Doctor Who 10x15

Bernard Horsfall as Taron • Prentis Hancock as Vaber • Tim Preece as Codal

The planet Spiridon, the year 2540. The Doctor and Jo arrive on the trail of the Daleks, and find unexpected allies in the shape of a Thal suicide squad. But what has brought the Daleks here in the first place?

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1. "The TARDIS lands on a strange planet with the Doctor unconscious and apparently gravely ill.

2. "Jo looks for help and finds herself facing the dangers of an alien jungle." (Radio Times)

3. This episode was first shown on 7 April, 1973 to an audience of 11 million people.

4. Terry Nation (1930-97) was considered the pre-eminent scriptwriter in the early years of Doctor Who.

5. He wrote 32 episodes of the first three series and also created the Daleks, but then moved on to other projects.

6. 'Planet Of The Daleks' was his first contribution to Doctor Who for seven years.

7. There had been a change or two in the interim.

8. Back in the mid-1960s, every episode had its own individual on-screen title.

9. The practice was discontinued in 1966, but Nation went with what he was used to when he drafted this serial.

10. So he gave each episode an individual title. This one was called:

11. DESTINUS

12. And what exactly was Destinus? Stay tuned for the answer!

13. Jon Pertwee was self-conscious about the size of his nose,

14. so he hated camera angles like this.

15. He would complain to directors that it was like looking down the business end of a double-barrelled shotgun.

16. The locker was scripted to be somewhere "under here", but the actors amended it to suit the set.

17. The script calls for "a small tape recorder", but what Jo takes out looks more like a compact tape cassette.

18. The spinning effect here was unplanned.

19. In the script, Jo presses the jerking Doctor down onto the couch until the spasm passes.

20. This serial continues directly from 'Frontier in Space', which ended with the Doctor being shot in a mêlée.

21. That was a late rewrite, to tie in with the way Terry Nation had started off this adventure.

22. He had used a similar opening, with one of the series regulars wounded and delirious, in 'The Daleks' Master Plan' (1965-6).

23. As we'll see, that wasn't the only thing he recycled from his 1960s Doctor Who scripts.

24. When Jo reaches the console, it's time to play spot the moving boom shadow.

25. And in case you missed it the first time...

26. Jo refers to the events of 'The Dæmons' (1971).

27. The Doctor's ability to put himself into a self-healing coma was used intermittently in the early 1970s serials.

28. In the script, she speculates that the Time Lords might have brought the TARDIS back to their own planet.

29. Because of the rime on the Doctor's face, this bit was recorded out of sequence at the end of the studio session.

30. The "ice" was applied on top of Jon Pertwee's usual make-up, then cleaned off at leisure after recording ended.

31. In the script, Jo hears a "wet, slapping noise" coming from outside the TARDIS.

32. Script editor Terrance Dicks wrote in the physiological details, drawing on a faux medical report on the Doctor

33. written by Malcolm Hulke for the behind-the-scenes publication, The Making of Doctor Who (1972).

34. Jon Pertwee's debut serial established that the Doctor's heart rate, when not comatose, is one beat every six seconds.

35. The normal human range is once or twice a second.

36. The plan was for the scanner to show distorted blobby flashes before clearing to show the alien jungle.

37. The script assumes that, up to now, Jo is still wearing the costume she started off in.

38. Here she pulls a suitcase out of a locker and finds herself a new outfit, including a warm, long-sleeved jacket and gloves.

39. And, just as she starts to change, the camera discreetly mixes away to the outside of the TARDIS.

40. At an early stage, it was hoped to show the fungus visibly spreading across the police box door.

41. The script describes a pulsating, spongy, ball-like fungus which spits its spores at the TARDIS- and Jo.

42. The "sponge plants", operated by an off-screen stirrup pump, spurted a weak solution of wallpaper paste.

43. They were the serial's most expensive full-size physical effects: Four of them were made, at a cost of £230.

44. In the script, one of the stones is carved with strange symbols.

45. Terry Nation imagined it as a ruin or monument, whereas it's called a statue in the finished programme.

46. It was made from leftover materials procured for the jungle wall flats.

47. Yes, even jungles have walls when they have to be created inside BBC studios.

48. The trees and plants were placed inside a jagged set wall which ran for about 17 yards of studio.

49. There were seven triangular alcoves of denser foliage along the set wall.

50. The larger leaves were artificial props made of PVC by an outside contractor, the scenery firm Zircon.

51. Effects designer Clifford Culley dressed the whole jungle with an artificial "cobweb" spray.

52. Between them, the various plants and trees are carrying cobwebs comprising two whole gallons of rubber solution!

53. "The colour of the night is green," says the script.

54. And this is dawn against a studio cyclorama.

55. The script says that the plants are constantly in movement, giving off a sinister, whispering sound.

56. "The temperature seems to be shooting up" was the scripted line.

57. Terry Nation devised the tape-recorded log to solve a problem of practical dramaturgy.

58. For him, the first principle of structuring a Doctor Who story was to split up the regular characters.

59. This creates two separate lines of narrative, enabling him to maintain interest by switching between them.

60. It dictates an overall story shape: By the end, the characters must be reunited with one another and with the TARDIS.

61. And it adds to the tension: Jo is separated from her customary protector,

62. so all she has left to rely on are her own resources of courage, knowledge and intelligence.

63. In the mid-1960s, when Nation began writing for the series, it was also a practical necessity:

64. There were four regular characters, so keeping them together would have overcrowded the scenes.

65. But applying the same approach when there are only two series regulars has a built-in drawback.

66. The Doctor can talk to the absent Jo because he's dazed and confused, but who will Jo talk to?

67. And that's why Terry Nation invented the TARDIS log - though he will have another use for it in a later episode.

68. He later re-used the "log narration" technique in two 1978 episodes of Blake's 7, 'Cygnus Alpha' and 'Orac'.

69. She was scripted to use a handkerchief, not the seat of her trousers.

70. Look at the vertical metallic strip in the console's central column and you'll see a little reflected bit of Studio 4.

71. You'll notice that people are walking about the studio as Pertwee performs.

72. The ship is "shaped rather more like a guided missile than anything we have seen in US space missions," says the script.

73. "It was launched from a mother ship, and made a power-assisted glide onto the surface of this planet."

74. Note the use of green gel filters on some of the studio lights.

75. The spaceship's landing site and interior were built in the studio as a composite set.

76. This meant that Jo could go inside without the need to schedule a recording break to get her from one set to the next.

77. The scene continues in the script: Jo finds a few rudimentary medical supplies for the Doctor.

78. On the floor, she notices a pool of water from a fractured metal container in the roof.

79. The footprints go right through the water, leaving a wet trail. They must have been made recently!

80. Then Jo hears a sound from outside, something is trying to get into the ship.

81. Desperate and terrified, she hides behind some fittings, and we cut to the Doctor in the TARDIS.

82. "Less than an hour," he mutters in the script.

83. "The movement is gentle and slow," says the script, "and in its very slowness, menacing."

84. This was written as a close analogue of a sequence in the first Dalek story (1963-4).

85. A young woman is followed through the jungle by an unseen creature.

86. We see its human hand touch her on the shoulder, as Taron was scripted to do to Jo.

87. In both serials, the apparently menacing being turns out to be a Thal, beautiful and benevolent.

88. The Thals are the other inhabitants of the Daleks' planet Skaro, products of a mutation after a nuclear war.

89. In their case, the mutation eradicated ugliness from their bodies and minds. It did something different to the Daleks...

90. When the Doctor met the Thals on Skaro, he was accompanied by two schoolteachers from Earth.

91. Some elements of this set were made of vacuum-formed plastic.

92. This was a relatively new process which used a mould and a thin sheet of hot plastic.

93. A vacuum would pull the plastic tightly onto the mould and it would set in that shape as it cooled.

94. It was a cheap way of mass-producing identical set components (among other things),

95. but the results were not durable and didn't stand up well to manhandling by the BBC's scene-shifters.

96. In the next shot, for instance, note the dent in the white panel to the bottom right of Jo.

97. Terry Nation imagined the locker as a much more confined space than this.

98. His scripts often played upon common human fears, like claustrophobia here.

99. The BBC's senior management discussed this episode at a routine review meeting on 11 April, 1973.

100. They gave an enthusiastic welcome to the start of a new Dalek adventure.

101. The hollow clump of Jo's footsteps betrays the fact that this is a raised set built on rostra,

102. enabling the stage hands to rock the entire set like this.

103. The levitating green object is a cordless telephone handset.

104. The prop was made six years earlier for the ITV series, The Prisoner (1967-8).

105. Though it looks very cramped and enclosed, the set was open, perforated with absent walls to let the camera see in.

106. This also enabled stage hands to "ransack" the cupboard from behind!

107. Another of Terry Nation's scriptwriting customs was never to refer to the Daleks by name in a first episode.

108. Instead, the characters use circumlocutory pronouns like "they" and "them".

109. This underlines the characters' fear of their unspoken adversary, and also keeps the surprise back for the cliffhanger.

110. The script calls for the door to be rattled more violently, as if the invisible creature is trying to pull it off its hinges.

111. This is a Colour Separation Overlay effect. The red object is shot against a yellow screen.

112. A stage hand entirely dressed in yellow picks it up by a yellow handle on top.

113. The yellow backdrop, stage hand and handle are all electronically replaced with a shot of the spaceship set.

114. This is a physical effect: The topsoil drops into a cut-out "footprint" as a thin sheet of card is removed from beneath.

115. It was a relatively expensive piece of legerdemain: The effects bill for that one shot was £100.

116. Two model shots were planned for this episode, showing the TARDIS progressively enveloped in fungus.

117. Note the castor at the left end of the TARDIS wall, for the convenience of the scene-shifters.

118. In Terry Nation's 1960s scripts, the Doctor is often unable to get into the TARDIS and leave.

119. But this time he has a mission to go on,

120. so Nation devised the twist of trapping him inside the place where he is usually safest.

121. The Monday after this episode was shown, Colin Pierce of the British Safety Council wrote to the Chairman of the BBC.

122. "By showing this headgear," he wrote, "the BBC is inviting children to kill themselves

123. "by putting their heads in plastic bags and suffocating to death."

124. He demanded that, both before and after future episodes, the BBC should issue "severe warnings to children and parents".

125. Moreover, he urged that his Council should be allowed to inspect future programmes before transmission,

126. "so that such dangers can be eliminated before the damage is done and a tragedy occurs".

127. Producer Barry Letts responded swiftly: "The actors did not put plastic bags over their heads."

128. The danger of imitation by children had already been taken into account in deciding the design:

129. "Solid transparent helmets" with "plastic capes to protect the shoulders".

130. In other words, something a child could not satisfactorily simulate using an ordinary, but lethal, polythene bag.

131. The Doctor is, of course, describing the events of the original Dalek serial.

132. The director of 'Planet of the Daleks' was David Maloney (1933-2006).

133. He had five years' directing experience, having qualified in 1968.

134. One of his first productions was the last serial in the 1967-8 series of Doctor Who, 'The Mind Robber'.

135. He went on to direct another 14 episodes in the 1968-9 series, comprising 'The Krotons' and 'The War Games'.

136. For the next three years, he concentrated mainly on productions with a little more professional cachet than Doctor Who,

137. including classic-serial adaptations of Ivanhoe (1970) And The Last of the Mohicans (1971).

138. He returned to Doctor Who under its next production team to direct four highly-regarded serials:

139. 'Genesis of the Daleks' and 'Planet of Evil' (both 1975), 'The Deadly Assassin' (1976), and 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' (1977).

140. He later became a BBC producer, working on Blake's 7 (1978-80), When the Boat Comes In, and The Day of the Triffids (both 1981).

141. The Doctor and his friends also fall ill in the first Dalek serial, but from radiation sickness rather than a fungus infection.

142. The Thals are likewise their salvation, giving them a supply of anti-radiation drugs.

143. The name "Spiridon" is Ukrainian.

144. Terry Nation originally intended to use it only for the planet's invisible inhabitants.

145. In his first draft, the planet itself was christened something else.

146. Nation liked to give planets meaningful names which suggested something distinctive about them.

147. A world devastated, or scarred, by an atomic war? Skaro.

148. A planet with a somewhat unusual ocean? Marinus.

149. A world of parching deserts? Aridius.

150. A planet ruled by robots? Mechanus.

151. And the planet to which the Doctor has just steered the TARDIS, the planet which is his chosen destination?

152. Naturally that would have to be named "Destinus".

153. And that was, you'll remember, the title assigned to this episode in the draft script.

154. "I have been in jungles before, you know," the Doctor was scripted to say. ("Not like this one!" retorts Taron.)

155. The script directs Jo to lie with her infected arm flung away from her, "as though she wanted to be as far from it as possible".

156. Plans were laid to show an invisible Dalek's "footprint" moving along the ground.

157. The effect was costed at £60, but was abandoned at a late stage.

158. Here's all that remains of that idea.

159. David Maloney was directing the juvenile crime series im and Co. When Barry Letts invited him to direct this serial.

160. He took the assignment because he saw an opportunity to learn a new technical skill.

161. Because he had mainly directed classic serials and historical drama since the advent of colour television,

162. he had never before worked with the Colour Separation Overlay process.

163. For the next shot, a Dalek prop was painted yellow and "keyed out" of the picture by CSO.

164. The actors did indeed spray it with paint, covering up the yellow so that it was keyed back in.

165. Also seen in this episode was:

166. Alan Casley (Dead Thal Pilot)

167. Uncredited production contributors

168. Gerry Burrows (Grams)

169. George Bayton (Music Copyist)

170. Scota Raquesen (Make-up Assistant)

171. Ken Dodds (Floor Assistant)

172. Sue Hedden (Assistant Floor Manager)

173. Michael Turner (Vision Mixer)

174. Bill Bonner (Props Buyer)

175. Sarah Newman (Production Secretary)

176. Carole Bisset (Director's Assistant)