"Doctor Who" Planet of the Daleks: Episode One (TV Episode 1973) Poster

(TV Series)

(1973)

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7/10
A good start following on from the events of Frontier in Space.
Sleepin_Dragon30 January 2019
The first part is a little bit of a mixed bag, it has an epic feel about it, continuing directly from Frontier in Space, it features some nice scenery, moves quickly, but it has a few flaws, such as the MFI TARDIS interior, and the unnecessary suspense created once again surrounding The Daleks, that cover was of course blown in the previous episode.

Pertwee's TARDIS interior seems at odds with all that went before, and came after, no oxygen in the TARDIS? that was never an.issue before, and since when did he have cheap furniture in the console room.

I really like the introduction of The Thaals, I like the threat of the natural environment, and I love The Doctor's recollection of events on Skaro back in the first Dalek aerial.

Not my favourite Dalek story, but it starts off well here. 7/10
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8/10
The Invisible Dalek
A_Kind_Of_CineMagic19 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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6/10
Planet of the Daleks: Episode One
Prismark108 August 2021
Terry Nation goes for the epic. However the Doctor Who budget was always going to struggle to recreate a jungle in the BBC studio environment.

The Doctor feels ill and needs a lie down. Who knew that the console room had a MFI furniture get up including a bed.

Jo goes to seek assistance but this is a planet with hostile lifeforms.

Jo finds a spaceship and a group of people that go looking for the Doctor. The ship is boarded by some kind of an invisible enemy.

The Doctor figures that his rescuers are Thals who he previously met in Skaro. Now they are in a planet called Spiridon.

Nation acquired a reputation of rewriting the same basic story. The first episode does have an air of familiarity about it.

Missteps was the sudden appearance of cheap furniture in the Tardis and it running out of oxygen in the console room.

The jungle set can be overlooked. The deadly plant life was nicely done giving an intimidating atmosphere. The final shot was no surprise.
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Adventure in an outsize greenhouse
JamesHitchcock22 December 2015
During his first two seasons, Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor was confined to Planet Earth (for reasons too complicated to set out here), but by the tenth season he was free to go gallivanting around the galaxy in his TARDIS once again and to reacquaint himself with some old friends and old enemies. And no enemies of the Doctor could be older than the Daleks, whom he meets here on the jungle planet Spiridon. Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks and the author of this serial, once said that he intended his creations as a Nazi analogue, and the analogy is continued here. The Daleks have invaded Spiridon, which they intend to use as a base for further conquests. The natives of the planet, who are invisible, have mostly been enslaved, although a few are waging a war of resistance against their conquerors. The old friends are a party of Thals, the race from Skaro featured in "The Daleks", who still preserve treasured memories of the Doctor's visit to their planet.

"Planet of the Daleks" was the first of the Third Doctor's two extraterrestrial encounters with the Daleks, the other being "Death to the Daleks" from the following season. *He had already met them on Earth in "Day of the Daleks"). Neither, in fact, ranks among Pertwee's best serials. Planet of the Daleks" suffers from being too long and drawn- out, trying to extend to six episodes a story which could have been told in four or five. The series' notoriously low budget was another drawback here; we never really believe that the Doctor's adventures are taking place on a jungle world; at most Spiridon resembles an outsize greenhouse. In this case, however, as well as with "Death to the Daleks", the main problem is lack of originality, because both stories are really little more than a rehash of "The Daleks". Nation was later to breathe fresh life into the Dalek concept in the excellent Fourth Doctor story "Genesis of the Daleks", so it is a pity he could not have done something similar here. Some of Pertwee's earlier earth-bound adventures such as "The Silurians", "Inferno" and "The Dæmons" were much more original.
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10/10
TRIUMPH OF THE DALEKS
duncanbrown-7673320 November 2021
This is an excellent six part Dalek story from the pen, of the creator of the Daleks being the legendary Terry Nation.

It is an excellent action adventure story, and one that dominants season ten of Doctor Who.

The Daleks are frightening as ever, especially when they have got the Dalek supreme at helm.

This serial reminds of a 1969 war film called Too Late The Hero. They are both similar in many aspects. Both stories are set in a jungle, and it has the theme of a suicide mission.

Although this 1973 BBC drama is now very dated, it still stands up as a good meaty action adventure story.
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6/10
Over Ambitious Epic
Theo Robertson17 August 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Review Of All Six Episodes - Some Spoilers

Planet Of The Daleks sees the first DOCTOR WHO script from Terry Nation for eight years . Unfortunately his script gives the impression that it's an over extended episode from his last story The Dalek Masterplan . You can see that both Frontier In Space and Planet Of The Daleks were conceived as tying in with one another similar to this year's season finale The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang and where as that two part finale lacks a narrative cohesion so does Frontier and Planet

This manifests itself in the opening episode . The Doctor lies unconscious in the Tardis and Jo leaves to find help . Didn't the Doctor send a telepathic message to the Time Lords requesting help at the end of the previous episode ? Didn't the humans and Draconians find out it was the Daleks who were behind the raiding parties ? Wouldn't they send a taskforce to find and destroy the Dalek base on Spiridon ? All this is quickly forgotten and the story could have easily have been inserted anywhere in the season with minimal rewriting . It also renders any sort of logic and continuity meaningless when the Doctor finds out that the Thals have found an invisible Dalek since the Doctor - and the audience - are expecting to find Daleks . Likewise the cliffhanger to episode two someone states there's ten thousand Daleks on the planet . Well of course there are . It's where the Daleks are staging an invasion force to take over the galaxy after the war between Earth and Draconia

Another problem with the writing is that Nation seems unaware that cinematic set pieces and ambitious locations have become more and more difficult to realise in DOCTOR WHO . You might get away with a jungle planet in black and white 405 line television in the mid 1960s but not colour 625 PAL television ten years later . David Maloney is considered as being one of the great directors from the classic show but even he can't make the jungles of Spiridon appear convincing in anyway and some scenes are laughable such as the attack by wild animals at the plain of stones in episode four

That said no one really watches a Dalek story due to the plot , they watch mainly down to the fact that the show's most iconic monsters are appearing and despite the very basic plot it's nowhere as bad as some of the Dalek stories from NuWho . Perhaps because it does have such a basic plot ? It's also very grim and pessimistic which is something you rarely see in the 21st Century show and as s twenty five minutes of Saturday night entertainment it did its job away back in 1973
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5/10
Average story with a classic enemy
Leofwine_draca17 June 2015
Review of the Complete Story:

PLANET OF THE DALEKS is about par for the course for a Dr Who adventure. It was made during the tenure of Jon Pertwee, my favourite Doctor of all time (with Tom Baker a close second), with generally good production values for the series. The setting is a sweaty, humid, jungle planet, one which is ably brought to life within the confines of the studio.

The story is a little slowly paced, involving the Doctor and Jo crash landing on a remote planet where they hook up with a team of Thals who are attempting to thwart a Dalek invasion force. There's plenty of to-ing and fro-ing, and the pacing would have been improved by tightening up the narrative; at six episodes this serial is a little long, and four episodes would have been a better choice, I think.

PLANET OF THE DALEKS most reminded me of the Peter Cushing movie DR WHO AND THE DALEKS, as the story lines are very familiar. Viewers will enjoy an enthusiastic Pertwee and Katy Manning, both of whom get into it. Some scenes, like the cavern of a thousand Daleks, are well achieved on a low budget. The scenes with the invisible Daleks are entertaining. The only bit I didn't like were the aliens, who when revealed look like they're wearing fluffy purple bath mats - not the effect intended, I'm sure.
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