Planet of the Daleks is the fourth serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 7 April to 12 May 1973.
The group sneaks back into the base, where the Daleks are preparing a bacterial weapon in a laboratory chamber to destroy all life on the planet.
However, Wester unleashes the weapon prematurely, ensuring he is its only casualty and creating a no-win situation for the Daleks, where those previously inoculated in the laboratory cannot leave or open the chamber, lest they infect their bretheren.
Prentis Hancock had appeared as a reporter in Spearhead from Space (1970), and would return as Salamar in Planet of Evil (1975) and as the Shrieve Captain in The Ribos Operation (1978).
Each episode was preceded by a specially made 5 min vignette, which were 'Bigger on the Inside', 'The Antique Doctor Who Roadshow', 'Missing in Action', 'I Was That Monster', 'The Master' and 'U.N.I.T.
[8] Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping gave an unfavourable review of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), writing that it was "a typical coincidence-based Dalek story of hammy deaths and ridiculous escapes.
A reworking of the themes and set pieces of The Daleks, with pacifism and an anti-nuclear stance becoming weak monologues on bravery and caution.
"[9] In 2010, Mark Braxton of Radio Times awarded it three stars out of five, describing Planet of the Daleks as "an exciting story, but a tawdry spectacle" with it being "continually compromised" in production values.
[11] In the book Doctor Who: The Episode Guide, Mark Campbell also rated it as better than Frontier in Space, awarding it eight out of ten, concluding "a believable jungle setting and ambitious (if unoriginal) ideas make this live-action comic strip romp breeze along in fine style.
An unedited audio book version was released in June 2013, narrated by actor and writer Mark Gatiss, with Dalek voices performed by Nicholas Briggs.
It was released on DVD alongside the previous story, Frontier in Space, in the box set "Dalek War"[13] on 5 October 2009, with episode 3 now restored to full colour[2] using the pioneering chroma dot recovery process and some more traditional colourisation techniques.