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Doctor Who: Daleks - The Dead Planet and The Expedition [VHS]

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When the TARDIS lands on the seemingly dead planet of Skaro, the Doctor suspects that there is nothing alive on the ashen world. However he and his companions come in the middle of a blood feud between the warlike cyborg Daleks and the peace-loving Thals. When interference becomes their only way out, they must challenge the Daleks or remain on Skaro... forever! Collector's Note: This story, sometimes refered to as "The Mutants" is the first appearance of the Daleks, the most popular monsters in the Doctor Who series!

When these collected episodes first aired, they created a massive following for the series. The Daleks became synonymous with Doctor Who and vice-versa. The Daleks combined fairy-tale monsters of old with science-fiction, a formula that would serve Doctor Who and the many TV shows that followed it.

Why the popularity? Consider the first episode, a true landmark of quality for the series, which stands up compared to the best of "The Twilight Zone." Consider the Dalek itself: iconic, strange, completely inhuman, yet with a camp value that parents and other "mature" viewers could wink and smile at. Indeed, it has been said many times that the Daleks aren't very fun unless you don't take them too seriously! Despite this "silliness," the Daleks are completely sinister. Unlike later appearances, some of which are incredibly dull or lame, the Daleks of the 1960's are truly a force to be reckoned with.

Meanwhile, the cast is superb. Hartnell is still playing the Doctor as manipulative, sinister, and utterly untrustworthy. Still, he manages to be charming, only able to create chaos where it is needed. As Ian and Barbara Willaim Russell and Jackie Hill are excellent. Thier characters are beginning to get the idea they may never get home, which brings out fear and desperation, but also the characters' bravery and resourcefulness. It is also fun watching them get closer as the series moves on; nothing more than the implication of love, but a charming pairing nontheless. Carole Anne Ford as the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, is giving perhaps the most interesting performance of all the regulars. Her "Unearthly Child" performance is still in play here, a young woman who is in many ways innocent to the events that surround her. Yes, she screams very loudly and laughs at innapropriate moments, but one cannot help but think that these are truly human qualities with an "alien" touch.

In all, a true classic of science-fiction television. Without "The Daleks," it could be easily said that Doctor Who would not have continued past its first season. Though the story is very long and may try some viewers' patience, it is meant to be viewed one episode per sitting, which could give your family days, weeks, even months of entertainment. Collector's note: This is not to be confused with "Doctor Who and the Daleks," the film created a few years later, which is basically an abridged retelling of this story. Many admirers of Dr. Who enjoy "DW&TD," but prefer the superior original television serial.

Admission time. I always liked to myths, legends and science fiction. When Doctor Who was first broadcast I, like many other children in England, missed it but with the second episode of the first story I became a regular viewer.

The relevance of this will soon become apparent. After leaving behind our bloodthirsty ancestors, the TARDIS materialises in a petrified forest. The Doctor, wishing to explore, deceives Susan, Ian and Barbara, into thinking that they need to find a supply of mercury for the fluid link and so they end up in a mysterious, seemingly deserted, city.

During the course of the story we follow the travellers as they make their way around the dead planet. As children, nay young children, we were unprepared for our first glimpse of what was to become the Doctor's deadliest foes. When the first Dalek hit the screen the effect was incredible. Thus far science fiction had pretty much always been about humanoid type "monsters". This was something so different and so alien that for a lot of us it scared the living daylights out of us. Coupled with the fact that the appearance of the Daleks had been built up to add to the suspense and the effect was magnified. What did we do? We hid behind the sofa! That was the talking point at schools up and down the country for days until the next episode and even made the papers and television news and had such an impact that the future of Doctor Who was assured.

Back to the story. The introduction of the Daleks is set out here. The inhuman creatures inside the machines without feeling against their humanoid enemies, the peace loving Thals clearly written against the backdrop of the cold war. At this point the Doctor is keen to avoid another atomic debacle and therefore aligns himself with the Thals ultimately leading them to victory and establishing the principle of the just war.

Although with hindsight this is a slower paced story it does an excellent job setting the scene and building up the right level of suspense in introducing the Daleks. My eight year old, reared on a diet of modern special effects and cinematography was a little bored at times but ecstatic over the Daleks. It is a great piece of drama with serious political and social questions intertwined with a good yarn.

And what an impact. Who would have thought that almost forty years afterwards there would be so many people for whom those magic words 'Exterminate, exterminate' would mean so much.

For people who wish to get into the Dr. WHO? universe this is a perfect episode to begin with. Skaro is a strange planet, with swamps, mountains, stone trees and a city of metal. The Daleks are one of the best sci-fi races I have ever seen, with great engineering skills and advanced scientific knowledge mixed with paranoia and racism. In later episodes they will seem both slow to grasp even the simplest of problems and too pigheaded to care. But in the first appearance they are intelligent and cunning, with a strong belief in the power of science and that all problems can be solved with time. The Doctor, played by William Hartnell, is not somebody you feel you can totally trust and causes more trouble for all when he lets his interest in the city override common sense. The rest of the cast also get split up a couple of times, allowing you to get a feel of their characters and how they react to problems. Racism, nuclear war and even pacifism are thrown into the mix of adventure and even a 'quest' in the second tape. If you liked this episode I would also suggest THE WEB PLANET and THE KEYS OF MARINUS. All are a mixture of mystery, adventure and sci-fi.

The classic cliffhanger of Episode 1 of The Daleks shows a mysterious arm moving towards a terrified Barbara, who screams at the sight of something. Viewers had to wait a week later to see a creature that would become the most popular of the Doctor's villains. A generation of British schoolchildren imitated their mechanical voices, holding their right arms out and saying "EXTERMINATE!"

The first four episodes of this story is The Dead Planet. Once landing on Skaro, a planet with a petrified forest, Barbara asks Ian, "Don't you ever wish he [the Doctor] deserves to have something happen to him?" Her words turn out to be very prophetic indeed. She's an unwilling traveller, as this is early in her time-travelling days. Ian says, "We better keep an eye on him. He seems to have a knack of getting himself into trouble." After all, if anything happens to him, they're in deep trouble.

The Doctor is determined to visit the Dalek city, but the others want to leave. He sabotages the TARDIS's fluid link as a pretext to go to the city for some mercury. Once there, first Barbara, then the others are captured by the Daleks. To make matters worse, they have been walking around unprotected in fallout and are suffering from radiation sickness. Susan encounters a Thal, Alydon, who gives them anti-radiation drugs. The Thals were mortal enemies of the Daleks, but are now farmers who are starving and need food badly.

The Thal leader, Temmosus, is a mystical idealist leader, too trusting. He says, "I believe the Daleks hold the key to our future, whatever that future might be. We must accept it... and without regret." Also, "I never fight against the inevitable. It's a vain occupation." He also believes in living in cooperation, as he chides Alydon's skepticism: "Suspicions are based on fear, and fear breeds hatred and war." Once he enters the Dalek city to collect the food they've left for the Thals, he says, "They'll see that I'm unarmed. There's no better argument against war than that."

Episode 3, which involves the traveller's attempt to free themselves from the cell by figuring out the Daleks' Achilles Heel, is a classic study of inductive reasoning and putting human thought to good use.

Parts 5 through 7, collectively titled the Expedition, involve the travellers' attempt to get the fluid link back from the city. They need the Thals' help, but the trouble is, the Thals have renounced war because of the neutron bomb that destroyed their civilization. Barbara wonders, "Can pacifism become a human instinct?" Ian replies, "Pacifism only works when everyone feels the same." However, Ian is the most moral in that he wants the Thals to fight for them only by them getting their freedom at the same time, not just for their fluid link. At the same time, the way he gets them to fight is morally questionable, as it borders on taunting, even goading. But Alydon says later, "There is no indignity in being afraid to die, but there is a terrible shame in being afraid to live."

The city of the Daleks, despite being a model seen from a distance, is superbly realized, "a magnificent subject for study."

Of the Thals Alydon, Ganatus, and Temmosus are richly developed characters, as is the cowardly Antodus, and credit is due to the actors portraying them.

Flaw time: The Daleks' geiger counter has the word "DANGER" written in English. Also, they understand the note they have Susan write for them, as they clumsily mispronounce her name.

The Doctor's parting advice to the Thals is wonderful. "You asked me for advice. I never give it, never. But I will say this. Always search for the truth. My truth is in the stars, and yours is here."

The Daleks is not only famous for putting Doctor Who on the map with 10 million viewers. It serves as a classic model of effective storytelling, a serial with good cliffhangers, and a study examining human responsibility, group dynamics, idealism, pacifism, and xenophobia, and as such deserves its due.

This, the second ever Dr. Who story, is one of the very best. The introduction of the arch enemies, the Daleks, is spellbinding. There are very few special effects, which adds to the pleasure, since special effects were difficult to do well in the 60s. An absolute must see for any science fiction fan, especially Dr. Who fans.

"The Daleks", the second-ever "Doctor Who" story, is a brilliant example of world building. The TARDIS's first flight away from the Earth is accomplished without flying saucers and without children on board: ground-breaking, for the science fiction of its day. 40 years later, "Doctor Who" is still traveling through time and space, because "The Daleks" got there first.

In retrospect, "The Daleks" is helped by its seven-episode length. Half an hour goes by before we even see a Dalek and an hour before we see a Thal, and those are the first two alien races the show ever gave us. But there's something even better in their place: sets. Even though it's confined to studio, Skaro is a thoroughly alien world. The establishing shots are overexposed, making everything look "white and ashy". There's also a creepy alien corpse and a pristine flower (that, naturally, the Doctor ignores). When we finally get to the Dalek city, the doorways are weird and angular. Tristram Cary's unnerving score further sets the mood.

While Skaro looks more impressive than you'd expect from the story's 1963 vintage, here's a TARDIS crew completely at odds with each other. William Hartnell's Doctor is as selfish as he ever got, sabotaging his own ship just so he can lure the others down to the city. After Ian and Barbara (who calls herself an "unwilling adventurer") demand food, he takes them to his food machine... and doesn't offer them a thing. When he learns that Skaro's air is poisonous, he's ready to run back to the TARDIS and take off... leaving the missing Barbara behind. He's a childish old man, and, thanks to a daring script, is on death's door 20 minutes later.

Although the story takes seven episodes to tell, each individual episode is built entirely around one key concept. Though all of the third episode is devoted to "The Escape", for example (events which in the show's later years could be compressed to eight minutes), it's very carefully done. There's innocence, for example, when no-one realizes that the Daleks are monitoring their cell. The Daleks' interrogation of the Doctor is creepy, as the ailing Doctor is forced to kneel in a pool of harsh white light, with the Daleks willing to let him die since they can't spare anti-radiation drugs.

Once the TARDIS crew escapes, the Thals (withheld from view until the third episode) take over the story. We're told the natural history of Skaro -- a war waged with neutron bombs which ended thousands of years in civilization in a single. The Dals, the philosopher-kings, became twisted creatures living in metal shells, dependent on static electricity. The warmongering Thals became tall, elegant farmers, whose onscreen presence is even more imposing thanks to shrewd direction -- when Susan meets the story's first Thal, Alydon, he appears to be ten feet tall, until we see he's just standing on a ledge.

The story's moral centerpiece is the debate about pacifism versus non-violence. How far will the Thals go to keep their core values while fighting off the Daleks? The Daleks, merely paranoid in the first episodes (killing the Thals' pacifist leader, wrongly believing him to be a spy), quickly become ruthless when they realize that they'll have to flood Skaro with more radiation in order to survive... even though all the Thals will die. Most of episodes four and five are concerned with Ian's attempts to teach the Thals that "some things are worth preserving". On the flip side of that argument is the Doctor (and a vengeful Barbara), who merely want to turn the Thals into disposable shock troops, so the Doctor can retrieve his lost equipment from the city and leave the Thals to chance. It's a long argument, and a risky one, and, in the end, neither side is right, and he Thals' death toll mounts quickly. However, Ian's plan (stealth and intelligence, not violence) wins the day.

It's been said that the final "Doctor Who" TV story, 1989's "Survival", featured a "harsh" repudiation of Ian's morality. I don't think this a good idea, or even an accurate one. More important by 1989 was the realization that Susan didn't have to be a screaming teen afraid of walking alone outdoors. On the whole, Ian's morality remains intact under today's scrutiny; the Thals would have all died, without it. Even so, we're not meant to applaud Ian's simulated kidnapping of a Thal woman. At any rate, Hartnell's Doctor was not a pacifist, and without the human element of Ian and Barbara, would never have become the hero the series later needed him to be. When the Dalek plan is halted, a dying Dalek approaches the Doctor for mercy: "Stop our power from wasting." His response? "Even if I wanted to, I don't know how."

The story ends with an extended dialogue, as the Thals mourn their dead and the Doctor, a hero at least, offers benedictions (with a grim warning of "other wars to fight"). There aren't too many light moments in the story (apart from the exchange where Ian finally nails the Doctor for getting his last name wrong), but it's all very pleasant at the end, and we even learn a little more about the Doctor's past.

You could believe, from watching "The Daleks", that "Doctor Who" was built to a careful master plan. Each character (even Susan) was allowed room to grow and regress, early on. By the show's third season, the creation process was more haphazard, with things made up as they went along -- witness the Daleks' descent into comedy villains. However, "The Daleks", in spite of being only the second show, is quite possibly as good as "Doctor Who" gets.

I must admit, when I first heard of the Daleks, I did NOT expect them to look like trash dispensers with plungers attached to them. In fact when I first watched this adventure, I laughed at the sight of them, because by today's standards they look somewhat ridiculous... at first. But after seeing just how cruel, vicious, and deadly they can be, I changed my tune considerably.

This was the good Doctor's first of many encounters with his arch-enemies, the Daleks. This was the second Doctor Who adventure, and it would be something that would solidify the show's popularity for years to come.

It is in this adventure that TARDIS crew land on a eerily deserted planet, a planet that had gone through a devastating neutronic war between the two races, the Thaals and the Daals. Soon they are being affected by the radiation fallout, are captured by the Daleks, they make their escape and meet the Thaal people. Soon a final battle is engaged, and the Thaals are victorious over the Daleks.

I enjoyed this adventure, for it is a prime example of intelligent writing and powerful acting. This story is very multi-layered as it serves as a sort of social allegory for what could happen as a result of the use of nuclear weapons for war. In addition, it serves up a fair amount of drama in regards to how far can one stay the course of pacifism before taking action. Some other great points are the Thaals themselves, the males in particular, the wardrobe makes them look as if they are part of the Kevin Sorbo Appreciation Society. but seriously, this is a great adventure and very essential for any Doctor Who fan.

The greatest hero ever created, Doctor Who, is established in the first story, An Unearthly Child. It stands to reason that one of his greatest enemies, The Daleks, should be set up in the second story. Over the years, in later stories, the Daleks become second bananna to their creator, Davros. See one of the classics that stands the test of time as a ripping good yarn.

This is my favorite Doctor Who tape. It has a great combination of original ideas, good effects and suspense. This is definitely an item with collector value.

The story contains all the original cast, being only the second adventure in the entire Doctor Who series. It is also includes the first appearance of the Daleks.

The story effects are impressive for their time. I particularly like the dead forest and the view of the Dalek city. One other memorable aspect is the eerie metallic sound used in the scenes shot within the Dalek city.

There were few disappointments for me with this story, apart from William Hartnell having trouble with some of his lines. I understand however that this was a continuing problem throughout his tenure.

One thing to bear in mind for this and all the Doctor Who stories is that they were originally designed as a television serial. Individual episodes were screened each Saturday afternoon. It therefore inevitably alters the viewing experience to watch each story as a complete series of episodes on one tape. Individual perceptions of each Doctor will also be influenced by personal history. I grew up in the sixties and prefer the early Doctors. Other people that I know grew up in the seventies and prefer the Tom Baker years. Notwithstanding the above there should be a reason for all Doctor Who fans to own this tape.

Beyond all doubt, any fan of "Doctor Who", or are even more so, a Dalek fan, requires this seven part story. This is where it all begins... For the Daleks anyway. To see them in their very earliest performance is a rare spectacle for today, but available. Do not disregard this classic just because its in black and white, or because the production values in the 1960s weren't as spectacular as today's. Buy it for a complete "Doctor Who" collection. It'll be worth it.