June 24: Planet of the Daleks Episodes Five & Six

Seriously.  Let's us just acknowledge how appalling the "glowing lights substituting for unblinking eyes that you can literally see them turn off and on to simulate running away and then coming back" scene is and move on.

Cover of the 1976 Target novelization.
(From On Target - Planet of the Daleks)

And Vaber's been taken by the Daleks!  Taron and Codal are on his trail, disguised as Spiridons (boy, those purple furs sure are handy, aren't they?), and while they're too late to stop Vaber from being exterminated (killed while trying to escape), they're at least able to retrieve their bombs.  Meanwhile, the friendly Spiridon that helped Jo shows up: it turns out his name is Wester, and he's learned of a Dalek "bacteria bomb" containing an incredibly virulent disease that will wipe out all non-inoculated life.  (Oh, right; forgot to mention last time that the Daleks were working on this.)  So now the Doctor and company really have to stop the Daleks.

Fortunately, the Doctor has a cunning plan to infiltrate the city, which is to capture a Dalek by shoving it into a molten ice pool (in an iconic moment -- well, iconic for me, at least, but that might just be because of the cover of the Target book) and then, er, recreate the part of The Daleks that they missed in episode three by having Rebec hide in the shell and lead the others into the base (though they'll be disguised as Spiridons rather than prisoners).  Oh, and they're splitting up, so Jo and Latep are going to head to the ventilation shaft in case the other group doesn't make it.  So the Doctor, Codal, and Taron (all in furs) head with Rebec (inside the Dalek) into the base, where they watch Wester enter the bacteria preparation room and foil their plan of biological warfare by pushing the cover off the glass container and releasing it into the atmosphere before the Daleks have distributed the antidote.  A noble sacrifice, and after Wester dies we see his face -- which might suggest that invisibility for the Spiridons is a force of will rather than an innate property.  (Sadly, it turns out he's just a white-face humanoid with a lumpy face.)

And then a Dalek sees a foot and realizes these aren't real Spiridons.  Cliffhanger!

Episode six continues to remake The Daleks by having Rebec get out just in the nick of time before the Daleks destroy the captured shell -- a fact we only learn in the next scene ("Well, Rebec, it seems you stopped being a Dalek just in time").  They head inside the cooling chamber and barricade the door with random stuff, which leads to possibly the most ludicrous scene ever, as Daleks take turns ramming into this barricade at low speeds to try and break it down -- rather than, say, just blowing it up with their guns.  But no, this indeed serves to delay the Daleks while the Doctor tries to find a good place to set the bomb.

The Dalek Supreme emerges from its spaceship. (Planet of the
Daleks Episode Six) ©BBC

And while this is happening, Jo and Latep watch a Dalek craft descend to the surface.  This one contains a member of the Dalek Supreme Council, which is a movie Dalek prop that's been refitted with a standard Dalek gun and given a new paint job.  This Dalek Supreme has arrived to oversee the final operations on Spiridon.  It's time to wake up all the Daleks currently in hibernation beneath Spiridon's surface -- which is something of a problem for the Doctor, given that he's right next to them.  But they manage to place the bomb (although there was a moment where the timer was damaged and I was worried we were going to lose Codal, the best of the Thals by some distance, to a moment of self-sacrifice) and set it off, flooding the caverns with molten ice and sending the Daleks back into deep freeze.  The galaxy is safe -- for now.  ("Preparations will begin at once to free our army from the ice.  We have been delayed, not defeated," the Dalek Supreme states.)  After an awkward parting between Jo and Latep (who've been having awkward conversations about their relationship all episode) and the Doctor giving an honestly not that bad speech about the danger of glorifying war ("Don't make war sound like an exciting and thrilling game...  Tell them about the members of your mission that will not be returning...  Tell them about the fear; otherwise your people might relish the idea of war"), it's back to the TARDIS and the end of this epic Dalek adventure.

There's not really anything particularly wrong with Planet of the Daleks, but there's nothing incredibly exciting either.  Terry Nation hasn't written for the series since 1965, and so sometimes there's a sense that he's assuming nothing's changed since then.  There are definitely moments where this feels more like a Hartnell story than a Pertwee one -- yes, obviously all the bits that are lifted from The Daleks, but also just in the way the story is paced and written.  Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like one of the good Hartnells; it's more like a mix between the first couple episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan and the runaround latter episodes of The Daleks, with lots of traipsing through jungles and avoiding Dalek patrols.  Remaking those Hartnell stories in color isn't necessarily the worst of sins, but there's nothing here to add to that.  And worse, all the set-up that Frontier in Space gives this story is casually brushed aside to give us this fairly generic runaround.  It's not a terrible story by any means (and it's entertaining for most of the time, even if not always for the right reasons), but it does feel rather like a pointless one.