Planet of the Daleks - Episode 6 (Victory)

The final episode of this six/twelve part story seems to have out of nowhere which might sound like a silly thing to say but it shows how much I have been involved in the story to be surprised. I think that taking it as a twelve parter would make it even better because the episodes have been so consistently strong. It’s fair to say there is a lot riding on this episode because it needs to wrap things up in a satisfactory way. This episode would have been called ‘Victory’ by Terry Nation which I think is a great title. It just makes me want them to return to single episode names. This episode sees the appearance of the Supreme Dalek and its disappointing somewhat that they haven’t appeared until now. The disappointment continues when the ship lands and it does look like two dog bowls glued to each other. The first look of the supreme Dalek is amazing. It’s nice to see a Dalek with a bit of colour but sadly it goes wrong the moment it starts talking because the person inside the Daleks messed up the light synching and so it looked off which is a shame really.

The episode is heading towards the blowing up of the bomb to stop the 10,000 daleks from being activated. The journey is perfectly paced and there is a nice amount of delaying things until the right possible moment. Of course it was never going to be that simple and it was the case here as the bomb fell in between a dozen of daleks and the timer then stops working and Codal has to work very quickly to sort it out. The shot of the bomb exploding as two Daleks walk by followed by the ice flowing is one of the highlights of this serial and looked impressive which shows how good things can be achieved on a miniscule BBC budget.

I think its good how there is a nice farewell scene involving everyone. Despite my concerns that there were too many thals in this story, I am glad that they did survive. I really love the speech the Doctor gave Taron about telling him not to glamorise war and tell people of the lives lost and the fear felt. This shows the Doctor at his most passive and it shows that despite all the blustering and humour the Doctor shows, he can be serious when he needs to be.

There is a scene at the where Latep asks Jo to go abck to Skaro and this is designed to put in the viewers mind that she would not be around for long and of course she leaves in the next serial. I often wonder what things would have been like for Jo if she had gone with him instead of the soppy welsh scientist. Over the six recent episodes, I think that both Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning have been just as strong as each other. Even the supporting cast have been on the same level at times with Prentis Hancock and Bernard Horsfall being the highlights.

I thought that the whole story has worked well and the issues that people have with this story being a rehash of Nation’s previous stories whilst valid really help to enrich the story as far as I am concerned. If you had written the quality of stories that Nation had written since the show started then you would indulge yourself. Unlike ‘Day of the Daleks’, the Daleks are used well here, the voices are a lot better and this is one of the strongest Dalek stories for many years.