daleks was the fourth serial in season ten of Doctor Who. It was the penultimate serial for Katy Manning and the conclusion of a loose, dual-serial storyline begun in Frontier in Space. It was also a direct sequel to the very first Dalek serial, showing what had happened to the Thals after the First Doctor met them in The Daleks.

Behind the scenes, it was writer Terry Nation's first Doctor Who commission since the 1965 Christmas episode, "The Feast of Steven" and director David Maloney's first story since The War Games.

Synopsis
Arriving on Spiridon, the Third Doctor and Jo encounter a Thal group. But the Daleks are here and they're invisible...

Episode one
Immediately after the events of Frontier in Space: the Third Doctor has been shot and gravely wounded by. Jo helps him into the TARDIS, where he uses the telepathic circuits to send a message to the Time Lords before he collapses.

Delirious, he tells Jo that he may be asleep for a while. He falls into a coma, his body temperature dipping so low that frost appears on his skin and both his hearts beat only once every ten seconds.

Jo dictates into the TARDIS log, a portable recording device, that she has seen this healing state before and the TARDIS is moving, apparently being controlled remotely by the Time Lords. When it halts, Jo activates the external scanners, only to see plants outside. They block the viewer by spraying a thick, sap-like liquid at it. With the Doctor catatonic, Jo leaves the ship to explore the surrounding jungle. The plants spray sap on her as she walks by. Some of it gets on her exposed hand.

As Jo explores, the TARDIS is rapidly covered by plant sap, hardening into a shell around it. When the Doctor awakens, he finds himself sealed in and the oxygen in the TARDIS cabin rapidly being used up. He activates the emergency oxygen supply and finds the tanks almost empty. He starts to suffocate. Jo, in the meantime, discovers a spacecraft in the jungle with a dead pilot. She is found by two others in the same uniform — Taron, who appears to be the leader, and Vaber, who has a surly disposition. Taron is intrigued when Jo tells him about the TARDIS. They are joined by another crewmember, Codal, who warns them a patrol is approaching. Taron tells Jo to hide in the spacecraft while he and the others find her friend. Jo hides in a storage cupboard while an invisible entity enters and searches the craft. She avoids discovery, but a fungoid growth has appeared on her hand and is starting to spread.

Taron and his men find the TARDIS and chip the hardened sap from its doors, dragging a nearly asphyxiated Doctor into the air. The Doctor thanks them and notes he finds them familiar. When the men say they are from the planet Skaro, the Doctor recognises them as Thals and tells them he was on Skaro many years ago. The Thals are sceptical when he claims to be the famous Doctor of Thal legend, but he gives them enough details to mollify them. Taron tells the Doctor that he has been infected by a fungus carried by the sap and treats him with a spray. It would have engulfed and killed him had Taron not done so.

They are on Spiridon, a planet where the plant life is more animal than vegetable, with creatures hostile to everyone, including themselves, and extremes of day and night temperature. The Thals are the only survivors of a military expedition. Taron orders a halt to their progress through the jungle when they hear something breaking down, Nothing is seen except a circular depression in the ground. Giving the Doctor another spray can, Taron tells him that he will see what they are up against. The Doctor sprays the seemingly empty air before him. It reveals the outlines of a Dalek...

Episode two
The Dalek is inactive, dead from what the Thals call "light wave sickness". The Spiridons, the dominant species on the planet, can generate an "anti-reflecting light wave" which the Daleks are trying to duplicate. However, it takes a tremendous amount of power and cannot be long sustained. The Spiridons have been subjugated and enslaved by the Daleks, but there are no more than twelve Daleks on the planet. Back in the spaceship, Jo has passed out as the fungus spreads across her forearm. An invisible Spiridon enters the spacecraft and takes her away.

A Spiridon patrol comes across the Thals and the Doctor. Codal leads them away from the others, but is captured. When they make it back to the craft, they find the TARDIS log on the ground and two Daleks about to destroy the ship. Believing Jo still inside, the Doctor steps forward and begs the Daleks to stop, but the patrol shoots him with a stun ray. He watches helplessly as the spacecraft is blasted to pieces. Taron and Vaber remain hidden and go off to retrieve the supplies for their mission on Spiridon. The Doctor is taken to the Dalek base for interrogation and put in the same cell as Codal, whom he tries to cheer up. The Doctor tries to open the cell door with his sonic screwdriver, but to no avail. Codal and he decide modify the components of the TARDIS log to emit a radio frequency to jam Dalek control impulses. Meanwhile, Jo is being cared for by the Spiridon who found her. His name is Wester and he is one of a group of his people who are trying to fight back against the Daleks. He cures her of her fungal infection with a salve and tells Jo that the Doctor and Codal have been captured and taken to the Dalek base. Jo is determined to free them, even though Wester says that if the Daleks use them for their experiments, they are better off dead.

Vaber and Taron find the explosives that they hid earlier. Vaber wants to attack the Daleks now. He accuses Taron of being overcautious and cowardly when Taron refuses. Vaber draws his gun and threatens to shoot Taron if he does not hand over the explosives, but before things can get out of hand the heat and roar of another spacecraft rush over their heads. It is another Thal vessel, but the entry angle is too steep and their weapons are lost in the crash that follows. Only three Thals have survived — two men, Latep and Marat, and a woman, Rebec. Taron is unhappy to see Rebec. She happens to be his lover. Rebec tells him that they intercepted a message to Dalek Supreme Command saying that the Dalek army on Spiridon was now complete: a force of not a dozen, but ten thousand Daleks.

Episode three
Jo and Wester see fur-wearing Spiridons entering the Dalek base, carrying crates of vegetation. The Daleks are experimenting with a plant-destroying bacterium. Jo hides on one of the crates and smuggles herself into the base. Taron shows Rebec another feature of Spiridon — a liquid allotrope of ice that exists in the core of the planet and erupts to the surface like lava. The Daleks use it as a cooling system, with ice tunnels that lead into the base. Taron plans to use them to infiltrate and cause a distraction while Vaber and Latep wait by the entrance with the explosives. A Dalek is sent to interrogate the Doctor and Codal, who use the improvised jamming device on it successfully, but the device is destroyed in the process. Making their way through the corridors, they find the three Thals, who are struggling to get out of the tunnels before a molten ice eruption floods them. Jamming the shaft doors open and getting them out, all run as a Dalek patrol enters the corridor, and is covered by the molten ice rushing out of the cooling tunnel.

The rest stumble into a chamber while Marat, weakened from the cold, covers their retreat. He is exterminated by the Daleks, who find a map on him showing where the explosives are hidden. The Doctor seals the doors with his sonic screwdriver. The Dalek Section Leader sends a patrol to find and destroy the explosives, while others are sent forcutting equipment. Jo overhears the orders and follows the Dalek patrol out of the city. Trapped in the chamber, the Thals and the Doctor find a huge refrigeration unit pumping excess heat up through a ventilation shaft that leads to the surface. The Doctor also discovers the Dalek army stored in an adjoining chamber, sleeping in suspended animation. The four improvise a hot-air balloon from plastic sheeting but there doesn't seem to be enough lift to carry all of them, and the Daleks have nearly cut through the door...

Episode four
There is finally enough lift for the improvised hot air balloon to carry the Doctor and the Thals up the shaft, they rise up out of the room just as the Daleks break through the door. A gravitational disk is sent for so that a Dalek can follow them up the shaft while another patrol is sent to the shaft's exit on the surface. The Dalek patrol sent for the explosives activates the timed detonators and leaves. Jo sneaks up to try and deactivate the timers, but only manages two before being knocked out by a stone from the crumbling cliff-face the explosives were hidden against. She awakens barely in time to grab the deactivated bombs and take cover before the third goes off, conveniently destroying the Dalek patrol sent to intercept the Thals.

Meanwhile, the Thals and the Doctor reach the top of the shaft and drop a rock on the pursuing Dalek, sending it plummeting to the bottom. Making their way away from the shaft, they meet Jo, whom the Doctor is overjoyed to see again; he thought her killed when the Thal ship was destroyed. The Doctor explains that his telepathic signal was to tell the Time Lords the location of this planet — he had learned that there was a Dalek invasion force here while on the planet of the Ogrons. The Time Lords steered the TARDIS here. Latep and Vaber also rejoin the group. They had thought the others were killed in the ice eruption and were about to assault the city when they found one of their bombs was a dud and the others destroyed by the Daleks. Jo shows them the two bombs she rescued.

The group decide to hide in the Plain of Stones, an area of Spiridon with rocks that absorb heat from the sun by day and discharge it at night. They avoid a combined Dalek/Spiridon patrol as night falls and the temperature drops. The Doctor notices the Daleks seem to be moving slower than usual. In the Dalek base, one reports to the Section Leader that the bacteria will destroy all plant life within a day and unimmunised life forms within an hour. It will be ready in half a Spiridon day. At the Plain of Stones, Vaber and Taron come to blows again about when to take action. During the night, Vaber steals the two bombs and sneaks away from the camp. Taron and Codal go in pursuit as the others huddle around the campfire, surrounded by anima with eyes glowing in the darkness. Vaber is caught by the Spiridons, who bring him to a Dalek patrol as Taron and Codal watch, hidden and disguised in the fur coats the Spiridons wear.

Episode five
When the Daleks try to force Vaber to lead them to the Thals, Vaber breaks away and is exterminated. Taron and Codal use this distraction to grab the two bombs and vanish into the forest.

The Daleks have developed an immunisation process against the bacteria. Orders are sent out for all Daleks and Spiridon slaves to return to the base for immunisation before the bacteria is released. On the Plain of Stones, Wester shows up to tell Jo that the Daleks have developed the deadly bacteria and he is going to try to enter the base and stop its release. The Doctor devises a plan using nearby pools of Molten ice. Deducing that the ice slows and even stops the Daleks from functioning, the group lure a Dalek patrol to them, and push the two Daleks into the pools. The sudden drop in temperature kills them. Taron, Codal and the Doctor dress in Spiridon furs while Rebec sits in the emptied Dalek casing so they can enter the base undetected with one of the bombs. Latep and Jo will enter the city via the ventilation shaft with the other bomb, in a two-pronged attack.

As the first group enters the city, they see Wester entering the bacteria preparation chamber under the pretence of delivering a report. Wester releases the bacteria into the sealed room, sacrificing himself, but ensuring that the room cannot be unsealed without killing the other Daleks. The group try to move deeper into the base, but one of the Thals' boots is spotted by a Dalek, who sounds the alert.

Episode six
The group flees down the corridors, making their way back to the cooling chamber. Once there, the Doctor asks Rebec and Taron to barricade the entrance while he finds a way to keep the Dalek army from reviving. Codal and he decide to set an explosive in the wall of the chamber holding the Dalek army, which are slowly coming to life. In the meantime, the Dalek Supreme, a member of the Dalek High Council, has arrived in a spaceship to oversee the final stages of the operation. It exterminates the Section Leader for incompetence. Jo and Latep finally arrive at the cooling chamber and use their bomb to destroy a squad of Daleks before joining the others. As another patrol comes through, the bomb set in the chamber wall explodes. Molten ice rushes out to flood the chamber, freezing the Dalek army for centuries to come. The group escapes over a ramp that leads to the surface while the rest of the Daleks abandon the base, which is filling with molten ice.

The group makes its way to the Dalek Supreme's spacecraft. The Doctor asks Taron not to glorify what has happened, nor make war sound like an adventure. The Thals were a peaceful people and he would hate to see them change. Taron and Rebec promise and the Thals enter the spacecraft and leave for Skaro. The Doctor and Jo run back to the TARDIS, pursued by the Dalek Supreme and the other Daleks. They dematerialise just as the Daleks open fire. The Dalek Supreme orders operations to recover the invasion force and contact the Dalek High Council for a rescue ship. The Daleks have been delayed, but will never be defeated....

Cast

 * The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
 * Jo Grant - Katy Manning
 * Taron - Bernard Horsfall
 * Vaber - Prentis Hancock
 * Codal - Tim Preece
 * Rebec - Jane How
 * Wester - Roy Skelton
 * Dalek Voices - Michael Wisher, Roy Skelton
 * Dalek Operators - John Scott Martin, Murphy Grumbar, Cy Town
 * Marat - Hilary Minster
 * Latep - Alan Tucker

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Managers - Sue Hedden, Graeme Harper, John Cook
 * Costumes - Hazel Pethig
 * Designer - John Hurst
 * Film Cameraman - Elmer Cossey
 * Film Editor - Dave Thomas
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Make-Up - Jean McMillan
 * Producer - Barry Letts
 * Production Assistant - George Gallaccio
 * Script Editor - Terrance Dicks
 * Special Sounds - Dick Mills
 * Studio Lighting - Derek Slee
 * Studio Sound - Tony Millier
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Clifford Culley

Daleks

 * The Daleks have stored their greatest invasion force ever, about ten thousand strong, on Spiridon.
 * Most Daleks emit an automatic distress call if their casings are tampered with.
 * The Daleks have constructed disks that allow them to levitate. The Dalek comic strips previously had the Daleks transported by disks.

The Doctor

 * The Doctor mentions Ian, Barbara and Susan Foreman in confirming he was the Doctor to visit Skaro and to be known to the Thals.

TARDIS

 * The Doctor instructs Jo to use the TARDIS log.

Thals

 * The Thals know of Earth but believe it a myth.
 * The Thals would appear to have expelled the Daleks from Skaro, though this is not explicitly stated.

Story notes

 * This story had a working title of Destination Daleks. (REF: The Third Doctor Handbook)
 * The story has been recognised as a reworking of the first Dalek story, The Daleks, containing some of the same plot devices, including: a group of Daleks in a city encountering the Thals on a ravaged planet; a deadly plague instead of a neutron bomb; someone using a Dalek shell as a disguise; the Doctor imprisoned in a cell and with paralysed legs; and the Daleks imprisoned in their city at the end of the story.
 * Because Terry Nation had not written for the show since 1965, he initially believed each episode was individually-titled. Among his episode titles were "Destinus", "Countdown to Eternity" and "Victory." (INFO: Planet of the Daleks)
 * Louis Marx Daleks are used to simulate an army (this same technique was used in The Evil of the Daleks).
 * Given the requirements of this story, the three remaining Dalek props from the sixties were deemed insufficient and seven wooden extras were built for this story. They looked pretty impressive, but were completely static (which may explain why some of the Daleks in this story do not seem to notice intruders at close range). For the next fifteen years, these were used as large parts bins to hold up the decaying remains of the original props from the sixties (which by this story were ten years old); by Resurrection of the Daleks, the four props used were nearly all wood. It wasn't until Revelation of the Daleks (1985) that new, fully working props were made. Curiously, brand new props were also made for Remembrance of the Daleks.
 * At least 1 other Dalek prop was also used: One of 4 Daleks privately owned by Terry Nation was loaned and allowed to be modified for use as the Supreme Dalek. He was given 4 props after filming Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD, and the Supreme was recycled out of the Gold Dalek from the film. (This can be told because they both have widely-spaced rivets on the slats.)
 * In the DVD feature Perfect Scenario it's stated that the character of Rebec was included at the insistence of Letts and Dicks, who wanted female characters on screen for visual variety and for the female audience members.
 * Originally, Episode 5 was to end with all of the Thal characters massacred by the Daleks. Terrance Dicks, however, asked that Terry Nation not include this plot point, as the series was beginning to be criticised for its violent content.
 * Although not generally recognised, 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.
 * This is the only story where a Dalek Leader has punished his subordinates' failure with extermination. Not true: In The Daleks' Master Plan, the Supreme Dalek destroys an entire ship of Daleks who failed to recapture the fugitives on Desperus.
 * In Perfect Scenario, cast members Katy Manning and Bernard Horsfall express the opinion that the jungle fighting was a deliberate nod to the contemporary Vietnam War. In the same feature, Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts state they don't believe Terry Nation would have done this deliberately but might have been unconsciously influenced by the war.
 * According to the DVD info text, it was decided at one point that all on-screen actors had to wear makeup, including the Dalek operators, who (it was feared) could conceivably be seen through the mesh of the props. The operators, in protest, one day dressed up their Daleks as women, and Michael Wisher and Roy Skelton, playing along with the joke, provided suitably "camp" voices for the dolled-up Daleks.
 * The original colour version of Episode 3 is currently missing. A black & white print exists and was colourised by various methods for the DVD Boxset Dalek War.

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. According to the DVD commentary subtitles for Planet of the Daleks, Starr did indeed play the Supreme Dalek in all but the jungle inserts towards the end of the episode, when he was not available.)

Filming locations

 * Beachfields Quarry, Redhill, Surrey
 * Ealing Television Film Studios, Ealing Green, Ealing
 * BBC Television Centre (Studios 1, 4 & 6), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

 * During episode two, as the Doctor is being escorted to the Dalek command centre for interrogation, the Dalek escorting him (very audibly) runs into the side of a door as they exit the elevator.
 * In some of the scenes in which the Daleks are gathered at Dalek command, at least one of the Dalek models is clearly the same one used for the invisible spray-painted Dalek from episode one and two.
 * When the Thals take cover on the plain of stones in episode four a huge, dark shape appears behind the sky.
 * The second Dalek, pursuing Jo and Latep in episode five, knocks into a polystyrene 'rock' and moves it out of position.
 * The strings that operate the doors of the Dalek ship are visible
 * The Dalek Supreme's lights are especially out of sync with his dialogue.
 * 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.
 * Toy Daleks are rather obviously used.
 * When the Dalek levitates up the shaft to get the Doctor and the Thals, the harness used to levitate it is visible.
 * 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.
 * In episode 4, Katy Manning very obviously prepares for a blow to the head before a fake boulder falls on top of her.
 * In episode 3, during one shot in the Dalek's laboratory, the Dalek on the left has its whole eyestalk painted black, yet in the next shot, it has the Daleks usual white ring.
 * When Jo is trying to evade the Daleks in the control room she quite visibly steps into the eye sight of a Dalek for more than a second but it does not move or take action.
 * Katy Manning's hair is shorter in the studio sessions than it is in location footage. Manning had her hair cut between the two lots of recording. (REF: The Third Doctor Handbook) It's unclear why the production staff wasn't able to prevent Manning from creating such an obvious continuity problem.

Continuity

 * Spiridon is revisited in COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks and AUDIO: Return of the Daleks.
 * The Doctor says he'll reverse the polarity.
 * In TV: Remembrance of the Daleks the Seventh Doctor constructs a device to disorient a Dalek. He says, "I rigged 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 two other occasions (though he is shot at on numerous occasions): in TV: The Stolen Earth, when the blast initiates a regeneration and in TV: The Big Bang by the Stone Dalek. In The Daleks the legs of Ian Chesterton were likewise paralysed.
 * The Thals feature in a television story for the first time since TV: The Daleks. They say they come from Skaro, implying that either the war between the Thals and the Daleks is 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 TV: Destiny of the Daleks. As in The Daleks, the Thals are portrayed as fair skinned with golden hair.
 * In TV: The Daleks, also written by Terry Nation, a Dalek casing is also used as a disguise, the mutant having been removed. In that story, Ian Chesterton posed as a Dalek.
 * The Doctor says he'd like to take up flying a hot-air balloon. He briefly pilots one in TV: The Next Doctor.
 * In the Planet of the Daleks DVD feature Perfect Scenario, it's noted that the story shares many elements and plot beats with the first Dalek story and that this has been seen as a deliberate nod or simply a rehash.
 * The conquest of Spiridon follows the same tactics - viral warfare to weaken the Spiridons, followed by subjugation of the survivors - that was also used for the conquest of Earth. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) Terrible diseases are elements of many Dalek stories. In TV: Death to the Daleks the Daleks threaten to wipe out life on Exxilon with plague missiles. In TV: Resurrection of the Daleks they attack an Earth prison ship with a disease, and are themselves threatened by a plague created by the Movellans. In TV: Genesis of the Daleks, Davros, the Daleks' creator, contemplates a virus that would destroy all life, and in AUDIO: Terror Firma he actually creates it to decimate humankind.
 * The Doctor mentions that, during the Dalek War on Skaro, he was with three companions: Susan, Ian and Barbara. (TV: The Daleks)
 * Daleks who survived this skirmish with the Doctor were later imprisoned in the Intensive Care Ward of the Dalek Asylum, where the Eleventh Doctor would later encounter them. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)

DVD releases
This story was released on 5 October 2009 with the previous story, Frontier in Space in a boxed set called "Dalek War". It features a re-colourised Episode Three, commentary and numerous special features.
 * Commentary - by Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Prentis Hancock (Vaber), Tim Preece (Codal), Barry Letts (Producer) and Terrance Dicks (Script Editor)
 * Perfect Scenario: The End Of Dreams - Continuing his search for inspiration, Zed resumes his studies of Doctor Who. Including interviews with Jane How (Rebec), Janet Fielding (Tegan) and Bernard Horsfall (Taron)
 * The Rumble In The Jungle - Cast and crew look back at the making of the story


 * Multi-colourisation - A documentary about the colour restoration of episode three


 * Stripped for Action - The Daleks - The ongoing series looking at the doctor's comic book adventures focuses on his deadliest foes


 * Blue Peter


 * Radio Times Billing


 * Production Information Subtitles


 * Photo Gallery


 * Easter Egg


 * Digitally Remastered Picture And Sound Quality
 * Coming Soon Trailer (The Kamelion Tales)

Video releases

 * This story was released in November 1999 as part of the second Dalek Tin set, alongside Revelation of the Daleks in the UK.