Day 366: Planet of the Daleks, Episode Four

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 366: Planet of the Daleks, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I think the problem I’m having with this story is that because of the way Terry Nation writes (he’s very much writing this as an ‘adventure serial’), we’ve got episodes injected with false action and excitement. Today, for example, the Daleks get hold of the Thal’s map and discover where they’ve hidden a stash of explosives. Being sensible little pepperpots, they decide to venture into the jungle and dispose of the explosives. ‘It’s fine,’ says Dalek One (well, words to that effect, anyway), ‘we can just prime the detonators and leave them to explode here…’

Leaving aside the sheer irresponsibility of this move (have they checked with the Daleks still inside the city to make sure they’re not going to accidentally blow up a tunnel of molten ice?), the Daleks then trundle back off into the foliage to get a safe distance from the explosives. Enter Jo Grant - Dr Who’s plucky young assistant - who turns off the detonator on two of the three bombs… before she’s hit on the head by a falling rock and left unconscious as the timer counts down to an explosion!

We then cut away to catch up with the Doctor and his escape attempt up the ventilation shaft, before returning to find Jo waking up… just in time to move the timer and let it blow up some Daleks instead of her. It could be quite a good moment, but the whole thing just smacked of false terror - there’s no way that they’re going to blow Jo up, and at least if it came as a cliffhanger then we’d be able to suspend our belief a bit more. As it is, the whole thing comes across as pointless filler.

Still, it’s a minor complaint really, as I'm rather enjoying the story. Yes it's a bit of a naff runaround. Yet it's filled with as many clichéd Terry Nation ideas as it's possible to squeeze into one story. Yes it's seemingly forgotten any links to Frontier in Space (Even this far into the story, I was hoping for some kind of resolution - or at least a mention! - of the Daleks plans involving Earth and Draconia), but it's all a lot of fun.

And if worst comes to worst, at least the Daleks are preparing to unleash a deadly bacteria across the planet!