Planet of the Daleks
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Jump to navigationJump to search| Story Code: SSS / Season 10 | UK Airdate: 7 Apr to 12 May 1973 | Doctor: Jon Pertwee |
| First airings by location | UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite | Previous Story / Next Story |
This story aired in the following known countries. They are listed in chronological order according to known airdate. If no month is noted, the actual airdate is not confirmed, and is a close approximate. (Refer also to Selling Doctor Who for expanded airdates.)
| Australia | Dec 73 | b/w |
| Singapore | May 74 | b/w |
| Hong Kong | Jul 74 | b/w |
| United Arab Emirates | 75 | PAL |
| Gibraltar | Jan 77 | b/w |
| Saudi Arabia | Feb 78 | b/w |
- The story may have been dubbed into Arabic.
- The BBC wiped the colour PAL tape of part three certainly before the colour Pertwees were offered to New Zealand in late 1974 but presumably after the episodes had been supplied to the United Arab Emirates, where the complete serial is believed to have aired all in colour. (Airdates for the UAE are not known, but the clearances for the sale of the other season 10 serials to "Dubai" were paid in May 1975; but the offer and sale of the serial could have been done years earlier.)
- The serial was not sold to New Zealand in 1974/75 because it no longer existed in full colour.
- The UAE returned their tapes of parts four, five and six in 1991.
Reissue
'Where's Part six?' Lehigh Valley channel 39; The Morning Call (Allentown), 24 January 1986
But Planet of the Daleks is still being billed as a 6-parter by Lehigh Valley channel 39 when they repeated it two years later; Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 December 1987
- The serial was released again in early 1985, as part of a package of all 24 Jon Pertwee stories, and sold to Australia (in Aug 86, for the first time in colour), and also to:
| United States | from Mar 85 | NTSC |
| New Zealand | May 86 | PAL & b/w |
| Canada | Jun 90 | NTSC & b/w? |
- When the story was sold into US syndication in 1984, it was supplied in several versions, but not without a few hiccups along the way. The original plan had been for Lionheart to distribute just the colour episodes, to be renumbered 1 to 5. However due to an error, the BBC supplied Lionheart with the first five episodes, including the b/w part 3, but not part 6. A number of stations aired it like this (even billing the serial as being a 6-parter in the newspapers but only ever screening five of the episodes), attracting many complaints from viewers - such as this report in the Allentown Morning Call, when WLVT / Lehigh Valley Channel 39 didn't screen episode 6. (WLVT later scheduled "part 3" on 10 March 1986, which they billed as "the missing final chapter of "Daleks", although this was probably actually part 6. You can see how confusing this can be!)
- After it had eventually received part 6, Lionheart made two versions for their syndication package: an episodic 5-parter, that omitted the b/w third episode, and renumbered the others parts 1 to 5, as had been the original plan. Scenes from part 4 that related to the 'missing' third episode were removed, and other scenes were re-sequenced to smooth over the joins. The other was an omnibus "movie", which was simply a re-edit of the new 5-part version, with the credits and cliffhanger recaps removed.
- A number of US newspapers continue to list the serial as a 6-parter in 1987 and 1988, long after the earlier mix-up had been resolved. One such stations billing it as a 6-parter was WLVT, when it was repeated in December 1987. So, they either screened the newly-reconstructed "hybrid" part 3 [see below] or - despite being caught out by the earlier mix-up - made the same mistake again!
- Apparently a full-colour 6-part version was later made by Lionheart; a replacement "hybrid" colour "Episode 3" was created by editing together the last 10 minutes of part two and the first 15 minutes of part four. Some accounts report that this was made only for use in Canada, but we are sure that this version of the serial wasn't shown on TVOntario, YTV or Space. We do wonder if this reconstruction did actually exist!
- Both New Zealand and Australia screened the black and white third episode when they aired the serial in 1986.
- The proper 6-part version, complete with the b/w episode 3, was eventually made available for US syndication in 1993, but by then with so few stations still buying the series it wouldn't have had a very wide distribution. WXEL aired all six episodes on 12 August 1995.
- A full account of the problems surrounding this story (albeit slightly out of date now) and a break down of the edits made to the US editions can be found HERE
- When the serial was broadcast on Australia's Sci-Fi channel in late 2012, the DVD restored colour version aired on television for the first time.
US TV Guide descriptions
More Information
Title: Planet of the Daleks
- Episode 1: The Tardis lands on a strange planet and the Doctor is taken gravely ill.
- Episode 2: Doctor Who and the Thals search for Jo, who has fallen victim to a deadly disease
- Episode 3: (not originally syndicated)
- Episode 4: Doctor Who and the Thals are trapped in the Dalek headquarters.
- Episode 5: Doctor Who, Jo and the Thals escape into the jungle where they are pursued by Dalek patrols.
- Episode 6: Doctor Who and the Thals are discovered when they try to infiltrate Dalek headquarters.
- Compilation: The Doctor battles the Daleks after learning they were behind The Master's attempts to bring about interplanetary war.
