Planet of the Daleks

The Doctor and Jo pursue the Daleks across the galaxy to their base on the hostile jungle planet Spridon. A group of Thals have also come to the planet to thwart what they believe to be a science expedition, with the Daleks attempting to learn the secret of invisibility from the natives. The Doctor knows that nothing is ever that simple with the Daleks, and knowing that they are trying to provoke a war between Earth and Draconia there must be more to what is going on. The truth eventually comes out though: Spiridon is the staging ground for the Dalek invasion, and with an army of no less than ten thousand Daleks with the power of invisibility, it's not going to be just an invasion - it will be a slaughter.

So I was watching this one today and I got to wondering if this really was a new story or just something going on in tandem with The Dalek Master Plan. Daleks holed up on a jungle planet working on a secret weapon? Check. Invisible natives? Check. Nasty plant life? Check. A desperately overwhelmed force on a secret mission against the Daleks? Yeah... Terry Nation recycling plot points but to be fair, the narrative was slightly different but not by much. But then again how do you do invasion stories and keep it fresh.

Visually the adventure was just packed with Daleks - there are always heaps of them in the shot even if a lot of them are dummy props and only three are manned and operated. Four when you take in the variant Dalek Supreme (a recycled unit from one of the Peter Cushing films). Interesting, they re-used the gold Dalek from Day of the Daleks at the end of Frontier in Space but he's not to be seen again; this one is bigger and far more imposing anyway. And he's actually meaner if you can get meaner as a Dalek; when the force leader on Spiridon fails at keeping things under control this one just blasts him to bits without compunction. And there are plenty of Dalek casualties to go round aside from that one. A few Thals too.

The Thals at this point in time have developed their own space travel technology but it's not really said who is in control on Skaro now. The Thals have gotten back to their roots where aggression is concerned and are taking the fight to the Daleks without persuasion this time. The Dalek war from The Daleks was so long ago that it has faded into legend - legend in which the Doctor, his companions and the TARDIS have all been immortalized. But given that this takes place in the same time period as Frontier in Space and it was "generations ago" it brings some of the Dalek story continuity into question; in The Dalek Invasion of Earth which is set somewhere around 2164 the Doctor refers to his first Dalek encounter as taking place in the far future, but there's only maybe 400 years between that and Planet. So "generations ago" might not be as long it sounds. There are no other references to other Dalek stories so one doesn't have to get a headache trying to do gymnastics around them. But there's proof that the Thals are human too - one of them has a thing for Jo.

As with all these diabolical plans the Doctor and friends triumph, but as the Dalek Supreme reminds us, the Daleks are delayed but never defeated. If we were going to right to the next televised story that threat would hang in the air for a bit and then be swept away by another, but there's a few additional tales now, and Big Finish is up first throwing the Doctor and Jo right back into conflict with the Daleks again...

NEXT EPISODE: THE CONQUEST OF FAR