The Dead Planet (The Daleks Episode 1)

The one where Ian and Barbara have J62-L6 for supper...

Right from the outset, The Dead Planet is disconcerting and strange. After the fairly run-of-the-mill explore-capture-escape shenanigans in prehistoric times with the first serial, the first episode of the second story seems intentionally strange and alien. The negative effect on the picture makes the jungle look, well... dead. Toxic, even. And the spooky score by Tristram Cary adds to the unsettling atmosphere.

And like Waris Hussein before him, director Christopher Barry slaps his youthful ambition right up there on screen. The negative effect lasts well into the first scene when the TARDIS lands and the travellers venture outside, slowly mixing back to positive almost like it's the viewer's perspective adjusting to this weird new planet.

That's right, an alien planet! But Ian, and Barbara in particular, don't seem very enamoured with the fact they've travelled across time and space to a completely new world, a different planet. Barbara seemed to have been quite taken with the idea of going back in time in 100,000 BC, but here she's fearful. "Why doesn't he take us back?" she asks Ian, who replies (quite rightly): "I'm not sure that he can."

The focus straight away is on what Ian and Barbara think, how they're feeling about events, and not so much the more interesting eccentric old man and his peculiar granddaughter. Forty-two years later Russell T Davies would relaunch Doctor Who with the primary focus on the companion, Rose, seeing events largely through her eyes, with the Doctor at arm's length, a riddle to be solved all in good time.

Ian and Barbara seem bereft by the prospect of being on another planet when the average viewer at home is probably feeling the opposite. "I counted so much on just going back, to things I recognise and trust," Barbara confides in Ian. "But here there's nothing to rely on, nothing." To which Ian, the old charmer, responds: "Well there's me!". Barbara adds: "I'm afraid I'm a very unwilling adventurer." Hey, get used to it Babs, you're in for a long ride yet!

It's also slightly odd that Ian claims they ought to keep an eye on the Doctor as "he seems to have a knack of getting himself into trouble". Is that really the case, in Ian's experience so far? I mean yes, it's true, but at this early stage - just five episodes in - surely we're not yet aware of the Doctor's propensity for reckless exploration. All we've seen him do is fall victim to the simple and violent wants of a tribe of cavemen. Either way, it's rather amusing (and somewhat dark) to hear Barbara and Ian find humour in the possibility of the Doctor falling and breaking a leg!

William Hartnell seems a little less sure-footed in this episode, fluffing a couple of times, although when he trips over his lines in the magnadon scene, he catches himself convincingly.

And then we see the city! B-DUNNNNGG twangs Tristram Cary's truly alien soundtrack, and we can marvel along with the Doctor and co at the magnificent modelwork. It's so good and detailed and unusual, it was reused 52 years later for the Dalek city design in The Magician's Apprentice/ The Witch's Familiar. It may be a simple special effect by today's standards, but when the TARDIS team look out at the alien landscape in the distance, it's utterly convincing and perfectly framed. For a moment all four characters are exhilarated by discovering the city, but when the Doctor suggests exploring it, Barbara the unwilling adventurer steps in with her voice of caution. It's a "magnificent subject for study" says the Doctor, but Ian insists they return to the Ship before night falls.

It's rather a shame that the action reverts back to the TARDIS halfway through the episode as it destroys the tension and mystery built up so far. All the japes with the food machine and its bacon and egg dispensaries (or should that be J62-L6?) are fun, but by breaking away from the adventure, writer Terry Nation misses a trick to leap straight into the story and stay there.

Having said that, this return to the haven of the Ship allows for more lovely characterisation. The Doctor humbly asks Barbara to speak to Susan about her experience outside the Ship (Hartnell makes the Doctor much warmer and less abrasive in this episode than previously, although his concern for Barbara's headache - "oh dear dear, how irksome for you" - comes across as less than genuine!), and Jacqueline Hill brings the right level of schoolteacherly authority to her chat with Susan, tempered by her natural empathetic charm. Carole Ann Ford gets her best material since An Unearthly Child and imbues Susan with the teenage frustration of not being believed by the "grown-ups". There's even a lovely exchange between the Doctor and Ian in the fault locator room. The two actors obviously got on famously.

Of course, the catalyst for the entire chain of events ahead of us is that the Doctor sabotages the TARDIS by draining the fluid link of its mercury. What the Doctor does here is almost as unforgivable as his intention to bludgeon an injured caveman to death in The Forest of Fear. He has absolutely no idea whatsoever whether replacement mercury can be found in the alien city, or indeed anywhere on the planet. He puts four lives in danger just to cater for his own selfish curiosity. He is conniving, thoughtless and completely lacking in sound judgement. He's a menace!

Once we've reached the alien city, accompanied by Cary's twangy, otherworldly music, we hear that now familiar door mechanism sound for the very first time. Ian suggests splitting up - surely not a wise plan when exploring a potentially hostile alien encampment? - and the viewer gets to follow Barbara, that most unwilling of adventurers, as she explores the rabbit run of corridors in the city.

There's some sterling work from Christopher Barry's team here. Raymond Cusick's corridor sets are not designed for people of human shape or height, a subtle detail which does not become clear until the next episode. Barry sometimes uses Dutch angles as Barbara makes her way through the city, and we have Brian Hodgson's nauseous sound effect, like a metallic wind chime, which has gone on to be a Skaro trademark.

As Barbara moves through the city, doors quietly close behind her. We see them close, but Barbara does not. She explores the walls, placing her hands on the camera lens as the fourth wall at one point (genius!), and she is taken down levels by a lift she doesn't realise she's in.

Barry shoots Barbara silhouetted through doors (all credit to studio lighting technician John Treays here), we see her hammering against newly-appeared walls and doors for escape. But it's no use. The viewer is just as disorientated and unsettled as Barbara is. We experience the confusion alongside her.

And then, after just five weeks, Doctor Who gets one of its best ever - if not the best - cliffhangers. Shot by Barry from the point of view of a terrible "something" off camera, all we see is what was probably assumed by the viewer at the time to be a weapon, pointing right at our heroine. We know that this something is terrible because of the horrified look on Jacqueline Hill's face. She can see what we cannot, and she lets out the most blood-curdling, petrified scream in Doctor Who history. Fade to black.

Boy, does Hill sell that moment! Absolute bloody classic. Beat that, the next 53 years...!

First broadcast: December 21st, 1963

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Barbara's solitary exploration of the city is a masterclass in tension-building. Camera, lighting, sets, acting all combine to create an unforgettable climax.
The Bad: I do think the return to the TARDIS steals some power away from the episode. It's unnecessary. The Doctor's sabotage could've taken place early on in the episode after spotting the city on the scanner, for instance.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

NEXT TIME: The Survivors...

My reviews of this story's other episodes (pending): The Survivors (episode 2); The Escape (episode 3); The Ambush (episode 4); The Expedition (episode 5); The Ordeal (episode 6); The Rescue (episode 7)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-daleks-aka-dead-planet-mutants.html

The Daleks is available as part of the Doctor Who - The Beginning box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Beginning-Unearthly-Destruction/dp/B000C6EMTC