| PLANET OF THE DALEKS by Terry Nation |
| Story 68 Synopsis: The Doctor has been injured, but still needs to stop the Daleks. he gets the Time Lords to get the TARDIS to Spiridon, whilst he enters a self-repairing coma. Spiridon's plantlife is hostile, and smothers the TARDIS, making it hard to draw air in. Jo is worried about the Doctor, so goes out to get help. When he awakes, he realises the lack of air, and also leaves. Jo has been infected by the plants, meets some Thals, and then is rescued by a Spiridon, Wester. The Doctor meets the Thals, who are on a mission to get the Daleks. Some Daleks destroy the Thal spaceship, and the Doctor and a Thal, Codal, are taken prisoner. The other Thals learn that there is a base somewhere ont he planet, housing 10,000 Daleks. Anyway, Wester cures Jo. The Thals try to rescue The Doctor and Codal, who are on the loose anyhow. They escape. The Thals have bombs, which Vaber is keen to use, but Taron is not chuffed about. Vaber goes off to use them, but is caught. Jo & Wester join the Thals, and help capture a Dalek. With disguises, the intrepid freedom fighters re-enter the Dalek base, but their subterfuge is soon rumbled. Learning that Spiridon's core is ice, the Doctor determines to bury the Dalek army by using the Thal bombs to cause an ice volcano to explode. This happens. The Thals hijack another Dalek spaceship, and push off. The Doctor and Jo leave, heading for Earth. |
| Review:- Hey-ho, Terry Nation is back! This story has taken a bit of a pasting, but it's harmless really. The main problem I can see is it's colossally unthreatening. The Daleks blow up a spaceship, zap the Doctor, kill Marat, and Vaber, and that's it. Gosh, how scary. The wild life is more interesting, until about part 4, then we have the Spiridons to meet, and a plan to work on. The Spiridons are invisible, and thus hugely entertaining. I suppose that this is another adventure which seems slight with hindsight. Let's look. The Daleks have a very big army, which half a dozen Thals are never going to stop, so let's just deep-freeze them. Six episodes, not to mention the follow-on from Frontier In Space. Goodness, but there's little to it. I shall give credit for the tension of the chimney escape, plus the stuff towards the end of part 6. I saw this when it was shown in 1993, and I quite enjoyed it, though I think I'm not mis-remembering to say that I wasn't really glued to my seat. Still, it was nice to see, and on BBC1, too! Er... that's it, really.. |
| Disclaimer: I've read the book, and seen the telly version. |