351 The Green Death Episode Two

EPISODE: The Green Death: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 351
STORY NUMBER: 069
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 26 May 1973
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Green Death (Special Edition)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Who was that?"
"Our BOSS. Yours and mine."

The lift plummets down the shaft but the Doctor manages to stop it just before it reaches the bottom. Needing cutting gear to rescue Jo & Bert the Doctor goes to Global Chemicals. Jo & Bert find Dai, now glowing green. Stevens' employee Fell is instructed to tell the Doctor that there's no cutting gear and when he objects a computer voice, the BOSS orders him processed. When the Doctor & Brigadier arrive he denies having any. Elgin is suspicious of Fell who is behaving strangely. The Doctor finds evidence of sabotage at the mine and meets Professor Jones who has arrived to help. Dave confirms Global leant them equipment and while he & the Brigadier go to Newport, the nearest town to fetch some from there, Professor Jones stages a demonstration as a distraction allowing the Doctor to break in to Global Chemicals using a cherry picker to cross the barbed wire fence. He follows the map drawn for him to the storage centre but is detected and reported to Stevens & BOSS. BOSS orders him apprehended and he is trapped. Stevens once again denies having the cutting equipment and shows him the empty shed before releasing him. Jo & Bert look for an escape shaft as the Brigadier & Dave return quickly having found cutting equipment at a garage. Once the adjustments have been made Dave, The Doctor and some miners descend in the second lift. Jo & Bert find themselves in a chamber glowing green filled with a rotting smell. Bert touches some liquid seeping from the wall which stings his hand. The Doctor's party find the dead Dai glowing green and set off in search of Jo & Bert. Bert's hand has started to glow green and he orders Jo to leave him. The Doctor & Dave find Bert, with Dave taking him back to the surface while the Doctor pursues Jo. He finds her in a chamber filled with the glowing green substance and giant maggots as a cave in traps them there....

In later years any scene that needs to be dimly lit will result in the all out glare of the lighting rig. So applause here please for the superb sequences in the mine tunnels which are fabulously dark apart from the wonderful green glow producing an atmospheric feel for the sequences bellow ground while above ground the realistic location settings and decent sets give a real world feel to the episode. Against that three things stand out: The BOSS, with it's wonderful voice, the eerie green glow in the tunnels and the giant maggots, for which this story is famed. Ask almost anyone coming up for their sixtieth birthday which Doctor Who story they remember and the chances are they'll say "The one with the Maggots"!

There's something about seeing The Third Doctor in an industrial landscape as it was such a regular feature of his earlier stories!

Jerome Willis, Jocelyn Stevens, has a long television career to his name. He has a rare double on his CV appearing in both Out of This World, as John Irvine in The Dark Star, and Out of the Unknown, where he was Ryman in the surviving first season episode Time in Advance which can be found on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He played several roles in An Age of Kings, the BBC's series of William Shakespeare's history plays and appears in the 1972 Doomwatch film as Lt. Commander Tavener.

Tony Adams, playing Elgin, is famous for playing Adam Chance in Crossroads.

Fell is played by John Rolfe on his third Doctor Who appearance after appearing as the Captain in The War Machines and Sam Becket in The Moonbase. He too was in Out of the Unknown appearing as Rawlinson in This Body Is Mine, which also survives and is on the aforementioned DVD set. He appears Rentaghost as Mr. Green in the first episode of the second series, The Sweeney as Det. Chief Supt. Brookford in Drag Act and in Blake's 7 as Terloc in Project Avalon.

Ben Howard plays Chauffeur/Henchman Hinks. He was in The Sweeney as Ronnie in Queen's Pawn, The Professionals as Spelman in Kickback and Blake's 7 as Mori in Volcano.

Pretty certain that's Stuntman Terry Walsh as the Guard in the gate: there's no acting credit for him but he's down as fight arranger on the end titles.

Oddly he doesn't appear to be one of the guards with Hinks mixing it up with The Doctor later in the episode, though his fellow stunt regular Alan Chuntz is very visible there. I'm having trouble identifying the other guard in the fight scene but, looking at the guards mentioned in the DWAS production file, the name Leslie Bates spring out at me: Previously he cast the shadow that falls across the Tardis at the end of the first episode, An Unearthly Child and then played a Tribesman in the second, The Cave of Skulls. He's a Man at Lop, Mongol Warrior and Mongol Bandit in Marco Polo, a Guard in The Massacre, a Villager at Inn / Pirate in The Smugglers, an English Soldier in The Highlanders, an IE Guard in The Invasion, an 1862 soldier, Confederate Soldier, foot soldier in The War Games, a Waxworks Visitor/Auton in Spearhead from Space, a BBC3 TV Crewmember in The Dæmons, a UNIT soldier in The Three Doctors and a Guard & Draconian in Frontier in Space. He returns as an Army Corporal & UNIT soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in Planet of the Spiders, a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin and a Bi-Al Member in Invisible Enemy. In the The Andromeda Breakthrough he was a British Soldier in Gale Warning, in Doomwatch he was a man in Hear No Evil, The Islanders & Flood and in Moonbase 3 he's a Technician in Castor and Pollux. He's also in our favourite Adam Adamant Lives! episode D for Destruction as a TA Soldier.

John Dearth is the Voice of BOSS, and very good he is too. He'll be back as Lupton in Planet of the Spiders. You can see him in The Day the Earth Caught Fire as Dick.

We like the word Death in our Doctor who story titles. It was used a lot in the early days for the individual episodes:

The Keys of Marinus 1: The Sea of Death
The Keys of Marinus 5: Sentence of Death
The Aztecs 2: The Warriors of Death
The Sensorites 4: A Race Against Death
The Chase 2: The Death of Time
The Chase 5: The Death of Doctor Who
The Myth Makers 3: Death of a Spy
The Daleks' Master Plan 9: Golden Death
The Massacre 3: Priest of Death

Four entries for Terry Nation there, using it twice in two stories.

It crops up again quite frequently as a whole story title too:

The Seeds of Death
The Ambassadors of Death
The Green Death
Death to the Daleks
The Robots of Death
City of Death

Generally the word Death in the title is an indication that the story might be quite good....

There's an odd error in the end titles for this and the final two episodes of this story: they're played upside down & in reverse.

The Green Death: Episode One

EPISODE: The Green Death: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 350
STORY NUMBER: 069
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 19 May 1973
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 9.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Green Death (Special Edition)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Doctor, it's exactly your cup of tea. This fellow's bright green apparently, and dead!"

Episode 350 !

At the closed Llanfairfach colliery an engineer, Hughes, returns to the surface with his hand glowing green as Jocelyn Stevens announces more funding & jobs at Global Chemicals. He is heckled by Professor Cliff Jones as Hughes reaches safety and sounds the alarm at the pit. At UNIT HQ The Doctor is still trying to get to Metebelis 3 to collect a blue sapphire. Jo Grant meanwhile has decided to go to Llanfairfach to protest against Global Chemicals. When Hughes is found he's dead and completely glowing green. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart tells the Doctor the story but he refuses to help leaving for Metebelis 3. The Brigadier and Jo argue about Global Chemicals but he still agrees to give her lift there as he goes to investigate the body. The Brigadier drop Jo at the Nuthutch, the community where Professor Jones lives & works. The Doctor *finally* makes it to Metebelis 3 but is attacked by wildlife. Jo meets Professor Jones wrecking one of his experiments in the process, just as she did when she met the Doctor. He's attempting to develop a high protein fungus as an alternate source of food to meat. The Brigadier is introduced to Stevens who explains their new process to generate more petrol from oil, as Cliff Jones outlines his objections to it to Jo. Jones believes it's generating thousands of gallons of waste that he thinks is being pumped into the mine. Jo insists on investigating, as does the Brigadier overriding Stevens' objections who wants it sealed. The Doctor arrives back from Metebelis 3, and is happy to help following his experiences there. Stevens, suddenly hesitant, has his security officer Hinks attempt to stop anyone going down the mine. Stevens takes a headset and plugs it into a computer console, relaxing. Jo arrives at the mine to try & persuade one of the miners, Bert, to take her into the pit, as Dai, a miner who has gone down to investigate, calls for help. The Doctor tells the Brigadier that he believes nobody should go down the mine but they arrive too late to stop Jo & Bert from going to aid Dai. However attempts to stop the lift descending fail....

That's quite a fun episode with some style with first The Doctor & Jo talking to each other without listening to what the other is saying, the Doctor's horror trip to Metebelis 3 which turns out to be a lot less relaxing than he thought and then the overlapping conversations between Jones & Jo and the Brigadier & Stevens as the arguments for and against the use of Global Chemicals process are aired. Stevens at the start of the episode does a passable impersonation of Neville Chamberlain's famous "I have in my hand ...." speech as he announces the money Global Chemicals has gained.

This is the second time we've seen the Brigadier in his civvies, and the first was also in a Robert Sloman/Barry Letts story (The Daemons) where he was dressed for dinner. Here he's driving a soft top Merc which, if UNIT HQ is still in London, is going to make for a chilly drive down the M4 for him & Jo!

Some of the rest of the cast have Doctor Who credits to their name, notably John Scott Martin, who briefly plays Ted Hughes, who is famed as a regular Dalek Operator. He made his Doctor Who début in The Web Planet as a Zarbi graduating to Dalek Operator in The Chase three stories later a role he'd repeated in Mission to the Unknown, The Dalek Masterplan,Power of the Daleks, Evil of the Daleks & Day of the Daleks. He'll return as a Dalek in Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, Death to the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks, The Five Doctors, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks. He also plays a Mechanoid in The Chase, the Robot in Colony in Space, Charlie & a Coven Member in the Dæmons, a Mutant in the Mutants, a Gell Guard in The Three Doctors, a Mutant in Frontier in Space, a Ministry of Defence Guard in Robot, Kriz in Brain of Morbius, the Virus Nucleus in Invisible Enemy. His distinctive hair makes him a familiar figure amongst bit part actors in many television roles: he was in Quatermass and the Pit as a T.V. Technician in The Wild Hunt and A for Andromeda as a Lab Assistant / Man in Pub in The Message. He appears in the missing Out of the Unknown episode The Naked Sun as a robot but misses out when The Daleks turn up in Get Off My Cloud. In Doomwatch he's a Man in The Islanders and e appears in the first episode of The Tripods as the Schoolmaster. Away from science fiction he was in I, Claudius as Julia's Lover in Waiting in the Wings and a Slave in Some Justice and appears on the big screen in Pink Floyd - The Wall as a Dancing Teacher.

Mostyn Evans, as Dai Evans, played a Taxi Diver in The Silurians and will return as the High Priest in Death to the Daleks, also directed by Michael Briant.

Talfryn Thomas, playing another miner Dave Davies, was previously the hospital porter Mullins in Spearhead from Space. He can also be seen in the Doomwatch episodes The Human Time Bomb as Mr. Hetherington and Fire and Brimstone as Prisoner Warren. He appears in the 1974 series of Dad's Army as Private Cheeseman and the 1975 Survivors episodes The Fourth Horseman, Genesis, Gone Away, Starvation, Spoil of War, Law and Order & The Future Hour as Tom Price.

Roy Evans, playing Bert Pritchard, was Trantis in The Daleks' Master Plan and returns as an unnamed Peladonian miner in Monster of Peladon. He was in Out of the Unknown as the Postman in the 1971 episode Deathday: that if one of four from the last series of that show which exists and it can be found on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He appears in Blake's 7 as a Slave in Redemption. In the 1980s he was in th original The Black Adder as Abel, A Blind Beggar / Dumb Peasant in The Archbishop, Witchsmeller Pursuivant and The Black Seal.

Many of the extras for this story, and especially those on Location, only appear in this Doctor Who story which makes me think they were sourced local to the production in Wales. However there are some familiar names:

This episode features the very first actor seen in Doctor Who: Reg Cranfield played the policeman at the start of An Unearthly Child, replacing Frederick Rawlings who fulfilled the same role in the pilot. Cranfield then went on to play a Parisian Man in The Massacre, a Settler in The Gunfighters, a Priest & a Man in the Market in the The Underwater Menace, a UNIT Soldier/Bunker Man in The Invasion, a UNIT Soldier in the Silurians and a Solonian in The Mutants. He returns one last time as a Time Lord in the Deadly Assassin. He's plays a Soldier in the Adam Adamant Lives! episode D for Destruction.

Also playing a Villager is Sonny Willis who should have started his Doctor Who career as t he RT Technician in 10th Planet but for some reason was replaced! He made his debut playing an Atlantean Guard in The Underwater Menace followed by a Cyberman in the Moonbase, a Waxworks Visitors/Auton Replica in Spearhead from Space and then a TV Crew Member in The Daemons. He returns as a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin He can also be seen in Doomwatch as a Man in Hear No Evil and a Prison Officer in Fire and Brimstone.Guard

The DWAS Doctor Who production file has Cranfield and Willis down as the only two villagers not appearing on location, but I can't spot them.

In amongst the Guards we have Dennis Plenty. He'd previously been a Tavern Customer & a Guard in The Massacre, a Worker / Soldier in The War Machines, an English Soldier in the Highlanders, a Submarine Rating & Naval Base Sailor in the Sea Devils, a Solos Guard & Skybase Guard in The Mutants and an Earth/Prison/Presidential Guard in Frontier in Space. He returns as a UNIT Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in Planet of the Spiders and a Soldier, Brethren member, Entertainer & Guard in The Masque of Mandragora. In UFO he was Lt. David Worth in Identified and one of the SHADO Mobile 1 Personnel in Computer Affair. In Doomwatch he is a Man in Flood and he's in out favourite Adam Adamant Lives! episode D for Destruction playing a RA Camp Guard and appears as a man in a 1901 photo in the later episode Black Echo. He appears in the Fawlty Towers episode is A Touch of Class where he plays a PC and he's a Technician in the Moonbase 3 episodes Achilles Heel, Castor and Pollux & View of a Dead Planet. Although he doesn't appear in the final film Plenty served as the model for the original Stormtrooper armour used in Star Wars.

Onto the Miners: Frank Seton was previously a Sea Devil and should have been scientist in Time Warrior. He was in Quatermass and the Pit appearing as a Man in Crowd in The Enchanted and a Sightseer in Hob. David Waterman was a Worker / Soldier in The War Machines, an English Soldier in The Highlanders, an Atlantean Priest/Medical Orderly/Miner in The Underwater Menace and a Skybase Guard in The Mutants. He'll be back as an Earth Guard on Ogron Planet in Frontier in Space and a Miner in the Green Death. In Doomwatch he plays a Police Constable in Fire and Brimstone and a Man in Flood. He's also a Technician in the Moonbase 3 episodes Departure and Arrival, Behemoth, Achilles Heel, Outsiders & View of a Dead Planet.

JO: But why toadstools?
JONES: Oh, that's just our Nancy's little joke.
JONES: This is really our new hybrid fungus, Saliota Orbis.
JO: Pardon?
JONES: It's a sort of cousin of the mushroom you can buy in the shops.
JO: You mean you can eat it?
JONES: Oh yes, that's the whole point. Well, the world's going to need something instead of meat. High protein fungus can be just the answer.
JO: Well, yes. Yes, of course!
JONES: You see, Jo, we haven't set up this community just to drop out. I mean, let's face it, who does like the petrol stinking, plastic rat-trap life we all live? No, no. If we're going to make a success here at Wholeweal, we've got to do something that's going to help the entire world. So we're a biotechnic research unit as well as a Nuthutch.

JONES: But it's still using up the oil and doubling the atmospheric pollution. No, the world has got to find ways of using the energy the sun is giving us now.
JO: Well, like what, for instance?
JONES: Well, like using the movement of the wind and the tides and the rivers. Well, I mean, like here at the Nuthutch. Well, you are quite warm?
JO: The ambient temperature suits me fine, thank you.
JONES: Heat from the river. And the heat pump works on electricity generated by a windmill. Alternative technology, see.
JO: And no waste, no pollution!
JONES: Exactly.

The Wholeweal community seen in this story is generally taken to have been inspired by the hippy commune communities of the late sixties. Oddly it does seem to have a real world counterpart! Located near the mid Wales town of Machynlleth is the Centre for Alternative Technology researching and demonstrating alternative energy sources. I stayed there in 1990 and I can safely say it's the warmest place I've ever been to, all by virtue of being properly insulated. The food was fantastic too.

The Wholewheal exteriors and surroundings were filmed at Troed-y-Rhiw-Jestyn, Deri, Glamorgan with the nearby Tir-y-felin & Deri Road also used

Ogilvie Colliery, now Darran Valley Country Park, form the location for the Pit exteriors while it's adjoining Quarry serves as the surface of Metebelis 3.

Finally RCA International, in Brynmawr, Gwent, served as the location for Global Chemicals. The site has now been demolished.

This is the first Doctor Who story set in Wales, and I think the only one of two in the original series. Welsh locations in Gwent & Glamorgan are used throughout and provide a fabulous back drop to the story. Doctor Who had filmed in Wales before, but then the mountains of North Wales represent Tibet. We'll be back in Wales location filming for The Masque of Mandragora, The Pirate Planet, The Five Doctors and finally in Delta & The Bannermen where a Welsh location is once again is used to represent Wales.

This is a sad episode for fans of recurring props: it's the last known appearance of one of the Power Station Control Panels in Doctor Who, see on the wall just through the Doctor's Lab Door. We've spotted this one in The Dalek Masterplan, The Underwater Menace and The Enemy of the World, though thanks to the number of missing sixties episodes it could well appear in a few more! For more on the panels and their use in Doctor Who see Phil's Other Things Blog entries on Power Station Panels Part One and Part Two.

It's somewhat of a coincidence that a Power Station Panel should feature in this story as this story features the debut of their spiritual successors in the realm of Doctor Who reused props: control panels from Gerry Anderson's UFO

349 Planet of the Daleks Episode Six

EPISODE: Planet of the Daleks: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 349
STORY NUMBER: 068
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 12 May 1973
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"The Supreme Council has ordered our army to be activated immediately. The invasion of all solar planets is to begin today!"

The disguised Doctor & Thals flee into the base, shedding their disguises just before Rebec's Dalek casing is destroyed. They go to the lowest level of the base barricading themselves in. The Daleks receive word that the Dalek Supreme will shortly arrive and that Dalek command has identified the Doctor. Latep & Jo witness a ship landing containing the Dalek Supreme & his aides. Jo asks Latep if he could fly the ship back to Skaro. The Daleks try to get through the barrier into the refrigeration unit. The Dalek Supreme has the army activated as the Doctor starts to plant the bomb to flood the chamber containing the army with ice. The Dalek leader is exterminated by the Dalek Supreme for his failure to capture the aliens. Jo & Latep begin climbing down the shaft. Codal notices the Dalek army start to come to life. The bomb is knocked into the pit containing the Daleks causing the Doctor to have to climb in to retrieve it. The timing mechanism has been damaged and Codal makes repairs. Taron & Rebec find a way back to the surface. Latep & Jo arrive with the second bomb which they use to destroy the Daleks entering the refrigeration unit. The bomb is set and the Doctor's party flees as more Daleks arrive. The bomb goes off but appears to have failed before the wall collapses flooding the chamber with liquid ice. The ice begins to flood through the base causing the Dalek Supreme to set the base's self destruct and flee. The Thals take control of the Dalek Supreme's ship. The Doctor tells Taron & Rebec not to glamorise their story and to remember their fallen comrades. Latep asks Jo to go with him but she refuses. As the Thals take off the surviving Daleks find the Doctor & Jo who flee through the jungle to the Tardis leaving the Supreme Dalek marooned on Spiridon. The Doctor offers Jo another chance to go to Skaro but she refuses saying she'd like to go home to Earth.

That's what you want from a final episode: some action, some tension, some explosions, a clever solution to the problem, the enemy defeated and our surviving heroes all escaping. Job done, great stuff.

We've got one last tip to the past as Rebec's Dalek disguise is destroyed with us not knowing if she has escaped, just like Ian in the Daleks episode 4: Ambush.

The Daleks are given a shake up his episode by an unexpected arrival:

DALEK 2: Report.
DALEK 3: Message from command spacecraft. The Dalek Supreme will touch down in Spiridon shortly. He will assume total command of all operations on this planet.
DALEK 2: Understood.
DALEK 3: Dalek command has identified the leading alien. The one who is not a Thal.
DALEK 2: Who is he?
DALEK 3: He is the one known as the Doctor, the greatest enemy of the Daleks.
DALEK 2: He has much knowledge that would be of value to us. He must be captured alive for interrogation by the Dalek Supreme.

The Dalek Supreme is fabulous, just rolls in and takes control:

SUPREME: Report.
DALEK 2: Aliens still at liberty.
SUPREME: All Dalek units are to be assigned to their capture immediately. Take charge of all controls. Report on invisibility experiments.
DALEK 2: Daleks can now achieve total invisibility for periods in excess of two work cycles.
SUPREME: Satisfactory. The Supreme Council has ordered our army to be activated immediately. The invasion of all solar planets is to begin today. Switch on arsenal heating. Close down refrigeration unit.

He's not at all happy with the Dalek Leader's performance so far though and the Leader pays the ultimate price:

SUPREME: Order space transporters to assemble and await landing orders.
DALEK 3: I obey.
SUPREME: The action of the aliens has caused considerable disruption of operations on this planet.
DALEK 2: This was a matter beyond my control!
SUPREME: Your orders were to exterminate them!
DALEK 2: It has not been possible! We have been unable to use the bacteria bomb!
SUPREME: The responsibility was yours! You have failed! The Supreme Council does not accept failure!

The Dalek Supreme is an unusual prop: it was long believed to be Dalek Invasion of Earth film Dalek repainted in black with gold dome & skirt balls whose dome bulbs and eye had been further modified to give the prop seen here. Research carried out by the Dalek 63•88 website for their YouTube series Terry Nation's Dalek Army reveals that the Supreme, and three other Daleks that Terry Nation had in his possession were originally built for the 1965 Dalek Stage Play The Curse of the Daleks, which were then purchased by Nation, used in the Dalek Invasion of Earth film after which they were extensively used and modified. For more information, and it is a fascinating story, watch Terry Nation's Army Episode 2: The Mystery of Terry Nation's Special Daleks and Terry Nation's Army Episode 6: How Comics and Crime Created the "Planet" Dalek Supreme. But whatever it's origins the Supreme Dalek is a fantastic looking prop and a bit different.

I do think a trick was missed here in not making this Dalek the same one that leaves the Ogron planet in Frontier in Space either by making this a standard Dalek painted gold, like the one seen in Frontier in Space, that departs at the end of that story.

MASTER: No, not yet.
GOLD: You will obey the Daleks!
MASTER: You know as well as I do that this man does not fear death. I want him to suffer a much worse punishment. Look, my skill and cunning has brought about this war which will make you the masters of the galaxy. Leave the Doctor with me, and let him see the result of that war. Let him see the galaxy in ruins. Let him see the planet Earth, that he loves so much, in ruins, then exterminate him.
GOLD: Very well. He will remain your prisoner until the war is concluded. Then you will bring him to us and we shall exterminate him. We shall now return to our base and prepare the army of the Daleks.

Would have made a nice little bit of continuity between the already linked stories!

However the Supreme's arrival highlights that one Dalek prop, probably the former gold one repainted, is a much darker grey, almost black, compared to the others.

The Dalek Supreme gets a lovely moment at the end of the story to remind the viewers that they'll be back!

SUPREME: Have Supreme Command send rescue craft.
DALEK: I obey.
SUPREME: Preparations will begin at once to free our army from the ice. We have been delayed, not defeated. The Daleks are never defeated!

For most of this episode The Dalek Supreme is operated by Tony Starr. He's making his first appearance as a Dalek Operator here but he may have appeared in Doctor Who as far back as Mission to the Unknown where the Production Guide and IMDB list a Tony Starn as a Varga Plant. Since IMDB lists nothing else for this actor I'm inclined to say it's a typo of Tony Starr's name, especially as Starr does appear relatively soon after as a Fish People in Underwater Menace and a Mine Worker/Citizen in the Macra Terror and a British Soldier in The War Games. He misses out appearing as a Dalek is their next two stories, Death to the Daleks and Genesis of the Daleks, but returns, uncredited again, in Destiny of the Daleks and goes on to play a Dalek Operator in Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks.

I say "most of this episode" because the scenes at the end with the Daleks & The Tardis were recorded in an earlier Recording Block. In those the Supreme Dalek is played by regular Dalek Operator John Scott Martin.

We briefly glimpsed the Dalek army in episode 3. Here we see a bit more of them, with proper Dalek props used for the closeups and Marx Brothers toy Daleks used en masse for the long shots!

I always think the Daleks' spaceship looks like a Rollo. Apparently it was designed by designer John Hurst's son!

While we're on the subject of ships, we get our best look yet at the outer surface of the Tardis Doors, flat since Colony in Space and now painted blue.

So the story as a whole: yes it is a remake of the Daleks: Doctor enters and escapes from Dalek city, meets some Thals, and leads a raid back into the city to thwart the Dalek's plans. But this is Doctor Who, and indeed the Daleks, tenth anniversary year and at times like that you want a bit of nostalgia for the past and Planet of the Daleks delivers with a decent dose of action thrown in. The Daleks are great throughout especially in episode 3 & 6 where they get to run round the confined corridors of their base. There are differences, indeed quite a major philosophical one: In the Daleks the Doctor rouses the Thals to fight, here he attempts to quell their increasingly war like instincts.

DOCTOR: As a matter of fact, there is.
REBEC: Yes, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Throughout history, you Thals have always been known as one of the most peace loving peoples in the galaxy.
TARON: I hope we always will be.
DOCTOR: Yes, well that's what I mean. When you get back to Skaro, you'll all be national heroes. Everybody will want to hear about your adventures.
TARON: Of course.
DOCTOR: So be careful how you tell that story, will you? Don't glamorise it. Don't make war sound like an exciting and thrilling game.
TARON: I understand.
DOCTOR: Tell them about the members of your mission that will not be returning, like Maro and Vaber and Marat. Tell them about the fear, otherwise your people might relish the idea of war. We don't want that.
REBEC: You can depend on us.

In 1993 from the 5 November to 17 December Planet of the Daleks was repeated on BBC1 as a repeat to celebrate Doctor Who's 30th Anniversary. With each episode was shown a short film

1 Bigger Inside than Out
2 The Antique Doctor Who Show
3 Missing In Action
4 I Was That Monster
5 Crimefile: The Master
6 Unit Recruitment Film (available on the Spearhead from Space DVD)

This last film contains a phone number which when rung would play a recorded message from the Brigadier (played as ever by Nicholas Courtney) announcing the forthcoming Green Death release.

Planet of the Daleks was novelised as a book by Terrance Dicks and features one of my favourite covers of the entire range. In November 1999 Planet of the Daleks was released on VHS with Revelation of the Daleks in a tin that sold out almost instantly. Ten years later Planet of the Daleks was released on DVD with Frontier in Space in the Dalek War boxset.

348 Planet of the Daleks: Episode Five

EPISODE: Planet of the Daleks: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 348
STORY NUMBER: 068
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 05 May 1973
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 9.7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"The Daleks have prepared a bacteria bomb. It will destroy every living thing on this planet!"

Taron & Codal see Vaber & the bombs being taken to the city. The animals close in on The Doctor, Jo, Rebec & Latep who drive them off with the Thal guns but the charge begins to fail. The Doctor scares the animals off with fire. Taron & Codal disguise themselves as Spiridons to rescue Vaber and the bombs. Jo tells the Doctor of Vaber's plan to destroy the refrigeration equipment but the Doctor is horrified knowing that the plan will bring the Daleks back too life. Wester brings word of the Daleks bacteria. He leaves to enter the city and try to interfere. Vaber is taken to the Daleks where he tries to escape but is exterminated. Taron & Codal seize the bombs and flee into the jungle pursued by Daleks. The Daleks demonstrate their protection against the bacteria and prepare to immunise themselves and their slaves before releasing it into the atmosphere. Taron & Codal arrive back at where the Doctor is. Jo & Latep distract the Daleks giving the Doctor time to prepare. He and the Thals trick the Dalek patrol into entering an ice pool killing the mutants within. Wester manages to penetrate the Dalek lab as the Doctor's party. Jo & Latep take one of the bombs with the intention to descend down the ventilation shaft while the others enter the city in disguise. Rebec is inside one of the Dalek shells while the Doctor, Taron & Codal are disguised as Spiridons. Finding their way to the lab they see Wester release the bacteria in the sealed lab killing himself and trapping the only two immunised Daleks within the sealed lab. One of their feet is spotted sticking out of his cloak by a Dalek who declares an emergency.

Here the Thals begin their fightback which involves getting back into the city they previously escaped from. So hardly unlike the last portion of the original Dalek story is it?

The "disguising yourself as a Dalek" can also be found in the initial story, as the Doctor's party try to escape in episode 4. Applause please for the first airing of "I cannot see, vision impaired" as a Spiridon cloak is thrown over a Dalek as the Thals attack them.

I said we has some important milestones connected with this episode. On 2nd May 1973 the first three Target Doctor Who novels were released: The Daleks & Crusaders by David Whitaker and The Web Planet by Bill Strutton, all reprints of books published in the sixties. New adaptations would follow.

This episode was originally broadcast on 5th May 1973. I was born the day before: This is the first episode shown in my lifetime. So we're sort of entering a second phase of episodes now, those shown between my birth and when I started watching the show in 1978. If that wasn't a big enough milestone I've also discovered we're half way through the broadcast run of original Doctor Who. There are 695 broadcast episodes, and half of that is 347.5.

This episode also features the only location filming of the story: Beachfields Quarry, also used for the location sequences on the Ogron planet in the previous story Frontier in Space, serves as the location where the Doctor and Thals trap the Daleks. Doctor Who returns to Beachfields Quarry just once for Invasion of Time but Blake's 7, produced by this story's director David Maloney, uses it as it's most frequent location: in Time Squad as Saurian Major, Deliverance as Cephlon, Hostage as Exbar, Moloch as Sardos, Power as Xenon and Warlord as Betafal.

Taron & The Doctor wrestling the Dalek into the ice pool provides the inspiration for the the cover of story's novelisation not, as I believed growing up, the fight between The Doctor, Codal and a Dalek in the cell in an earlier episode.

This story has the word Planet in the title, and that's been used several times before either as an episode title or story name:

The Daleks #1: The Dead Planet
Planet of Giants
Web Planet
The Chase #6: The Planet of Decision
Galaxy 4 #4: The Exploding Planet
The Daleks' Master Plan #3: Devil's Planet
The Daleks' Master Plan #11: The Abandoned Planet
The Tenth Planet
Planet of the Daleks
Planet of the Spiders
Planet of Evil
The Pirate Planet
Planet of Fire

It's an easy one to use: stick a "of monster name" or something descriptive out of it and there's your title

One new Spiridon joins the ranks of the furry Ribena berries this episode: making his Doctor Who debut is Kelly Varney. He'd return as an Army Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and a Megro Guard in The Sun Makers. He's in the Blake's 7 episodes Project Avalon as a Prisoner and Horizon as a Native, plays Tom Walter in the Survivors episode Bridgehead, is in Moonbase 3 as a Technician in Castor and Pollux and was an extra in Star Wars.

As Webster dies we get a rare glimpse of the face of the actor playing him Roy Skelton. Although he's been heard many times in Doctor Who, providing voices for Daleks and Cybermen amongst others, this is only his second onscreen appearance after playing colonist Norton in Colony in Space. After appearing onscreen just twice in the first 8 years he worked on the show, he now appears in two consecutive stories as he's called back to Doctor Who as an emergency substitute to play James in The Green Death episode five after another actor fell ill!