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.
 * 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.

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

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

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 invisibilty, 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)
 * 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 synch 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
 * 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 . Amusing. 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 recognise? 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.
 * The Thals feature in a television story for the first time since 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 Destiny of the Daleks.As in The Daleks, the Thals are portrayed as fair skinned with golden hair.

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).

Novelisation

 * Main article: Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks


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