Planet of the Daleks (TV story)

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.

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

 * 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

Story Notes

 * This story had a working title of: Destination Daleks.

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
to be added

Filming Locations

 * Beachfields Quarry, Redhill, Surrey

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * The Doctor seems to have forgotten that he was following the Daleks to their base of operations in episode one.
 * The Daleks seem to have forgotten their plot to try and start a war between the empires of Earth and Draconia. (DW: Frontier in Space).
 * If the lake that the Daleks are pushed into is so cold, then why does it not affect the thals standing in it?
 * If Daleks can elevate (fly), when they become stranded on the planet, why can't they just fly into the vacuum of space (as seen in DW: The Parting of the Ways)? (It's probable that these Daleks couldn't fly; in the Classic Series, only Imperial Daleks could be seen to truly fly)

Continuity

 * Spiridon is revisited in BFA: Return of the Daleks.

DVD, Video and Other Releases
VHS: Released in November 1999 as part of the second Dalek Tin set, alongside Revelation of the Daleks.

Target Novelisations

 * Novelised as Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks by Terrance Dicks in 1976.