The Daleks opens with a wonderful tracking shot of Raymond Cusack's excellent forest set, showing off the petrified alien trees. This sets a foreboding tone for The Dead Planet, and the rest of The Daleks, as does Tristram Carey's unusual incidental music.

In some ways, The Dead Planet is a retread of An Unearthly Child. The episode focusses on the regular characters, their relationships and the TARDIS. The close relationship of the Doctor and Susan, and Ian and Barbara are quickly re-established, as is Ian's mistrust of the Doctor. This mistrust in the Doctor is well founded, as the Doctor deliberately sabotages the TARDIS so that they have to visit the Dalek City.

That's not the only problem the TARDIS crew face - there are mysterious goings on on the planet. Susan gets stalked through the petrified forest, and a box is left outside the TARDIS. The TARDIS crew also start feeling faint and headachy; something on the planet is making them feel ill.

The Dalek city is of an interesting design; full of automatic doors and sloping ceilings - watching Barbara get herded into the elevator is quite disturbing, with Jacqueline Hill portraying Barbara's fear and paranoia quite well. The Dead Planet ends with that classic cliffhanger of Barbara backing down a corridor in fear as seen from the as yet unseen Dalek's point of view, with manipulator arm (a plunger on a telescopic arm) waving menacingly at her.

It's in The Survivors that we get to see a Dalek properly, and aren't they just alien. Moving away from the "man in a suit" look, the Dalek machines are short and squat, with the mutant remains of the original humanoids living inside the machine, controlling its every movement. The Daleks are also rather chatty, despite their menacing commands and voices, explaining the sorry history of their planet. Interestingly of all, each individual Dalek seem to have a distinct personality all of their own; and the blast they give Ian only paralyses, not kills.

Antagonisms within the TARDIS crew reopen, as the Doctor tells Ian that not only are they on a radiation-soaked world, thus explaining their headaches, but there was nothing wrong with the fluid link to begin with. Susan gets to show her maturing side, arguing to be the one to head back to the TARDIS for the drugs, after Ian is too weak to go as planned.

Unfortunately, Susan does not head back for the TARDIS straight away, but seems to have wandered onto a horror film set, complete with menacing forest, loud thunderstorms and shambling mysteroius figure. Here we see the first major technical failing; it is obvious in some scenes that Carole Anne Ford is running on the spot against a back projected moving background, with stage hands enthusiastically whipping her with tree branches. A similar shot was pulled off more successfully in The Firemaker, as the director, Waris Hussain, chose to frame it from an unusual angle, and cross-faded into other sequences, lessening the chances of such a thing being spotted.

Things pick up in the next episode, The Escape, when it turns out that the shambling figure stalking Susan turns out to be a tall, good looking, blue-eyed, blond male Thal who is very concerned about her health. The Thals are also very generous, as not only does Alydon give Susan another supply of the anti-radiation drugs, but also his coat.

Susan's return to the Dalek City isn't shown, but the advantage to this is that Susan can report to the Doctor, Ian and Barbara, as well the Daleks the story of the Thals - this piece of expositionary writing works very effectively here, informing the important groups (TARDIS cew, audience and Daleks) the Thal's background in one go.

As for the Thals, they may be pacisficts, but they indulge in a running series of innnuendo, making them not completely dull and boring. Their mistrust of the Daleks is well founded, as the Daleks plan to lure the Thals into a trap, using a note from Susan as a lure.

Meanwhile, in a prison cell, the TARDIS crew plot their escape, first of all by Ian starting a fight with the Doctor in order to knock out the security camera without it being obvious; then by planning to use Alydon's coat to disconnect a Dalek from its power supply. As a result of the TARDIS crew's ruse to escape (with Ian in a Dalek machine), a Dalek mutant has to be removed from the machine. William Russell and William Hartnell do well to convey a reaction of horror and disgust from the Ian and the Doctor at the sight of a Dalek mutant; the claw that emerges from the cloak at the end of The Escape merely confirms this.

The TARDIS crew make good their escape, but almost get caught when Ian's Dalek is magnetised and can't move. This scene shows that Ian is thinking in terms of the group, telling the others to leave while they can. Although his Dalek casing gets blasted, Ian has already escaped to join the rest of the TARDIS crew, at the top of a tower, almost powerless to the Thals getting caught in The Ambush.

The Daleks have changed their tune about the TARDIS crew; they are to be exterminated at the first opportunity. The Thal leader makes a passionate speech to the Daleks, getting exterminated for his troubles; but at least the TARDIS crew manage to warn the rest of the Thals so it's not a complete act of genocide.

The TARDIS crew escape back to the forest with the surviving Thals, and learn some of their history. It's interesting to see that writer Terry Nation has created Thals to look like Hitler's "Aryan" race; but rather than being the strong warriors Hitler envisioned, Nation's Thals are pacifists, still paying the price for a great war that occured centuries ago.

With the Thals unwilling to fight the Daleks, the TARDIS crew decide to leave Skaro, but it is then that Ian reveals that the Daleks took the fluid link off him - in order to leave Skaro, they'll have to go back to the Dalek city and retrieve it.

In The Expedition the Daleks have two worries: first, they fear that the TARDIS crew and the Thals will join together and fight them; second, the Thal anti-radiation drugs kill off Daleks. The anti-radiation drug affected Daleks seem quite pitiful and useless, spending their time chanting "Help. Heeeeeeelp..." before dying.

Unfortunately for the Daleks, their first worry comes true as Ian discovers how to get the pacifist Thals to fight - threaten to take one of their women (the lovely Dyoni) to the Daleks and hand her over in exchange for the fluid link. In this scene Terry Nation demonstrates that there are some things worth compromising your beliefs over, in order to achieve something beneficial for all.

To solve their second problem, the Daleks decide that it would be easier to flood Skaro with radiation, rather than ; once the planet reaches the right level of radiation, then they can spread out all over the planet, possibly without their machines.

In order to solve the Dalek problem in a way that will benefit both the TARDIS crew and the Thals (getting back the fluid link and a newsource of food and water, respecitively), they decide to split into two teams: Ian , Barbara and some apparently fit Thal men to attack from the other side of the city (which is unguarded due to the treacherous mountains), with the Doctor, Susan and the rest of Thals to attack from forest side of the city.

Once more we lurch back into horror film territory as Ian's group face the mutated wildlife that now populates Skaro, with a couple of Thals in it falling victim to them. The Ordeal then sees Ian's group moving past the lake, and into the mountains. Here we see the Thal's start to show their individual personalities and emotions, stark contrast to their first episode where they appeared as faceless pacifists; with Terry Nation introducing the characters in a block initially, and then developing individual characters as The Daleksprogresses.

The rest of the Thals and the Doctor haven't been wasting time, as they work to block the Dalek's scanning devices, so that they can no longer spy on things outside their city. We at last get to see further vision of designer Raymond P Cusick's wonderful Dalek City design, put together by Shawcraft models.

This work of the Doctor and the remaining Thals has raised the paranoia of the Daleks, and they now plan to raise radiation levels even faster. In the mountains, Ian's group has made a lot of progress, with a rapport developing between Barbara and Ganatus as they explore a passageway and stumble across a way through the mountains. The cave/tunnel sets are well designed, with plenty of texture and interest points to be seen.

Back at the Dalek city, the Doctor and Susan have discovered a way to disrupt the Dalek's power supply; but after a minor victory the Doctor gets caught up in his own self-importance, resulting in he and Susan getting caught by the Daleks. This scene shows that the Doctor can get carried away with his own self-importance, a character flaw that may be developed or dropped as the series progresses.

Their capture may be to their advantage, as the Daleks reveal that rather than construct a bomb, just release radiation from their nuclear reactor into the atmosphere. This news really cuts down the time both groups have to be ready to attack the Daleks, and makes the journey of Ian's group even more important; just as it loses another group member in the tunnels.

Just as all hope seems lost for Ian's group, the way through becomes clear, as the other Thals prepare for battle, and the Daleks prepare to make the planet more hospitable for them. In order to bargain for time, the Doctor offers the Daleks the secrets of the TARDIS. This personal self-sacrifice shows that the Doctor is mellowing in character, thinking of others than himself.

As the final countdown to the release of radiation, the Thal attack of the Dalek city begins. This results in tension-filled moments as the Thals take advantage of the Dalek's weaknesses and forcibly move them around as they fire; this all takes place to the thudding "heart beat" sound of Dalek control, and the slow countdown to the radiation release. The Daleks are defeated and lose power, spending their final moments begging for mercy and their right to life. Surveying the dead Daleks and Thals, Ganatus utters the sentiment that there should have been another way; given the Dalek mindset, the actions of the TARDIS crew and the Thals was probably the only actions that they could take to end the menace of the Daleks.

So The Daleks concludes with the TARDIS crew leaving the Thals with some good news and some hope for the future. We get a happy ending and fond farewells for the TARDIS crew, expecially Ganatus to Barbara. As the TARDIS departs Skaro, the console explodes, and the TARDIS crew collapse unconsious...

The Daleks builds on the success of 100 000 BC by visiting a contrasting world, introducing a popular monster in the Daleks and providing a seven part story that rarely drags, with the plot twists logically thought out and not put in to pad the story out to its required length.

8.2/10

Next time: Terror within the TARDIS...