Review The Dead Planet (1963)

[Doctor Omega]

THE DEAD PLANET

The TARDIS lands in a petrified forest on an alien planet. Determined to explore, the Doctor leads his companions into the metal city, where they discover the danger of what will become his deadliest enemies, the mutant Daleks. (Originally broadcast in seven parts.)


What are your thoughts on this, the second ever Doctor Who story - and the Doctor's first encounter with the dreaded Daleks?

On to the next story.....


THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION


https://www.imdforums.com/threads/the-edge-of-destruction-1964.1608/


Back to the previous story......

AN UNEARTHLY CHILD


https://www.imdforums.com/threads/your-journey-into-classic-who-starts-here.1604/

 

[chainsaw_metal1]

A very good introduction to The Doctor's greatest foes. Nice to see how much they've changed over the years, and yet, have stayed the same.

 

[The Seeker]

I like this portrayal of them as pathetic, doomed figures with delusions of grandeur.

 

[Doctor Omega]

The first edition novelisation..... and the reissues

and the scriptbook....

 

[ant-mac]

I own the novel with the third version of the cover.

Very enjoyable.

 

[Doctor Omega]

And the first appearance of a glass dalek, which influenced Revalation years later.

 

[ant-mac]

And Ian smokes a cigarette while he waits to warn the Thals that they might be walking into a trap. Or at least he did the last time I read this novel, back in 1979. Perhaps he's given them up by now...

 

[Doctor Omega]

I hope they don't edit out Hartnell's pipe in the politically correct novelisation of An Unearthly Child!

How the hell will anyone make fire?

Terrance will have to do a total rewrite of the kind that Christopher H. Bidmead said made Terrance almost cry when he asked him to do just that for State of Decay.

I like Terrance. I don't go a bundle on Bidmead.

 

[ant-mac]

And what about the implied threat of rape against Barbara in THE KEYS OF MARINUS?

Remember the mountain trapper, Vasor?

 

[Doctor Omega]

Yes, I remember.

We had better hang onto our original Target collection while we can at this rate!

I believe that there was a "craggy knob" in The Twin Dilemma too! That'll be gone for starters!

 

[ant-mac]

Yes, I remember.

We had better hang onto our original Target collection while we can at this rate!

I believe that there was a "craggy knob" in The Twin Dilemma too! That'll be gone for starters!

Not as many craggy knobs as there were in THE WEB PLANET.

 

[Doctor Omega]

And to think, if Ian Levine had been only a day later, popping into the archives, we would have lost this story forever.

Taped up and marked for destruction.

Assuming his account is accurate.

Either way, I do think we are lucky to still have this story.

 

[Doctor Omega]

 

[Doctor Omega]

 

[Gavin]

I've just finished reading David Whittaker's novelisation of this. Given that it was the first of the series and no one was expecting every story to be novelised it takes elements of the beginning of An Unearthly Child and welds them on to the beginning, although Ian is given a different back story. In this version he is on his way home from an interview and lost in the fog when he meets Barbara who has followed Susan home, rather than a fellow teacher and they both follow Susan home. I'm also not keen on the first person narrative (the story is told by Ian) and, although I haven't seen the episodes for a while, it seems like the novel takes a fairly broad brush approach to the story. All the main points are there but it seems to take a few liberties with the story as well.

 

[Doctor Omega]

 

[Doctor Omega]