Doctor Who: Planet of the Daleks: Episode One (1973)
Season 10, Episode 15
8/10
The Invisible Dalek
19 October 2014
Review of all 6 episodes:

Following on from the Daleks appearance in the final part of the previous story this story follows their latest plot to conquer the galaxy. The Doctor has been injured and calls for help from the Time Lords. They cause the TARDIS to travel to the planet where the Daleks are massing their army and perfecting their new weapons (including a power of invisibility). While The Doctor goes into a coma Jo ventures out onto the jungle like planet. They end up teaming up with a small group of Thals to try to stop the Daleks.

The story is decent with excellent moments and a good helping of fun action along the way. There are some good ideas, nice dialogue and decent acting and whilst far from perfect this is an enjoyable and solid quality adventure.

Part 1 has a tense beginning with the Doctor's life seeming at risk and after some jungle peril with dangerous plants there is a great cliffhanger with the discovery of an invisible Dalek. Part 2 is the strongest episode with the excitement of the Daleks, the Doctor getting more involved in the action and some really good dialogue such as the Doctor's great chat to Codal about bravery. After that there continue to be interesting elements such as the ice volcano and the exciting prospect of a huge army of Daleks waiting to be put into action. There is plenty of action and confrontation with Daleks too but these confrontations are less effective when they involve people grappling Daleks, throwing cloaks over themor pushing them into waterholes. The threat of the Dalek army and speeches of menace from them are great but it is made less thrilling when they are also shown to be so vulnerable to attack from unarmed humanoids. There are also some less than convincing aspects to other scenes along the way.

Overall though this is solid entertainment and a decent adventure on an interesting alien world.

My ratings: Part 1 - 8/10, Part 2 - 9/10, Part 3 - 8/10, Parts 4 & 5 - 7.5/10, Part 6 - 8/10. Overall - 8/10.
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