Holistic Review: The basic plot is unfortunately rather average, but there are some really fun ideas sparkling in this story to make it one of the more interesting Dalek tales.

I've always kind of liked Planet of the Daleks, even during my anti-Pertwee years, despite the fact that the plot is mainly a lot of running around, infiltration, getting captured and escaping. Oh, and Daleks, of course. But this story, which could easily have come across as completely dull, gets a lift from an interesting setting, an intriguing (if fairly one-note) race of aliens, and some thrilling challenges along the way.

That's one of the things I really like about Terry Nation - he always peppers his adventures with lots of interesting situations and puzzles. This is especially prominent in The Daleks, The Keys of Marinus, The Chase, The Daleks' Master Plan and Death to the Daleks, all of which I enjoy even more because of their thrilling little subplots. I know some people find this practice of his to be dull and repetitive, but I like a good adventure tale. It's kind of Homeric, really. Not that I'd compare Terry Nation to Homer. - well, I guess I just did, actually, but you get my drift.

The regulars do a nice job here. Pertwee has a couple of various nice scenes with the Thals, but it's definitely Katy Manning who wins the awards in this story. I've noticed that I tend to be partial to episodes where the Doctor is incapacitated and the companions have to bear the burden of advancing the plot, and such is the case with most of episode 1 here. In fact, once away from the Doctor, Jo hardly spends any time with him at all, mostly striking out on her own or with Latep to investigate the situation. She gets to be really competent in this story, always knowing the right thing to do and never being her endearingly clumsy self. Meanwhile, Katy turns in some convincing performances - she does a great job conveying how cold Jo is during the night, and I could almost believe Katy ran the mile before the scene in which Jo says she's winded. Aside from all that, Jo slips back into her bubbly personality in the scene where she's reunited with the Doctor and talks nonstop. ("And then I got rescued by this bowl!") So this was a pretty good story for her.

Overall, I can't say that I was very impressed with the guest cast in this episode. Of the Thals, only Codal and Rebec stand out at all; Codal only in the handful of scenes where he gets to express his vulnerability and engage the audience's sympathies, and Rebec probably because she's the only female among them. Of course, being the only female aside from Jo in the cast, Rebec gets to sound brave, but really she just wants to go home, and while she's hanging around, her main purpose is to be a distracting love interest for Taron and thus allegedly put the entire mission in jeopardy. News of this naturally reduces her to tears, so the Doctor advises Jo, "Perhaps a female shoulder to cry on might come in handy." Oh, give me a break. Toward the end of the story, Nation tries to endear us to Taron and Latep, but it feels like too little too late, and I remained unconvinced. Wester is also a neat character, making the entire race of Spiridons interesting all by himself. It's nice to have at least one sympathetic alien who befriends the companion, and as it happens he's very brave as well. His ultimate death is really very sad, although it is cool that at least we get to see his face.

Set design and visual effects aren't without their problems either. I generally like the jungle set, which feels very ominous and threatening during the first episode in particular. Unfortunately, the eye-plants - a nice idea, to be sure - look like trash cans with big leaves over the top of them, and spoil the effect somewhat. The plants that fire spores are much more interesting, and at the very end of the story there are some very pretty plants sparkling away in the background as the Thals prepare to leave in the Dalek spacecraft. In the Plain of Stones, the animal eyes are a rather giggly effect. Lightbulbs do not convincing eyes make, especially when they blink on and off; maybe something like reflective surfaces would have looked better? I don't know. But it is pretty funny when the Doctor temporarily frightens them away with a torch, and when they return, one of the animals only "opens" one eye! Couldn't they have at least replaced the other bulb? The Dalek city is reasonably designed, but it doesn't really feel like anything special, even in the slightly more elaborate sets like the refrigeration room and the ice caverns. CSO is fortunately not used very much in this story, although as usual, it's pretty obvious when it does make an appearance - here it's mainly used to indicate the location of the invisible Spiridons, so we get floating objects inside the spaceship, a bobbing stick, and a pair of bowls (which actually do look pretty good). Then there's the brief CSO at the end of episode 1, when the Dalek is revealed via spraypaint. It's an interesting use of the technology, but I'm not sure how well it works, because that Dalek doesn't really look like it's being spraypainted. There are a few places where the effects really do look great, though; the first is the tank of Dalek bacteria, which just looks icky, and the second is the model shots of the Dalek spacecraft landing and taking off, which aren't at all bad. I like the Supreme Dalek, looking all imperious and in-charge with its big blinking lights and gold armor. The Dalek army, despite being made of toy pepperpots, is also surprisingly convincing.

As the plot goes, I find it somewhat variable. The only bits that I really find dull are the scenes set inside the Dalek city, which mainly involve being captured and trying to escape the Daleks. I'm kind of neutral about the Plain of Stones, too, which is a neat idea on paper but somehow fails to excite me onscreen. But there are plenty of things to like. The spore plants are great, and the scenes of them firing their viscous spray over objects and people alike make the jungle feel very threatening. The Spiridons are a neat alien race, ominous at first but then made to seem rather friendly once we get to know Wester. I like the bombs-as-plot-device, too - they give Jo a great scene, in which she gets to be brave and disarm bombs, and then a tense few moments as the bombs seem ready to explode and take Jo with them. The ascent up the windtunnel is a cool idea, particularly since the tarpaulin does indeed rip on them toward the end, and I like the way that the antigrav Dalek is dispatched. The bacteria are a horrific detail - it sounds like an awful way to die. Then there's the ice volcano, which is a really cool idea, utilized to good effect in the script, both as a plot detail and as a weapon.

Minor points:

• The new-style TARDIS interior is pretty cool. I love the pullout bunk. But what I want to know is, where did it come from and why is it never seen again? Say what you will about the 80s, at least they were pretty consistent about the TARDIS interior.

• I wonder why, as Jo is running away from the spitting fungus plants, she takes great care to cover up her entire body... but leaves her face completely exposed? Then, after stumbling through the jungle and clinging onto all kinds of plants and rocks, she plops down and rubs her mittens all over her face! Ewww! And to make things worse, she gets hot and takes off her coat, sees the fungus stains on the back, and discards it in disgust. Granted, it wasn't the prettiest looking outerwear any more, but c'mon, Jo. You're surrounded by killer fungoids spraying venom at you. The coat's already done for, might as well use it to at least keep your sweater protected!

• I like Jo's shirt and trousers a lot, but that stripey brown jacket has got to go. It doesn't even match.

• Interesting idea that the TARDIS can run out of oxygen if its outer plasmic shell is covered up. This does suggest several problems, though. If the TARDIS draws its interior atmosphere from the planet on which it materializes, why don't the crew suffocate when they materialize in space, or on airless moons, or planets with poisonous atmospheres, or underwater? And secondly, why didn't this ever happen before or since? It does at least explain why the Doctor was so desperate to flee the lava flow in The Mind Robber, but I'm not sure it's a sound idea, continuity-wise.

• The Doctor does recover very quickly, doesn't he? Lapses into a coma, turns icy, then boom! He's okay again, up and dashing around the TARDIS in a very sprightly fashion for no apparent reason whatsoever. At least he chides Jo for leaving the TARDIS and starting their adventure without him, when she should have realized he'd recover pretty quickly. (I must admit that Nation did a good job of scripting convincing explanations for everything into his script, so that a lot of the questions that I had as I was watching this story were eventually answered. One prime example was when the Thals dragged the Doctor out of the TARDIS, and I got very concerned for his bare skin touching the spore-covered plastic hoods, not to mention the spraying plants. Then, moments later, they sprayed him with some anti-fungal medicine and explained the spores' effect on his skin! Nicely done.)

• When Wester ventures into the Thal spaceship and Jo hides in one of the rooms, why does she stand up right next to the vent, where he can see her? Surely it would make more sense to squat down in front of the door, out of sight.

• It's a nice touch, the Doctor describing his first adventure on Skaro. I always like little nods to continuity like that, and it's not often we get to hear him discuss his old companions (unless they're making a rare guest appearance).

• A little blunder: one of the Daleks bangs into a wall upon exiting the elevator, when escorting the Doctor to his cell.

• A really nice dialogue while the Doctor and Codal spend time in their cell:

  Doctor: "Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know."
  Codal: "What is it then?"
  Doctor: "It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway, just as you did."

• Weston says that the Doctor is wearing strange clothes - but doesn't he think the Thals wear strange clothes too? Surely they should be equally alien to the Spiridons. For that matter, it would appear that clothes in general are alien to the Spiridons!

• I like the idea that the Daleks experiment on their prisoners. Not only does this hark back to their Nazi roots, but it makes them scary in a way that they usually aren't. Working your prisoners to death is one thing; subjecting them to inhuman experiments, somehow, is quite another.

• It startled me a little bit, the first time I realized that part 3 only existed in black-and-white. (FYI, this would be the last time I watched it. Maybe I never saw this story in full before? PBS did have the annoying habit of just leaving out the episodes that only exist in black-and-white, cf. Invasion of the Dinosaurs.) And there were soooo many things that I desperately wanted to see in color - the Spiridon furs, the ice tunnels, the molten ice itself. Fortunately, most of them appeared in future color episodes, but I'm still curious about those tunnels.

• I'm very proud of how proactive Jo is in this adventure, but goodness, she sure is obvious about hiding in the basket. When the Spiridons take it into the Dalek city, she puts her hands on the front of the cart, lifts her head up and stares out from under the leafy covering. How the Spiridon pushing the cart didn't notice her, I'll never know.

• The Dalek that confronts the Doctor and Codal looks like it's seen better days. Actually, a lot of them do, even the Supreme Dalek - I'm kind of surprised that the solar panels (or whatever they are) around the middle of the Dalek aren't all cut to the same size, or sometimes even at the same angle.

• Marat is quite ridiculous. Not only does he sacrifice himself in a pitifully useless manner - staying behind for no good reason, only to get shot down five seconds later without doing anything productive - but by so doing, he practically gives the Daleks the information they need to find the Thals' precious bombs! What a doof.

• Another quote I like:

  Doctor: "When faced with the inevitable, don't waste precious time by resisting it."

• It's nice that the Daleks have a cutting tool that they can use to get through their thick metal doors, but how on earth do they use them? They have to cut a hole in the door as tall and wide as a Dalek, and there's no way that arm reaches down that low or up that high.

• The Doctor's solution for getting out of the refrigeration room is clever, and the cliffhanger to episode 3 is just great (I wouldn't have thought it had much chance of working either!).

• Jo seems to be unwisely rash, or excessively desperate - the very moment the Daleks glide past the bushes and out of camera range (but not out of her range!), Jo bounds out of the undergrowth and heads over to the bombs! She's just lucky they didn't hear her and turn around.

• Oh dear, another bomb that doesn't blow up very much. I wonder, too, why Jo didn't even try to turn it off? She certainly had enough time. But maybe she just panicked and didn't read the timer accurately. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, and she did manage to save the other two.

• I don't have any experience dangling from cliffs and the like, thankfully. But I'm really not sure it's possible to dangle from a sheer, slick cliff with no proper handholds or footholds, like the Doctor does, and then successfully support all your weight with one hand while grasping desperately for a rope with the other. Clinging on with two hands would be difficult enough; it seems to me that with only one hand, you're almost certain to slip and fall.

• A most amusing exchange:

  Taron: "We must destroy the Daleks!"
  Rebec: "And how does my being here change that?"
  Taron: "Because - because I love you."
  Forest: (groans)

• And a ridiculous one:

  Doctor: "Jo, where did you hide the bombs?"
  Jo: "I'll get them."
  Latep: "Let me help you."
  Jo: "They're here." (she takes 3 steps, then kneels and picks up the bombs)

  What's with "I'll get them" and all that? Couldn't she have just pointed and said "Right there"?

• Why is it so important that the Daleks destroy all plant life on Spiridon? Surely it's not a threat to them.

• The moment when Codal opens up one of the Spiridon furs, to see absolutely nothing staring back at him, is pretty scary! (But when the Spiridon leans forward to attack him, is that a glimpse of a silvery-white face we see?)

• Another silly dialogue:

  Jo: "Doctor, no! That's Wester, he's the Spiridon that helped me."
  Doctor: "Are you sure?"
  Jo: (as if to a child) "Yes."

• It's interesting (although not surprising) that the Daleks don't particularly care if they accidentally hit a Spiridon while trying to exterminate an escaped prisoner. And speaking of extermination, why is it exactly that the Daleks so often chase people when they could just as easily exterminate them? If the script needs those characters alive, that's why.

• The Doctor sounds so shocked when Jo elects to accompany Latep to lead a Dalek patrol to the Plain of Stones, you'd think she'd said she was leaving him for good. (And, if she ever did say she was leaving him for Latep, such a reaction would not be unjustified.)

• It's cool that the cameras don't let us see the mutants being pulled out from inside the Daleks, but only let us hear the splash as they're dropped into liquid ice. Less is definitely more in this case (although I really have enjoyed getting glimpses of them in future stories).

• The Supreme Dalek states, "...the invasion of all solar planets is to begin today." So, they're just invading planets around the one sun then? Or do they mean every sun?

• There's a great scene when the Doctor drops his bomb, and has to climb down into the drowsy Dalek army to recover it. It's very tense, just as it should be - the same sort of tension you feel in a zombie movie, when the heroes venture into deceptively-quiet-looking zombie-infested areas. Shiver.

• I also like the fact that the Doctor's solution doesn't work right away. It gives the audience a moment to doubt him, and wonder what kind of backup plan he has, before the volcano finally starts to erupt.

• The implication in this story is very much that the Dalek army has been put into "cold storage" for hundreds of years until the other Daleks can unearth them again. But being covered in liquid ice is a little colder than just being kept in a cooling chamber. And given what happened the last time the Doctor shoved Daleks into a pool of it, isn't it conceivable that he's actually killed the entire Dalek army? After all, the Supreme Dalek does state, "We are the only survivors."

• I love the Doctor's speech to the Thals at the end, which I shall reproduce here in full:

  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 glamourize 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 Mayrell, Vaber, Marat. Tell them about the fear. Otherwise your people might relish the idea of war, and we don't want that."

• How Jo could even consider Latep's offer, I have no idea. Not only did she barely know him, he was about as exciting as a dead geranium. Maybe she was just trying to be polite, rather than laughing and saying "Are you kidding?" Anyway, it's a good thing she didn't take him up on his overly-optimistic offer, or she'd never have met Cliff, being stranded on Skaro and therefore too far away to upset his mushrooms.

• "There's only one little world I want to see right now," says Jo. My first thought was, my goodness, Jo, you have all of time and space to explore, and you just want to go back to Earth?!? But then I realized that this is quite possibly the longest Jo has ever spent away from her home planet, so I really can't blame her wanting to go back for a bit of a breather.

Along with Frontier in Space, this forms part of a really epic storyline. It's also a story that would have been perfectly at home in the Hartnell era. So while it may have some disappointing plot elements, it's a nice mixture of familiar and new, it's got some exciting and fun moments, and it's interesting enough to mostly keep your attention over six episodes.