Planet of the Daleks Episode Two

The one where the Doctor believes the Daleks have murdered Jo...

Once the entire Dalek has been thoroughly sprayed with the colour aerosol it becomes really obvious just how stumpy and short the Daleks are compared to the 6ft 2in Jon Pertwee! The Doctor towers over the Dalek, which has the effect of diminishing the Daleks' screen presence considerably. I remember back in 2010 the Doctor Who production team said that the newly designed Paradigm Daleks (yes, I dare speak their name!) now stood with their eyestalk on a level with the taller Eleventh Doctor. If only they'd thought to do something similar back in 1973!

The Doctor and the Thals talk of this dormant Dalek as if it's a robot, saying it's deactivated and that an alarm will go if they open the casing. But surely there's actually a living being in there, a little creature which we've seen plenty of times before and since. Isn't the fact there's a potentially deadly mutant Dalek inside a better reason not to lift the lid than the fact an alarm will go off?

The Doctor spends some time with his new Thal friends getting to know them and their internal politics. It seems frowny Vaber doesn't think Taron is a suitable or effective leader, now that their commander Mira is dead (the second use of the name Mira in Terry Nation's canon). Vaber says that although Taron is second in command, the fact he is a doctor means he is too cautious and refuses to put together any plan to attack the Daleks. I can see Vaber's point, but then why did the Thals put a healer, and not a warrior, second in command of the expedition in the first place?

The Thals say there can't be more than 12 Daleks at large in their laboratory, where they are working on mastering the art of invisibility, something they can currently only maintain for a short while. They are using anti-reflecting light waves to become invisible, and if they do manage to master permanent invisibility, who knows how frighteningly powerful they will become as their dominance of the universe gathers pace? These Daleks have to be stopped (although it seems their operation is completely incidental to their attempts to cause a space war between Earth and Draconia).

The Daleks, who have much better voices now than they did in Day of the Daleks, discover the Thal shuttle and intend to destroy it, but the Doctor, believing Jo to be inside, jumps in their line of fire to try and stop them. But the Daleks, quite rightly, pay no heed to him and simply gun him down too, using their stun ray to incapacitate the Doctor just as they did Ian in The Daleks. They then blow up the shuttle, leaving the Doctor utterly devastated by the loss of Jo inside. Pertwee is great here, and looks genuinely close to tears at the loss of his friend.

This is followed by what some might see as a rather monotonous journey through the Dalek city as the Doctor is taken along corridors, down in lifts and finally into his cell. But it's directed with such tension that the silent journey, punctuated by the occasional bark from a Dalek, takes on quite a watershed atmosphere, because this feels like the first proper time we've seen the Third Doctor and the Daleks together. Yes, he was briefly put under the mind probe in Day of the Daleks, but other than that the Doctor and his arch foes spent very little screen time together (the publicity pictures for that story always make it seem like they interacted more than they did).

Here we see the Doctor accompanied through the gloomily lit corridors of the city, and the Doctor and his Dalek guard eye each other with suspicion and mutual dislike as the lift moves down the shaft. Hardly anything happens, but for some reason it drips with tension for me.

The Doctor is placed in the same cell as Codal, played by the handsome Tim Preece, and there's a beautifully written and acted scene between them on the subject of courage which, for me, is one of the finest scenes of the Pertwee era. The Doctor's "tutorial on bravery" touches on some lovely points which every playground fan of Doctor Who should heed and learn from. It's moralising at its most earnest, and although the Doctor edges toward patronising at times - "You may be a very brilliant scientist, but you have very little understanding of people, particularly yourself" - it's delivered with such honesty and warmth. You can detect a real connection between Pertwee and Preece. It's a stunning little moment. "Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened... It's being afraid, and doing what you have to do anyway."

The two scientists then empty their pockets to pool their resources, and along with a new sonic screwdriver and a "fancy hankie", the Doctor finds Jo's log, and listens to her haunting words pensively. As far as he's concerned, Jo Grant is dead, and so to hear her voice again stops him short - especially as she's speaking the words she recorded when he was sick, and went looking for help for him.

Of course, we know that Jo is alive and well thanks to being rescued from the shuttle by an invisible Spiridon, who cooks up a potion to dribble over her Fungoid-infected arm and cure it. He tells her that he saw a "tall fair-haired man" taken prisoner into the city (aren't all the Thals tall and fair-haired?), as well as a man she recognises as the Doctor. So naturally, that's where she'll want to go next, although again it's a bit silly that she seems surprised to hear there are Daleks on Spiridon. Is she not aware that they were pursuing the Daleks in the TARDIS?

Finally, another shuttle crash lands on the planet's surface. It's a second band of Thals, but they come with bad news. Rebec (a rare female Thal with lines) says that they picked up signals from the Dalek Supreme which told them that there weren't just a dozen Daleks on Spiridon. "Somewhere on this planet there are 10,000 Daleks!"

Oh shit...

First broadcast: April 14th, 1973

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The scene between Jon Pertwee and Tim Preece is fantastic.
The Bad: The sudden cut to Vaber being entangled by the tentacle is a little comedic.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 25
Neck-rub tally: 13

NEXT TIME: Episode Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five; Episode Six

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.com/2014/05/planet-of-daleks.html

Planet of the Daleks is available on BBC DVD as part of the Dalek War box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Frontier-Planet-Daleks/dp/B002KSA3T8