By Jessica Holmes

Hello, hello, hello, ladies and gents. We've got a lot of serial to cover today, and we'll still have some left over. Shall we get started?

We last left the Doctor and his companions as they set out to explore an alien world, unsuspecting of the danger they're in, as the radiation meter creeps towards the danger zone.

Here begins the first part of writer Terry Nation's serial. Here is…

THE DEAD PLANET

The first we see, after the requisite replay of the last moments of the previous serial, is a panning shot across the forest outside the T.A.R.D.I.S. There's quite an interesting visual effect applied to the image that gives it a surreal, eerie quality.

Or it could just be that my television set needs adjusting.

The ever-analytically-minded Doctor stoops to examine the dirt at their feet, and notices it to be ash. Yet they're surrounded by dense forest. Or are they? The woods are utterly still. Too still.

In fact, the trees have turned to stone. It's a petrified jungle.

The Doctor and Susan are fascinated by the discovery, and rightly so. Petrified wood is a rare thing to come across, given that organic tissue usually decomposes long before it can be fossilised. To my knowledge, fossilised wood tends to be found in volcanic areas, where trees were buried long ago in a deluge of volcanic ash, and completely deprived of oxygen. The process of minerals seeping in to replace the organic remains takes millions of years, but the end result is rather stunning.

The teachers don’t appreciate the geological wonder around them, and only wish to go home. After all, the Doctor did promise a return to their own time. It's impossible to say if he managed that, but the right point in space? I think we can assume he missed a bit.

Barbara reveals a little bit of spite when she wishes the Doctor would have something bad happen to him as some sort of cosmic punishment for repeatedly landing them in danger. I can't say I blame her.

Meanwhile Susan is off picking flowers, finding joy in the smallest of things. It's very sweet. The moment is short-lived, and the flower even shorter, when the group spots this hideous thing:

Looks almost as good as me in the mornings.

Who doesn't like a bug-eyed monster? And it's made of metal, no less! It's long, long dead, sadly, but the Doctor speculates that its metal outer skin was held together and manipulated by a magnetic field. It sounds unlikely to me, but it's such a wonderfully creative concept of life that I don't care.

Riding high, the Doctor and Susan continue to explore, while Ian and Barbara continue to whine about wanting to go home. Yes, fair enough, you're so far away from home you don't even know where you are, and yes you might be in a teensy bit of mortal peril, but come on, it's exciting, isn't it? Then again that's very easy for me to say, sitting on my comfortable couch and making notes while a guinea pig attempts to abscond with my notebook.

Here we find out why the teachers haven't made it back home. It's perfectly possible to return the T.A.R.D.I.S. to a previous location, but the Doctor has a tendency to forget the various functions of his ship. If there's such a thing as a T.A.R.D.I.S. licence, I think he ought to go and re-take the test.

As they continue exploring, they notice something peculiar. Other than the one flower Susan picked earlier, the planet is devoid of life. Whatever happened here, it doesn't seem that there were any survivors.

The companions reach the edge of the forest and find a glimmer of hope. In the distance, there's a massive city. The Doctor of course wishes to investigate further, but reluctantly agrees at the behest of his companions to start heading back.

As Susan stops to pick another of the incredibly rare flowers in the forest (really, there's a reason every nature guide I've ever read tells you not to do that precise thing!), something makes a grab at her, frightening her out of her wits. Everyone hurries back to the T.A.R.D.I.S., where the Doctor asks Barbara to talk to his granddaughter. He wants to comfort her, but is aware that there's a vast gulf of maturity between them, and doesn't know how to approach the problem. Bless.

Sadly, Susan has trouble convincing the men of the group, who have made up their minds that there can't be anything out there in the forest, that someone touched her shoulder. I think a lot of young viewers out there will relate to her genuine fear being dismissed as being silly or paranoid. I know I do.

Getting rather hungry, the companions try out the T.A.R.D.I.S.' 'kitchen'. Rather, a machine that makes what appear to be cereal bars which taste like full meals. I think I'd rather have a plate of real bacon and eggs, but the bars do look better than the little tubes of paste our real space-travellers have to put up with.

The Doctor finally agrees to take the T.A.R.D.I.S. home, but as the familiar wheezing of the engines starts up, he bends down, and sneakily removes something from the central console. He straightens up again, and the T.A.R.D.I.S. grinds to a halt. Oh, Doctor, you cheeky man. Of course, the fluid link is 'missing', so of course the only thing for it is to go to the city. Just as he wanted to.

As the companions make ready to leave, the Doctor gives his mischievous little chuckle, and I can't even be cross at him for being so conniving. He may be a lousy guide, selfish, and have a superiority complex bigger than Big Ben (by which I of course mean the bell), but he's so fun to watch.

Outside the T.A.R.D.I.S., the companions find a box on the floor. Ian investigates it with the foolproof method of covering his face while he pokes it with a stick. When it doesn't blow up, he picks it up to discover a number of vials of unidentified liquid. Suspicious of the package, the companions leave it behind and head to the city, where the Doctor takes ill shortly after arriving.

The group splits up to explore, and we follow Barbara through tightly winding corridors, and past a few walls which are rather unconvincingly painted to look like corridors.

Whatever happened to the perspective, here? Did M.C. Escher design this building?

The soundtrack turns eerie as Barbara moves through identical doorway after identical doorway, soon becoming completely lost. The scene is very tense and claustrophobic, and we know something's coming. Something that most likely doesn't appreciate her intrusion.

Something that apparently has a toilet plunger stuck to it.

Attack of the plumbers!

I'm teasing a little, as the scare chord and non-revelation of what's stalking Barbara is an effective scare, but as a threatening appendage, a toilet plunger is perhaps not the scariest choice. Still, from Barbara's horrified screams, we can guess one thing: whatever's advancing on her, it's not human.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and was on tenterhooks all week waiting to see how the story would continue. Some very ambitious world design was on display here, and though at some moments the lack of budget did get in the way, for the most part the production team succeeded in creating a very eerie, otherworldly atmosphere.

Now we move on to…

THE SURVIVORS

The rest of the group don't take long to notice Barbara is missing, and they immediately set out to look for her. As they search, they hear a quiet ticking noise. I thought it sounded like a Geiger counter, and was rather pleased with myself when I turned out to be correct. It was indeed a Geiger counter, which the group discovers in a room filled with all sorts of advanced scientific equipment. Whoever built this city, they were highly technologically capable.

However, all that technology couldn't save them. The group realises that the entire planet is soaked in radiation, likely the fallout from some sort of atomic weapon…and they've just been walking around, unprotected. Now we know why they don't feel well. Acute radiation sickness is setting in.

Uh-oh.

Realising how much danger he's put everyone in, the Doctor has the decency to admit to his deception. Ian, furious, takes the fluid link from the Doctor and refuses to hand it back until they've rescued Barbara. Either they all go back to the T.A.R.D.I.S. together, or none of them do.

I really like Ian. He might look like an ordinary teacher, but he's got the spirit of a hero.

Before they can make any progress, however, the things with the plungers arrive.

And they're rather more menacing than a bit of bathroom equipment.

These, as we'll learn before long, are the Daleks. Every word from their… I would say mouths, but they don't seem to have any. None that I can see, anyway. Every word from whatever it is that they use to talk is a clipped, distorted scream. No emotion, just constant yelling. These are possibly the strangest thing I've seen yet. At least the bug-eyed monster was recognisable as an animal. These Daleks, however, are a bit of a mystery, for now at least. Are they robots? Miniature tanks? A bio-mechanical creature? We'll have to be patient if we want to find out.

Whatever they are, the Daleks aren't friendly. As Ian attempts to make a break for it, I give a horrified gasp as the Daleks gun him down. Mercifully, he isn't killed, but the dastardly Daleks have completely paralysed his legs.

With Ian incapacitated, the Daleks herd the group into a cell, where the companions are at last all together again, but trapped.

Want to hear the really good news?

The radiation poisoning is getting worse. If they don't get treatment soon, they're all going to die, and it's not going to be a pleasant end. For now, the group are experiencing a feeling of wooziness, the Doctor the most severely affected. The Daleks haul him off to be interrogated anyway.

The Daleks think that the companions are part of a group of people called the 'Thals', who can apparently resist the radiation through their drugs. This accusation leads the Doctor to realise that the phials left outside the T.A.R.D.I.S. in the night may be the anti-radiation drug in question. He makes a deal for one of the group to go fetch it while the others stay behind as collateral.

Time for a little explanation, at long last. I've been dying to know what's going on here.

The Daleks explain to the Doctor that 500 years ago there were two people on this world: themselves, and another race called the Thals. They went to war, an atomic war, that devastated the planet. As the ashes settled, the Dalek forefathers retreated into the city, protected by their machines, and the Thals were almost driven to extinction, left to wander the wilderness. The Daleks think it likely that centuries of exposure to radiation has left the Thals disgustingly mutated.

Still, even if they are mutants, we can gather one thing: they probably left the drugs for them. A gift, perhaps? Maybe there are some friendly people on this planet.

I’m going to nitpick for a moment now. If, as the Daleks say, the war was 500 years ago, and assuming that the petrified forest was buried as a result of this war, not nearly enough time has passed for the trees to become fossilised.

Ian, beginning to recover the use of his legs, immediately volunteers for the mission. Susan decides to go with him, as the Doctor is now too sick to do anything at all, leaving her as the only person who can unlock the T.A.R.D.I.S.. However, when it comes time to go, Ian's strength fails him, leaving Susan with no choice but to venture out alone. She's absolutely terrified, but she goes anyway; that's what I call bravery.

However, it seems Susan's bravery may all be for naught. The Daleks are spying on our heroes in secret. They have no intention whatsoever of allowing the companions to use the life-saving drug. They just want Susan to bring it back so that they can analyse and replicate it for their own use.

Tensions rise in the cell as Ian vents his frustration at the Doctor, and tension climbs in the forest as Susan runs through the densely clustered trees. She's petrified, but keeps on running, and the guinea pig and I are cheering her on.

It would be a more effective scene if not for the fact that I'm almost certain Susan traverses the exact same patch of forest at least three times.

Susan finally arrives at the T.A.R.D.I.S. as the adults begin to suffer from the next stage of radiation poisoning: a high fever. If Susan tarries, it'll be too late, and the Daleks certainly won't lift a finger, or rather, plunger, to help.

A very exciting episode. Terry Nation is doing a good job so far. Let's hope he keeps it up!

THE ESCAPE

For Susan, braving the forest to reach the safety of the T.A.R.D.I.S. was one thing. Leaving the ship and going right back into the lion's den? That's even harder, but she plucks up the courage and steps outside, where she finds a stranger awaiting her. This is Alydon, the man who left the drugs for the group, and he is one of the Thal race.

A hideous mutant, indeed.

Alydon is surprised to learn that the Daleks still live in the city, and is suspicious of their motives in allowing Susan to retrieve the drugs. To be safe, he gives her a second box, and sends her on her way with his cloak to keep warm.

It's growing increasingly likely that there are people inside the pepper-pot shells. Now we have a big question. If the Daleks think of the Thals as horrific mutations, what must they be like, inside their metal shells?

Susan safely makes it back to the city, where the Daleks confiscate one box of the drugs, but thankfully allow her to keep the other box. Within a few minutes of administering the treatment, the Doctor regains consciousness, and the group start to feel well enough to attempt to get back to the T.A.R.D.I.S.. However, Susan isn't ready to leave. The Thals helped them; they should help the Thals in return.

It turns out that after the atomic war, the Thals were able to cultivate small plots of land, but to do so they rely on a rainfall that only comes every few years. Said rainfall is two years overdue, the crops have failed, and the people are starving. They've had no choice but to leave their land in search of food, but now they're encroaching onto the Daleks' territory. If they're going to survive, they need to arrange some sort of treaty with the Daleks, and Susan wants to help.

In a twist which will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, the Daleks are listening in on the conversation and hatch a plot to double cross the Thals. They offer the prisoners food and sustenance, leading to the slightly amusing image of a Dalek carrying a tea-tray.

How do Daleks even prepare food? They don't have hands. They seem to use the toilet plunger to interact with their environment, but I don't see how a rubber cup can provide the manual dexterity to make as much as a coronation chicken sandwich. With the companions fed and rested, the Daleks say that they will help the Thals, in truth planning to use Susan to lure the Thals to the city, where they'll be at the mercy of the Daleks. What will happen then isn't certain, but knowing the Daleks, it probably won't be good.

"SHE WILL BE RETURNED. WE ARE GOING TO HELP THE THALS WHICH IS WHAT YOU WANT US TO DO."
Not at all suspicious. Nope. Not one bit.

We now cut to a group of the Thals as they wait by the T.A.R.D.I.S., and learn a little more about them, and about the Daleks. The Thals apparently were once a warrior race, and the Daleks teachers and philosophers. Now the Thals have turned to a simple life of farming, shunning violence in favour of diplomacy, whereas the Daleks have directed their intelligence away from academic pursuits and towards war, violence, and survival.

I just wish I were better at telling them apart.

The Thals are excited to make friends with the Daleks. Bless.

Oh, and they're bizarrely sexist. One of the group berates Alydon for giving the drugs to a girl, instead of a man. I don't see how it makes the slightest bit of difference, but there you go. The only possible reason for her resenting his interaction with Susan is simple jealousy. Jealousy. Of a fifteen year old girl. Okay, then.

Meanwhile, this incredibly threatening fifteen year-old is helping the Daleks to draft a treaty based on mutual aid, which seems all well and good but I wouldn't trust the Daleks as far as I could throw them.

Peace in our time?

While Susan is with the Daleks, she learns that they've been listening in on the group's conversations, and so on her return to the cell, Ian and the Doctor stage a mock fight. In the 'tussle', the device the Daleks were using to spy on them is broken, buying them a few minutes of privacy. However, the Daleks immediately realise what they've done, so they don't have long.

The gang gets to brainstorming. They need to get out before they outlive their usefulness. They hatch a plan based on their observations of the Daleks, and when a Dalek comes to give them food, Barbara blinds it with a bit of mud scraped from her shoes, and the Doctor and Ian manage to wrangle it onto Alydon's cloak, which insulates it from the floor, disabling the creature.

Time to see what's inside!

Or not.

But the look the Doctor and Ian exchange as they look inside says everything. They scoop out the creature with the cloak. It's small, whatever it is. Sometimes what you don't see is more interesting than what you do see.

With the organic component of the Dalek removed, Ian climbs into the shell. Can the Daleks even survive out of their shells? Have Ian and the Doctor effectively murdered this creature? That's a bit of a grim thought. Horrid as the Daleks are, they’re still people. At least I think they are.

Still, I did laugh when Ian spoke from within the shell with the voice of a Dalek. The guinea pig was less amused. She doesn't like strange noises.

The companions depart, but hold on, what's this? Beneath the crumpled cloak, something stirs.

A clawed hand reaches out to the light.

And that's all we see.

THE AMBUSH

Now the companions make their escape, with Ian disguised as a Dalek, which comes in handy when they encounter another Dalek, whose help they enlist when Susan puts her talent for screaming to good use. The Dalek helps them along, and soon realises its mistake when they seal the door behind them.

The Dalek summons reinforcements, who begin cutting their way through the door.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the door, the companions are having trouble getting Ian out of his shell. To make matters even worse, the Daleks have magnetised the floor, so Ian can't even carry on pretending to be a Dalek. He tells the rest of the group to go on without him.

We cut back and forth between the escaping group, Ian trapped in the Dalek, and the Daleks cutting through the door. The rest of the group manage to take the lift to the top level of the building, but it doesn't look like Ian's making any progress. It seems for a moment that Ian has come to a sudden and violent end when the Daleks make it through the door and obliterate Ian's Dalek shell, but moments later, it's revealed that the shell is empty! Ian Chesterton: teacher, action hero, modern day Houdini.

The group reunite and are free to make a break for it. However, the Thals have arrived, and little do they know, they're walking into a trap.

The Daleks finally drop all pretence of decency and issue the order to 'exterminate' any companions they come across. I think we can guess what they're planning to do to the Thals.

While the Doctor gets the door to freedom unlocked, the rest of the group hurl a statue made of 'stone' down the lift shaft, where it wrecks the ascending lift, buying time for the companions. I have to put 'stone' in quotes because it is very, very obvious that it's polystyrene and probably weighs less than my teacup.

Here come the Thals, who bring with them an interesting debate. Our friend Alydon is deeply suspicious of the Daleks and their motives. After all, they did once go to nuclear war. The leader of the Thals, however, is willing to trust them, and eager to offer an olive branch. We of course know that Alydon is right to be suspicious, but let's look at it from the perspective of the Thals for a moment. The war was 500 years ago. It would be rather like me holding a grudge against the French for the Hundred Years' War.

The leader does raise a good point about the possible motivations of the Daleks, however. Perhaps the Daleks, hidden away in their metal shells in their metal city, have become so detached from the outside world that anything that isn't like them is frightening to them. They're like children lashing out in fright. The fact is, that fear has long since crystallised into pure hatred. The Thals have a choice: to pay heed to their misgivings about the Daleks, or to reject fear and take a chance of breaking the cycle. Now, if I knew nothing about the Daleks, I'd be inclined to agree with the leader, but I do know better, so of course I can't. It does rather undermine the point.

Susan wants to warn the Thals of the Daleks' treachery, but the Doctor wants to escape. Barbara takes Susan's side, but Ian agrees with the Doctor for once, deciding that there's little sense in jeopardising their own safety, and tells the others to make a break for it while he warns the Thals. Best of both worlds.

I wish my school teachers had been this cool.

Unfortunately for the Thal leader, Ian is too late to save him from 'extermination', but the rest manage to make their escape, and as they do, Ian meets up with Alydon, who is wounded.

Back at the T.A.R.D.I.S., the companions have made it back in one piece, and the Doctor is taking the opportunity to learn all that he can from the Thals. Through examining their records, he's able to glean more information about this dead planet: Skaro.

The people of Skaro were excellent astronomers who had not only mapped their own system, but planets of other star systems. Exoplanets are indeed theorised to exist beyond the realms of science fiction. These maps of the stars are a testament to the advancement of pre-war society on Skaro.

Ian urges the Thals to stand up to the Daleks, because although pacifism is a noble cause, some things are worth fighting against. All the same, the Thals refuse. It's not that they're afraid of the Daleks. It's deeper than that. They don't just hold pacifism up as an ideal; it's a compulsion.

We also learn that the Daleks used to be called Dals, and it seems that they once were much like the Thals. They weren't entirely wrong however, when they said that the Thals were mutants. The Thals did indeed mutate after the war, then adapted and stabilised to what they are now.

It seems there's nothing to do now but leave, and hope that the Thals can sort things out for themselves.

Of course we're only four episodes into a seven episode serial.

Did you really think it was going to be that easy?

Remember the fluid link?

It's still with the Daleks in the city.

Wrapping Up

This serial has been a lot more plot-dense than The Firemakers, which I imagine you can tell from the sheer length of this article. I have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying it so far, and must congratulate the writer of this serial, Terry Nation, on the exciting plot and interesting world and history he's created for this story. The production staff also deserve a round of applause for delivering a truly alien and eerie atmosphere despite what must have been a limited budget. I poked fun at a few points where the limitations showed, but they really did do a good job.

I'll be back soon to finish off the serial, so until next time, I bid you adieu.