Planet of the Daleks

2 Dec 2008, 12:34 pm
Dorney
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Planet of the Daleks 1:

One of the problems I had with the second Incredible Hulk film released this year was that because of the mixed reception the previous film had had there had clearly been a lot of thinking at Marvel.

The first film had included an origin story, back story and so on. But at the same time, they didn't want to remind people of it. The question was how much to acknowledge that.

It's a tricky question, and clearly one that they took time to think about. For my money, too much time. Because there's a fatal indecision at the heart of the Incredible Hulk movie. They clearly didn't decide whether it was a sequel of a reboot until well into the process. And as a result, the movie doesn't quite succeed as either. With a truncated origin story, it doesn't really work as a launch and it's opening scenes are clearly influenced by the end of the previous film. But at the same time, there are elements that completely contradict it.

You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? Planet of the Daleks 1 has the same problem. Is it part one of a new story - or part seven of another?

At least part of it only makes sense as the continuation of Frontier in Space. Within this story alone we've no idea (and it's never explained) why the Doctor is in quite a state at the beginning, for example. And as the opening episode to an action adventure serial, ten minutes of Katy Manning talking to herself whilst she walks through a not particularly menacing forest is hardly a grabber.

And yet - it also seems to think it's a story of its own. Now, I don't entirely mind the cliffhanger revelations of Daleks in stories where they're named in the title, for reasons I discussed under Day of the Daleks - but here it's just daft. They had a big dramatic reveal a week ago. They don't need one now. In deed, to pitch that as the big shock of the finale is odd, because surely the big twist at this point isn't that it's a Dalek, it's that it's an invisible Dalek? And it's certainly the former that it's pitched as, with the Doctor's exclamation of surprise being the big clue - and that's just barking. The Daleks are clearly still out there at the end of the previous episode, the Doctor's going after them, he meets Thals, he even talks about Daleks, for crying out loud. Why's he surprised?

He's surprised because the odd structure means that despite the Doctor clearly being after the Daleks at the end of the last story, the story's still hamstrung by the duality. Because Nation, at least in part, views this as part one, he's got to hold off the plot for an episode to get to the reveal. The episode becomes about breaking the continuity, rather than running with it.

And that's a bit sad, because this story could have launched with a bang rather than the Doctor going in and out of a coma as the story dictated. It could have carried on the momentum, but Nation's inability to work with an unusual structure means that the episode is just a bit disappointing.

OK, it's still watchable enough. There's always something going on, the writings all right, and there are some potentially entertaining (if unoriginal) ideas at work. Ultimately, however, it's just not as interesting as it could have been, and remains a placeholder episode.

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#750 5 Dec 2008, 3:08 pm
Xipuloxx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
"Nation's inability to work with an unusual structure means that the episode is just a bit disappointing. "

It seems to me that it's a little unfair to place the blame at Nation's feet without evidence of where the blame lies. I mean, unless you know how much he was told about the ongoing plot, it's impossible to judge how good a job he did. If he didn't know what was going to happen in the previous story, it's entirely understandable that he'd just write a more-or-less normal Dalek story, and leave it up to the script editor to make it fit into the series' continuity. Even if Nation did know and fumbled the ball, it's still the script editor's job to pick it up (though in that case at least the blame would be shared).

It's like the bit at the beginning of Girl In The Fireplace where Mickey and Rose are getting on fabulously, despite the fact that at the end of the previous ep she obviously didn't want him along, and there's clearly only been a very short time in between. Some people criticised Steven Moffat for not making his episode match better with the previous one, which I thought was uncalled-for, given that he had obviously written his episode without knowing how the previous one was going to end. Other people have the specific jobs of editing scripts and overseeing continuity; the writer is only reponsible for his own job.

Apart from that little niggle, good review as always!

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#751 6 Dec 2008, 6:38 pm
Dorney
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xipuloxx
"It seems to me that it's a little unfair to place the blame at Nation's feet without evidence of where the blame lies. I mean, unless you know how much he was told about the ongoing plot, it's impossible to judge how good a job he did. If he didn't know what was going to happen in the previous story, it's entirely understandable that he'd just write a more-or-less normal Dalek story, and leave it up to the script editor to make it fit into the series' continuity. Even if Nation did know and fumbled the ball, it's still the script editor's job to pick it up (though in that case at least the blame would be shared)."

To be honest, if an episode doesn't work, the script editor should always share some of the blame (he should point things out).

But, to me, it's fairly clear that the problem with the episode is that it doesn't know whether it's an episode one or an episode seven - and that means, to me, that it has to be by and large Nation's fault. Because whatever he was told, whatever he knew about the season's structure, he doesn't manage to pull off either option.


#752 7 Dec 2008, 3:26 am
AlMiles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorney
"To be honest, if an episode doesn't work, the script editor should always share some of the blame (he should point things out).

But, to me, it's fairly clear that the problem with the episode is that it doesn't know whether it's an episode one or an episode seven - and that means, to me, that it has to be by and large Nation's fault. Because whatever he was told, whatever he knew about the season's structure, he doesn't manage to pull off either option. "

In the novelisation of "Frontier" (titled "Doctor Who and the Space War"), original author Malcolm Hulke doesn't even have the Doctor being shot - he's perfectly healthy and awake as the book ends. Then as the subsequent novelisation starts, he's suffering the after-effects of a gunshot and comatose! One could argue that maybe Hulke was working from the original scripted ending and not Paul Bernard's hasty revised effort due to the Ogron-eater re-edit. But this was years later and the programme as broadcast was well-known. If Hulke can't make it tie into the subsequent (already screened) episode, he's no better than Nation!

Also, if the script for "Frontier" was mucked around with to cope with what was shot, and what was removed by Letts & Co in editing, we can't know what Nation had intended to include or exclude without seeing his script. The whole transition looks a bit of a fiasco from producer and director(s) on down.

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#753 8 Dec 2008, 3:08 pm
Llama Roddy
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ISTR reading an interview with Malcolm Hulke in which he explained that he'd deliberately left the cliffhanger ending out of the novelisation tp provide closure for readers who didn't know or have the subsequent book. His books never did stick to a straightforward duplication of what appeared on screen, which is part of the reason they're so much better than a lot of the later novelisations. If you don't like this particular instance of his going a different way from the televised version, so be it, but it was never a matter of inability to tie things in with the start of PotD.

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#754 8 Dec 2008, 5:28 pm
AlMiles

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Llama Roddy
"ISTR reading an interview with Malcolm Hulke in which he explained that he'd deliberately left the cliffhanger ending out of the novelisation tp provide closure for readers who didn't know or have the subsequent book. His books never did stick to a straightforward duplication of what appeared on screen, which is part of the reason they're so much better than a lot of the later novelisations. If you don't like this particular instance of his going a different way from the televised version, so be it, but it was never a matter of inability to tie things in with the start of PotD. "

That clean-break philosophy could explain why Nation started his story in such a way though - the Daleks were a "shock revelation" because, with a production team that wanted as many "first nights" or jumping-abord episodes as possible in a season (budget allowing), it'd be barmy to have a 12-part story with one "first night" and 11 continuations... and "Planet" is clearly a completely new cast and plot, rarely if ever referring back to the events of "Frontier", so Nation may not have been the sole chooser of this approach, he could even have been directed to use it (and Dicks clearly didn't amend the script on this point).

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#755 12 Dec 2008, 12:44 am
Xipuloxx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlMiles
"That clean-break philosophy could explain why Nation started his story in such a way though - the Daleks were a "shock revelation" because, with a production team that wanted as many "first nights" or jumping-abord episodes as possible in a season (budget allowing), it'd be barmy to have a 12-part story with one "first night" and 11 continuations... and "Planet" is clearly a completely new cast and plot, rarely if ever referring back to the events of "Frontier", so Nation may not have been the sole chooser of this approach, he could even have been directed to use it (and Dicks clearly didn't amend the script on this point). "

But my point was that, although it's been a while since I've watched it, it seemed to me that Part 1 of "Planet" was, in fact, a fairly normal Dalek story Part 1, with only the whole "The Doctor is ill" thing tacked on to tie it into the previous story. Therefore I'd say seems like Nation simply wrote it as a normal Part 1, and left it up to Dicks to tie it into the ongoing plot.

Now, I agree it doesn't really work as it is, but without knowing how much he knew about the previous story, it's impossible to say whether that is Nation's fault for writing it poorly -- i.e. leaving Dicks with an impossible task because Nation's script simply didn't fit and the reworking it required was too much in the time available -- or whether he was simply doing the best job he could under the circumstances -- i.e. writing a story that worked on its own, and leaving continuity issues to others.

I could be misremembering, of course, and maybe it really is more of an uncomfortable halfway house than I recall. But I'd still say we don't know how much of the finished script was written by Dicks, and we can't simply blame Nation without that knowledge. Maybe it is a structural mess, and "doesn't know whether it's an episode one or an episode seven" -- but that could be because Nation wrote it one way, then Dicks rewrote it the other way.

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#756 17 Dec 2008, 11:07 pm
Dorney
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Planet of the Daleks 2:

There's something inherently charming about an episode that all but admits it's filler. A sort of honesty that you can't help but admire.

The buzz with the Thals this episode is that they don't have a plan. They're hanging round a bit, slowly getting picked off, waiting. And as anyone's who read this thread will know, this translates into: no plot. No one doing anything means no story.

OK, that's a bit of an over-simplification here, because the Daleks are at least up to something - the whole invisibility thing. But because the characters we're following are doing their level best to avoid the Daleks (and couldn't do anything if they met them) then that doesn't really get us anywhere. Throughout the episode we're just waiting to the revelation of the final seconds - something to push a bit of urgency into the story, give the characters something to aim at.

So without a plot to keep it going, what are the twenty five minutes filled with? Well, firstly, we've got a few leanings towards arguments about the morality of war, and the obligations of a soldier, and a meditation on cowardice - all of which is interesting enough, if broadly written (as you'd expect from a family show). Already it's fairly clear that there's going to be a bit of worthy moralising in this story, though as ever with Nation it's a bit hard to tell what the message is - Horsfall for example is presented as noble and wise - but it's hard not to see some worth in Hancock's suggestion that they really ought to be doing something. And this is all a bit weird from the man who created Blake's 7. The side effect of this is that the Thals aren't really presented as individual characters but as archetypal thematic avatars - wisdom, recklessness and fear. Though given that the Daleks are essentially the same, this isn't really a major problem.

Blunt as it may be, straightforward as it may be, there's something likeable in Nation's comic strip style. Again it's easy to forget that the man's other tv shows tend to have a more adult bent (albeit played with a fairly boy's own feel) and that this feel is fairly deliberately tailored. This is intentional pulp and as it is it works - in deed, I'd go so far as to say that given the obvious limitations in realising the world, it's almost the best thing to do - the broader stroke suit the environment. It's fun.

And the next episode might even have a story.

#757 19 Dec 2008, 7:03 pm
Michael S Collins
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Keep going, Dorney. you'll be home and dry before you know it.

Hope your career's still going strong.

Michael

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#758 21 Dec 2008, 7:39 pm
Dorney

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Planet of the Daleks 3:

Now that's more like it.

You know, people often talk about PotD as being a blatant remake of the first Dalek story. It's not hard to see a certain degree of logic to this, but I think it's slightly fairer to say that it's similar conceptually rather than a remake. So it contains a lot of the same basic elements (Daleks and Thals, aliens jungle surrounding alien city) just juggles them with a new plot.

Most of the time.

Episode three is the exception. It's probably exarcebated by the black and white (and boy, that's a bit of a shock when you're so used to colour - completely forgot it was coming up!) but episode three does rather feel like it's The Daleks in twenty five minutes. So many specific elements turn up again - the heroes using tunnels leading into the base that are based around piping, other heroes trapped in a cell luring in a Dalek and disabling it, peril in lifts, two seperate teams meeting up, heroic sacrifice.

And by ramming it all together we get a cracking episode. After two installments waiting for things to happen and with precious little actual threat, we have a great boy's own yarn of escape. It's comparitively straight forward (and often reliant on ludicrous coincidence - of all the vents Varon choses he picks the one the Doctor's just about to walk past!), but it's fast, and with some genuine Dalek menace giving it high stakes. One of the things that makes it work is the real sense that they're in trouble - the Doctor consistently getting forced deeper into the city, Daleks at every corner, the effort made to imply dangerous levels of cold in the tunnels and the emphasis on how it's a dangerous plan - it all racks up the tension. OK, it's not without it's flaws. General Von Klinkerhoffen's self sacrifice seems utterly pointless from both his perspective and in terms of story, he's barely said a word anyway so it doesn't matter a stuff to us. The ice volcano stuff comes out of nowhere as does the biological stuff the Daleks are supposedly working on. Oh and Jo really doesn't feel the urge to do anything useful (though to be fair the Doctor seems to have forgotten the fact she's supposed to be dead). But at the same time, crappier elements of previous episodes are skipped (little spiridon action means we don't have to put up with anything else like Tim Preece's interpretative dance sequence). And the ending, whilst almost certainly scientific balls, is mental enough to work as precisely the sort of audacious get out the build up needs (when things are getting difficult, you need the escape route to be insane otherwise it diminshes the threat - if the situation is desperate, the resolution must be desperate too).

So, all in all, rather good fun.

#759 27 Dec 2008, 8:32 pm
Dorney

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Planet of the Daleks 4:

If you want to know what the problem with this story is, episode four provides the result. It's like the entire six parts in microcosm.

After the surge in quality of the previous episode, the script keeps this up. There's a fairly limp resolution to the cliffhanger, though admittedly one that was fairly obviously coming up last time anyway (episode 3: it's not working, episode 4: oh, it is, sorry, my mistake...), but it still manages to keep the tension going for the first ten minutes or so.

And then it just stops. The rest of the episode returns to tedious runaround and strange moralising speeches that don't make an awful lot of sense. And it's relatively clear why.

The reason the first half works (and the third episode too) is focus. There's a clear sense of purpose and drive. The story's going somewhere. It knows where it's going and it's going there. But the moment our heroes escape from the Dalek city, that stops. We're back to the first couple of episodes with a lot of Thals mooching around not quite sure what they're going to do.

I remember someone somewhere suggesting the game of 'Tell me the plot of The Armageddon Factor' as a fun way to bemuse a fan, and I suspect that it's true of this story as well, albeit for different reasons. There simply isn't one. What's it about? The Daleks are after invisibility (a promising idea that's basically been forgotten), they're developing a bacteria, they've got a frozen army. The story can't decide what it's central thrust is, and that's probably why the Thal storyline is equally vague - after all, how can your heroes fight the villains when the villains don't have a clue what they're up to.

It's a shame because we're stuck in a position where most of the Thals are cyphers with one word personalities (that fade in and out according to the requirements of the plot - no cowardice from Preece for a couple of episodes, you'll note), which almost doesn't matter if you've got enough story driving it through (let's face it, it's a Nation staple). But without, the story becomes a character piece without any characters.

It's not all bad, though. We finally get at least an attempt to tie the story to Frontier (though it's hilariously tenuous and with the Doctor practically admitting that it makes little sense). But generally it doesn't work. When a major plot point is trying to find a warm place to sleep you know you're in trouble.

#760 31 Dec 2008, 1:01 am
Dorney

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Planet of the Daleks 5:

OK, so I lied.

Turns out that it isn't just episode three that's a little too influenced by its authors earlier material. This episode does it as well. But we'll get to that.

It's odd that this episode, and this story, spends an awfully small amount of time letting its stars do anything. It takes over six minutes for the Daleks to even appear in this episode, for example. But this is nowhere more pronounced than in the bacteriological warfare subplot. The token friendly Spiridon, Wester (forgotten for a couple of episodes until his return is convenient) turns up at the camp and warns our heroes about the planned virus. And it doesn't really seem to fuss them in the slightest.

Let me reiterate that point. A virus that will wipe out every single thing on the planet is less important to them than destroying a currently inactive army of Daleks. Er, why? Surely that should be your priority. The frozen army can wait, help the friendly invisible chappie.

It's made even worse by the resolution of this subplot - the Doctor and Taron watch as Wester sacrifices his life to save everyone... and once again, the Doctor doesn't seem to give a toss. He just suggests they move on.

It's all deeply frustrating, as this plotline that keeps insinuating it's a major plot point actually turns out not to affect any of the main cast at all. It distracts the Daleks for a bit, keeps them looking busy, and is eventually resolved by a minor supporting character who we haven't (if you'll forgive the pun) seen in a couple of episodes. It really should connect with the Doctor in some way, shouldn't it? Otherwise it's just a sideshow.

To be fair, the plot of this episode is, largely, about the Doctor trying to get into the Dalek city to actually achieve something. He speaks for the audience when he tells Taron that he's tired of just running away (but surely, to be able to sit down and write these lines and not realise there's a problem with your storyline... well, that beggars belief). This leads to a glorious line when Jo offers to be a lure for the Daleks because she's 'tired of being hunted'. So you decide that the best thing to do when you're tired of being hunted is: get someone to hunt you. Yeah, that makes sense.

And here we get the repeat of the first Dalek story again, as the Doctor and friends imobilise a Dalek or two through a handy weakness (cold killing them on impact -which makes the notion of the frozen army a little odd, though I guess not impossible), before chucking out the disgusting creature inside (and once again, we cut away) before being led in, in a handy Dalek & his posse formation. It works well enough (and the location filming makes the whole thing seem much less unrealistic).

It's all OK, but it's just a shame it's taken this long to get going. The original serial was at this point three episodes in, remember. That's the problem - no forward momentum. No-one doing anything for a grander purpose than filling out a bit of time until they can do something else.

7 Jan 2009, 10:36 am
Dorney

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Planet of the Daleks 6:

I’ve often felt that the final episode of a story should be one of the easiest to write. Set up enough in the earlier episodes, and the finale should be a comparative doddle as you just have to let it all roll. But there’s a problem with that. Don’t set up enough and you’ve got far too much time to fill.

That’s Planet’s problem. It’s all very well writing a story about inaction and an inability to complete – after all, that’s essentially the story of Shakespeare’s most iconic play – as long as you use that time profitably. And it’s even more clear here that the time has been wasted. It’s all been a desperate attempt to fill in as much time as possible.

You see, now the Thals have finally decided that it’s time to act… well, it’s all just terribly easy. It’s the equivalent of Hamlet just going up to Claudius and stabbing him. They go down to the lower level and blow up what they need to blow up. The Daleks half try to follow them, but get barricaded out. And, as if to rub our noses in it, Jo and her bland friend (who’s done absolutely nothing in the story apart from give her someone to talk to – which would be almost acceptable if Jo had herself done any more than mooch around the jungle filling in time and giving the show something to cut away to. No wonder I can’t remember his name) abseil in down the incomprehensibly unguarded chimney that our heroes previously escaped from. Why didn’t they all do that? Why the over-complicated and nearly fatal ‘Spiridons and guard’ routines?

The earlier episodes haven’t bothered to set anything up, so the resolution has to be correspondingly simple. There just isn’t enough to fill this episode with. There’s some effort to disguise all this with some half hearted attempts to inject a bit of threat or danger – ‘oh my god, we’ve dropped the bomb amongst the Daleks!’ ‘Oh my god, the Dalek Rebec was in has been destroyed!’ ‘The explosion hasn’t released the ice volcano like we planned!’ ‘There are poisonous plants squirting between us and the TARDIS’. But you can tell it’s half-hearted due to the way the threat is resolved instantly, in the dullest manor imaginable – ‘Oh well, the Doctor can just climb down and pick it up.’ ‘Oh, she got out.’ ‘Oh, actually it did.’’Oh, just cover your face and leg it.’ None of it’s tied to the plot, none of it changes the direction. Hell, even the arrival of the Supreme Dalek is just something to distract us with, as he doesn’t do anything at all either. Apart from blind himself every time he speaks.

And then it’s all over. Jo’s mate asks her to go back to Skaro, after they’ve displayed less chemistry than a broken Bunsen burner (I mean, is it even supposed to be a romance?). Jo declines, which turns out to be the right decision because, typically of the story, Latep (all right, I looked it up) seems not to be bothered in the slightest by this, heading straight off to the spaceship with nary a tear or backward glance.

All in all, it’s a wasted opportunity. Frontier promises, and Planet just doesn’t deliver. And not only that, it actively, consciously doesn’t deliver, it’s about not delivering. Which is hardly a good thing.

#762 7 Jan 2009, 1:01 pm
fortmap
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And yet Planet of the Daleks was the story that made a fan. Well - the novelisation, to be precise.

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