Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks

"The planet is so hostile they had to develop invisibility."

Writer: Terrance Dicks

Format: Novel

Released: October 1976

Series: Target 46

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

Jo peered through the panel and saw nothing. Yet someone had entered the cabin. She could hear horse breathing and stealthy padding footsteps. A beaker rose in the air of its own accord, then dropped to the floor... The Invisible Enemy.

After pursuing the Daleks through Space, Doctor Who lands on the planet of Spiridon, in the midst of a tropical jungle... and finds more than Daleks. Vicious plants spitting deadly poison, invisible Spiridons attacking from all sides and, in hiding, a vast army waits... for the moment to mobilise and conquer.

Verdict

Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks was a wonderful little novelisation! I had a pretty good feeling that it would be as the television story is one I very much enjoy and we had Terrance Dicks as author so there wasn’t an awful lot that could have gone wrong. I liked how things started with the aftermath of Frontier in Space and the Dalek being in pursuit of the Daleks following their reveal towards the end of that story. There was just one problem with going after them and that was the matter of the Doctor passing out! It really wouldn’t do to just leave Jo in the TARDIS that’s en route to tackle the Daleks. With the Doctor out of action, I thought her log was a lovely little idea and it probably would have been better if she’d kept it for longer! Our introduction to the hostility that was Spiridon was very good and I really loved that the natives were invisible. Having the Daleks playing with the concept invisibility and perhaps gaining those abilities was terrific and it seemed to add a new layer to how frightening the Daleks could be. They’d achieved the feat of becoming invisible, but they couldn’t sustain it for long before light sickness struck so it www good to know they had some limitations. The ending of chapter two with the invisible being revealing itself to be a Dalek was magnificent. I really enjoyed that and it’s a shame that more of the story didn’t deal with invisible Daleks, but I do understand that from a television perspective that viewers would have wanted to actually see the Daleks. One of my favourite moments when I cover this story is the moment that the Doctor recalls to the Thals the events of The Daleks and how he was there with Susan, Ian and Barbara. It’s a lovely reminder of how far the Doctor has come and how long he’s been battling the Daleks. The tension between the three Thals when we got a bit comfortable with them was palpable and it really showed how bad the Daleks was when loved ones weren’t even pleased to see other! I thought that was a very powerful message. I really enjoyed the moment where the Doctor thought that Jo was on board the ship that was blown to smithereens and it was devastating for the Doctor to react in the way he did. I can’t imagine how he must have felt! Jo of course was okay thanks to Wester who didn’t actually seem to feature that heavily in the novelised format which surprised me a tad. He was a good character and it was nice to have a Spiridon actively working against the Daleks. Jo’s efforts to now escape the Daleks and save the Doctor from within the city once she found out that was where he was worked well and I loved how she used the slave crates to find her way in. Her fate was ironic though as she ended up becoming a Dalek prisoner and he escaped without her help anyway. She can’t have been pleased with that! There were some intriguing concepts thrown about in this novelisation and I really liked the idea of liquified ice. It shouldn’t really be possible and doesn’t make much sense but for the purposes of the story I enjoyed it. The Daleks attempting to have a squadron next to an icecano that would be used to power its refrigeration was quite barmy but it was a frightening prospect! I found the use of the parachute balloon for the Doctor and Thals to escape through flight very amusing in prose it had to be said. I really liked the characterisation of Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor and it was nice to see him quite active considering how he started the adventure. The Daleks developing a biological weapon but not equipping themselves with immunity is a bit of a stretch to believe, but I do like how that shows a semblance of their arrogance as what they perceive to be the superior beings. Their plan to create a 10,000 strong Dalek army equipped with invisibility was brilliant thought and that having come into fruition would have been an almighty enemy. The Doctor wouldn’t let that happen though thanks to some strategic bomb placing that ended up liquefying the Dalek army just after it had briefly awoken. The annoyance that was clear in the Dalek Supreme when the mission failed was magnificent and I liked how it was there chasing the Doctor and Jo to the TARDIS after its army had been put into permanent suspended animation. The deadly plant life of Spiridon would see to it though. Overall, a fantastic novelisation!

Rating: 9/10