Planet of the Daleks

Dear Gary—

Planet of the Daleks does not take place on the Dalek planet of Skaro. Planet of the Daleks takes place on Spiridon, a remote planet of an invisible race of Spiridons that the Daleks have conquered, and they are now attempting to master the Spiridon technique of invisibility. This is a truly scary thought—invisible Daleks—but it is not fully developed or explored. It is a simple plot device to explain why the Daleks are on this planet; that is all.

The Doctor and Jo have stumbled out of the treadmill that was Frontier in Space and are now hot on the trail of the Daleks; or rather, the TARDIS is. The Doctor had been grazed by a bullet from the Master’s gun and only had time to send a telepathic message to the Time Lords before passing out. Operating the TARDIS by remote control, the Time Lords send the TARDIS, the Doctor, and Jo to Spiridon.

I have to say, Gary, that fresh off of Frontier in Space I feel rather like Professor Fate at the end of The Great Race—I’ve been cheated. I have come all this long way and have been cheated. The Master, and parenthetically the Ogrons along with the Earth and Draconian Empires, has been left dangling and forgotten. Now I begin a story that claims to be on the planet of the Daleks but it isn’t. The specter of invisible Daleks is raised but never explored. I expect Doctor Who to step up.

Doctor Who does not disappoint.

Skaro aside; the Master aside; invisibility aside; Planet of the Daleks is solid Doctor Who entertainment.

“You come here out of nowhere and then claim to be something out of a legend.”

Materializing out of the mists of the Doctor's time swirl, the legend that is Doctor Who sweeps away all vague disappointments.

Even though Planet of the Daleks does not take place on Skaro it does have some nice echoes of that past initial encounter between the Doctor and his mortal enemies. We have an inhospitable planet with the Daleks holed up in a city while the ineffectual Thals are on the outside unable and unwilling to cope. We have the Doctor arriving to lead the Thals on a several pronged raid on the city where the Daleks have a countdown to unleash a deadly threat to all living creatures on the planet surface. We even have someone getting inside an emptied Dalek casing to maneuver past patrolling guards.

However, while the first Doctor was simply motivated by curiosity and the desire to retrieve his fluid link, this third Doctor traveled to Spiridon with the sole purpose of defeating the Daleks. “For a man who abhors violence, I must say I took great satisfaction in doing that,” the Doctor says of disabling a Dalek. Even the Thals have traveled all this way in pursuit of the Daleks.

In the original, rather over long, Dalek adventure the Daleks were confined to Skaro and only posed a threat to the Thals. The Daleks have since emerged as a danger to the entire universe, and Planet of the Daleks (still a tad long at six episodes) has a greater sense of urgency about it and more than enough action to carry us through.

“When faced with the inevitable, don’t waste precious time by resisting it.”

The Thals have been wasting precious time. They at least had the gumption to man a space flight to track the Daleks, however now that they have landed they are hopelessly inept and not much better than their ancestors from the first story. The lackluster leader Taron attributes his paralysis of mind to caution, and later has the nerve to blame it on the presence of his lover Rebec. His compatriot Vaber, on the other hand, is far too rash.

Enter the Doctor. "Let's take a look in our pockets." The Doctor leaves no pocket unturned; he will always find a way. (Thankfully this time around the Doctor's way does not involve long treks through swamps and caves like the first time.)

As I mentioned before, the Dalek plan to adapt the Spiridon art of invisibility doesn't go very far. They have had only limited success when our story begins, and apparently they abandon all attempts in future as I am unaware of any further mention of invisible Daleks in Doctor Who history.

The second Dalek threat in our story also peters out. The Daleks intend on unleashing deadly bacteria onto the planet surface, but the native Spiridon Wester sacrifices himself by releasing it in a sealed room so that it is contained; the Daleks cannot open the room as they have not yet been immunized. Of course this wouldn’t stop them from completing the immunization process and then letting the bacteria out, or from just whipping up another batch.

These first two Dalek plots, however, do serve to keep the action flowing until the Doctor can uncover the third and real danger--a vast army of Daleks currently in cold storage on the planet.

At this point it turns out to be a good thing that the Thals have squandered their time on Spiridon just moving their stockpile of explosives from one hiding place to another. This at least has served to keep the bombs safe so that the Doctor (with the help of Jo who manages to snag two from the clutches of the Daleks) can utilize them in his plan to bury the Dalek army in a flood of molten ice.

“We have been delayed, not defeated. The Daleks are never defeated.”

That is the wonderful thing about the Daleks. They never kill the Doctor and the Doctor never quite defeats them. They will always be back as the Supreme Dalek proclaims--delayed not defeated.

Before taking his leave of the Thals the Doctor advises them, “Don’t glamorize it; don’t make war sound like an exciting and thrilling game.” Somehow I don’t think the Thals can make anything sound exciting or thrilling. All in all the Thals are rather a dull race and there is a reason that they do not return again and again to Doctor Who.

A few final thoughts, Gary, about the TARDIS before I sign off. The uncomfortable looking curvy lounge beds that the first Doctor used have been abandoned; we now have a bed that emerges from the wall at the push of a button. In fact there is an entire bank of drawers and lockers along one wall of the control room that is something new. The TARDIS interior has gone through several redesigns in recent serials; I wonder when the Doctor finds the time. One more point about the TARDIS; I find it rather hard to believe that the oxygen supply can be so easily depleted in this indestructible, miraculous, bigger (seeming infinitely so) on the inside machine.  But I will set this TARDIS anomaly aside just as I set Frontier in Space aside and let the Doctor Who magic take over.

Until next time, Gary, . . . delayed not defeated . . .