Planet of the Daleks

“Shortly after entering the TARDIS, the Doctor fell into a deep coma. His respiration was very shallow, his skin icy to the touch. I could find no trace of pulse or heartbeat, and his breathing had apparently ceased” – Jo

Shortly after having been shot by the Master, the Doctor send out a distress call to the Timelords and collapses. Seeking help, Jo ventures onto the planet the TARDIS has landed on to find some very unusual plant life that seem to ejaculate concrete. How odd…

Bravely Jo ventures on, recording on the ships Dictaphone, I mean log of everything she sees on her wander. Meanwhile the Doctor has come round and is puzzled as to why the automatic oxygen supply has been activated if the air outside is breathable…

The Krafayis isn’t the only invisible monster out there. Meet the spiridons, indigenous species of… Spiridon. Yeah, this serial really does lack a lot of creativity in it. For the most part the idea of the serial is rather flimsily constructed. The main plot line is the Daleks, one of the most powerful species in the universe, are seeking invisibility, but their experiments end up in the death of the Daleks.

The Thals are possibly one of the worst characters in Who history. Constantly talking in lines straight out of a B-Movie, such as referring to Spiridon as ‘space trash’, the dialogue in the script is truly cringe worthy, giving the feel of a military space opera constructed on a shoestring budget. Oh wait, that’s what this episode is. One of the worst verbal slips in a script I have ever heard though has to come in the form of “It’s this job, it doesn’t allow for human weakness.” Hu… HUMAN WEAKNESS? COMING FROM A THAL? WHAT THE FUCK? It’s almost as if Terry Nation was deliberately taking the piss with this one.

The story doesn’t do much in the drama department either, the first episode spends it’s time working up suspense at the reveal of the Daleks, which was already done in the title sequence. Again. The lure of viewing figures at the expense of the story really is a sad truth when it comes to Doctor Who. As such it makes the scenes of revealing the Daleks and Cybermen or any other recurring villain you care to mention worthless as you’ll have known about it months in advance.

The Daleks are more cardboard cut outs now than in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in which they were literally cardboard cut outs. The classic pepper pots lack any form of menace in this story as they generally bumble abut shouting and at one point paralyzing the Doctor more because he’s a main character than him being a useful asset to them. As such the Doctor must effect a vertical escape, to which a Dalek chases them up the shaft, using an anti-gravity disc, ignoring the fact that it had already been established, or at least hinted that Daleks could levitate.

To try and clamber some suspense back Jo is infected with the spores of an evil plant that encompasses you in a fungal concrete for no particular reason. It just does. It’s only forty minutes of lying around being useless before she’s saved and diving into veg crates however.

The science of the serial is just as flimsy as the plot, as before stars burning cold there was planets with ice lava. I’m not kidding. They’ve taken the concept of magma and reversed it so that it’s bone chillingly cold. This forms a useful moment of concern as the main characters are trapped in a vent with the … cold lava fast approaching.

Overall it’s a piss poor entry by Mr. Nation. He’s got the science wrong, the Daleks wrong and forgotten the Thals were Thals. All these stupid errors make me wonder if this was penned by Terry or by his 5 year old son in crayon on the wall.