One thing I really like about Planet of the Daleks is its focus on the utter, relentless horror of the Daleks themselves. They cut through a solid metal door, quickly discover the Doctor’s escape route up the ventilation shaft, send a squad out to locate and destroy the Thal bombs and intercept the escapers at the top of the shaft, send a Dalek to elevate up after their enemies (belying Revelation and Remembrance‘s claims to have been the first to feature flying Daleks), and develop a deadly bacteria to wipe out all life on Spiridon just out of spitefulness towards the little band of rebels. There’s something quite Michael Myers about this unremitting pursuit and destruction that reminds us how brilliantly horrible an invention the Daleks are.

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Terry Nation has decided to give this story a theme, with all the subtlety he displays when naming planets. So we have several moments where the Doctor reflects on the difference between recklessness and courage, condemning Vaber’s hot-headedness and praising Codal’s self-sacrifice. It all boils down to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. Thanks for attending this Ted Talk.

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Frontier in Space/Planet of the Daleks was inspired by memories of the 12-part Daleks’ Master Plan, but separating the planet hopping/interstellar politics/enemy Time Lord elements of that serial from the Dalek city on Kembel. Terry Nation’s first script for the programme since 1966 picks up almost precisely where he left off, with a desperate mission to a Dalek-infested jungle planet populated by deadly flora that can turn a human being into a vegetable. Instead of Agent Bret Vyon we get Taron the Thal, but for the most part this repurposes Mission to the Unknown and the first five episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan. It even has a desperate message recorded on a cassette.

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The problems with Episode Five are that once the Doctor has convinced Earth and Draconia that the Master is trying to tip them, Blofeld style, into war there’s nowhere for the story to go until the showdown. If anything, this week the issue is even more pronounced, with about 15 minutes of pure vamping as the Doctor does an agonisingly slow space walk to repair General Williams’ ship, while Jo stages a prison break and sends a message to warn the galaxy only for the Master to reveal he was pranking her. When Hulke has to resort to the Ogron Eater, a monster that looks far more fearsome as a Lovecraftian mural than a billowing duvet on location, just to keep things going another couple of minutes it’s a bit heart sinking.

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This episode is ever so slightly thin after the last four weeks. The main issue is that once the Doctor has convinced the Draconian Emperor that he’s telling the truth about the Ogrons, which happens around halfway, there’s nowhere much for the story to go until it ends next week. This results in a second half that is an extended spaceship chase sequence complete with lots of wobbling about action to simulate a battle. Hulke’s script is good enough that it never threatens to become tiresome – the Master’s ongoing reluctance to kill the Doctor, particularly at long range, is nicely done – but it does feel like killing time.

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Having done plenty of work to establish the setting, this episode is content to trust that the interplay between the Doctor, Jo and the Master is enough to entertain the audience for 25 minutes. It’s a fairly safe bet, given how well established these characters are, and this is pretty indulgent (we didn’t really need to spend 25 minutes on the way to the Ogron planet) but very entertaining. We don’t really learn very much to advance the story except the intriguing nugget that the Master is working for mysterious ’employers’ who want the Doctor brought to them, and the suggestion that Jo and the Doctor have been travelling the universe for quite some time given Jo’s fretting about a court martial when she gets back, and says, ‘We keep landing up in one terrible situation after the other.’

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There’s a criticism of this story that the Doctor and Jo spend most of it about to be locked up, being locked up, or escaping from being locked up. Which feels slightly harsh given that sounds like the description of quite a high proportion of Doctor Who, but especially misplaced so far given each time the Doctor and Jo are incarcerated it helps to advance the story, introduce a new location or set of characters, and enables a space opera to be told on a BBC budget. It’s also interesting how, after their adventures in the miniscope destabilised the political situation on Inter Minor, the Doctor and Jo are acting as catalysts just by being present and telling the truth, as if the world they’ve arrived in has to change to accommodate them.

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After an exorbitant recap this turns into a string of capture/escapes which could be tedious except each one brings the Doctor and Jo in touch with different groups, and helps to advance the plot and establish the opposing sides in a way that’s reminiscent of Hulke’s work on The War Games. While the Doctor is captured by the Draconians and threatened with the Mind Probe, Jo remains an Earth captive, subject to the same threat, and the script reinforces the parallel by cutting between the two scenes. This sets up the idea of the Draconians and humans as equal and opposite forces, before the end of episode arrival of the Ogrons confirms the involvement of a third party.

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This opens with two weary space pilots having a conflab about current affairs and how tough their jobs are, exactly like every other Doctor Who story for the next 16 years. Here, though, it feels like a novelty: it’s so long since we’ve seen anything like it, or had two consecutive serials not set in contemporary Britain. And then they nearly collide with the TARDIS in hyperspace, establishing the new normal so comprehensively it feels quintessential. Possibly as a running joke, it turns out that the TARDIS has landed in yet another storage hold, and Jo’s relatively blasé reaction establishes her increasing familiarity and comfort with space travel, as part of a low-key but admirable effort to give her a bit more character development than most previous companions. I particularly enjoyed her sarcastic ‘fascinating’ when the Doctor is giving a scientific explanation.

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