The Daleks (AKA The Mutants, or The Dead Planet)

     Exterminate! Exterminate!

The Daleks (AKA The Mutants, or The Dead Planet)* (7 X 25mins B&W)
Written by Terry Nation
Doctor Who Series one Serial two
The Dead Planet transmitted BBC 21 December 1963
The Survivors transmitted BBC 28 December 1963
The Escape transmitted BBC 4 January 1964
The Ambush transmitted BBC 11 January 1964
The Expedition transmitted BBC 18 January 1964
The Ordeal transmitted BBC 25 January 1964
The Rescue transmitted BBC 1 February 1964
Note: until 1966 Doctor Who serials had no overall title, instead each episode had its own title.

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in a petrified forest. Unable to set his co-ordinates beforehand, the Doctor has no idea where they are. They discover a large futuristic city and the Doctor wants to investigate, but the others refuse as they want to return to Earth. The Doctor tricks them into thinking they cannot take off because of a faulty fluid link mechanism, so they must go to the city to hopefully find a replacement. Instead they find a race of metal machines called The Daleks, hideously mutated survivors of a nuclear holocaust. The TARDIS crew discover they themselves are dying of radiation poisoning. They send Susan off back to the TARDIS to recover the radiation sickness phials that they found left outside the TARDIS. On her way, Susan meets the Thals, a pacifist tribe, also survivors of the war, but humanoid looking. They have been driven off their homeland by famine in search of food. They hope the Daleks will help them.
Escaping from the Dalek city, the four discover the Daleks have laid a trap for the Thals, but they prevent a full scale massacre. Returning to the TARDIS Ian discovers he no longer has the fluid link, it's back in the Dalek city. So they must all return, the crew for the fluid link, the Thals to beat the Daleks for their food supplies, but will the pacifist Thals help them?

Review

This, only the second serial, launched Doctor Who on the viewing public, thanks to the episode one cliff hanger, fortuitously (as it was the only completed serial ready for filming) shown just before Christmas, with everyone on holiday and therefore looking for some entertainment and having the time to search for it, with the year ending with the first sight of the Doctor's nemesis, the Daleks. It's a shame they didn't have a more fitting first serial.
The first episode is superb, interestingly set in a petrified jungle. Hartnell develops here his hands-on-lapels style of acting, and we discover more about the TARDIS, it has a fault indicator and medical and food supplies. Thunder cracks, lightning flashes, and there's a suspicious scratching noise on the outside. It's all very atmospheric, and the discovery of the city is masterfully done. This is where associate producer Mevyn Pinfield makes his contribution. He had specialist experience of shooting model shots and matte photographic special effects from his cinema work, and these two elements are a highlight of the serial.
Episodes two to four concentrate on the Daleks, and it is impossible to underestimate their importance or their novelty factor. Raymond Cusick's design has rightly been praised, the Daleks are unlike any Sci-Fi monster or alien race in that they do not look like a man in a rubber suit. Also of note is their slightly high-pitched monotone, either contemptuous or paranoid with race hatred. It's clear they're based on the Nazis (memories of the war, only 18 years old, would be fresh in the audience memory), though it's a shame creator/writer Terry Nation uses the old and discredited beauty=good, ugly=evil dichotomy (here, the blond Aryan super race are the Thals). It's no surprise that the serial ended with two episodes garnering over 10  million viewers.
Episodes three and four give us more glances of the Thals. Led by Alan Wheatley, whom viewers would know from The Adventures of Robin Hood, just as William Russell himself was familiar from fellow ITC swashbuckler The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. They're all very pretty, especially Virginia Wetherell, with superb costuming from Daphne Dare and make-up by Elizabeth Blattner.
The story quite clearly comes to a natural end at the conclusion of episode four, but we have three more episodes to go, and this is what prevents the story from being the classic it deserves to be. In episode five the story comes to a grinding halt as everyone (Thals and Daleks) endlessly talk with no story development or action. It's funny that the travellers manage to escape from the Dalek city in one episode, but it's gonna take two to get back in. Supposedly, the two approaches (from above and below), the monstrous lake, and the cave sequences are meant to be thrilling in their own right, but you can't escape the feeling that we're just marking time until the final showdown. It's here that Doctor Who's 26 years of running down corridors and crawling through caves begins. There's also an interesting tonal shift between episodes two and three (where the directors change). Ian's initial hostile suspicion of the Doctor quickly changes to friendly co-operation. And its in this serial that the functions of the foursome are to crystallise; the Doctor as knowledgeable old man, Ian the action hero, Barbara the empathetic kind one, and Susan the impetuous teen. 
All in all, an iconic serial more important historically, hence the low rating. This story takes about three hours to tell the same story as the later film version, Doctor Who and the Daleks. That took only an hour and a half, half the time to regale us with, and was all the better for it. 

TARDIS rating: 2.5/5

Credits

Dr. Who ..................................................................................... WILLIAM HARTNELL
Ian Chesterton .......................................................................... WILLIAM RUSSELL
Barbara Wright ......................................................................... JACQUELINE HILL
Susan Foreman .......................................................................  CAROLE ANN FORD
Ganatus..................................................................................... PHILIP BOND
Alydon  ..................................................................................... JOHN LEE
Dyoni ........................................................................................ VIRGINIA WETHERELL
Temmosus ................................................................................ ALAN WHEATLEY
Elydon ...................................................................................... GERALD CURTIS
Kristas ...................................................................................... JONATHAN CRANE
Antodus .................................................................................... MARCUS HAMMOND
Dalek voices ............................................................................. DAVID GRAHAM
                                                                                                   PETER HAWKINS
Daleks ...................................................................................... ROBERT JEWELL
                                                                                                   KEVIN MANSER
                                                                                                   MICHAEL SUMMERTON  
                                                                                                   GERALD TAYLOR
 
Special Effects ................................... by The Visual Effects Department of the BBC
Title Music ........................... by RON GRAINER with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Incidental Music ...................................................................... by TRISTRAM CARY
Story Editor ............................................................................. DAVID WHITAKER
Designer (not episode six) ...................................................... RAYMOND CUSICK
Designer (episode 6 only) ...................................................... JEREMY DAVIES
Costume Supervisor ............................................................... DAPHNE DARE
Make-up Supervisor ............................................................... ELIZABETH BLATTNER
Associate Producer ...............................................................  MERVYN PINFIELD
Producer ................................................................................. VERITY LAMBERT
Directed (episodes 1&2 only).................................................. by CHRISTOPHER BARRY
Directed (all others) ................................................................ by RICHARD MARTIN
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