The Daleks

Summary

For Ian and Barbara, the hasty flight from freezing Paleolithic Earth has brought them no nearer a return to the comforts of England in 1963. Stepping from the uncertain sanctuary of the TARDIS, an even more forbidding landscape awaits them - a forest of whitened, petrified trees, soil turned to ash, and everywhere a deathly hush. The Doctor tells them they have left Earth completely and are now out far beyond the Solar System. His initial prognosis, that the planet is totally dead, is backed up by all they see, even when the four surmount a ridge and see, in the valley below, the gleaming spires of a deserted, metal city.
    The Doctor wants to explore, but the two teachers say no. All manner of dangers could lie down there, and only the Doctor knows how to operate the ship. However the wily old man gets his way, surreptitiously sabotaging the TARDIS to make it look like mechanical failure, and suggesting the city as the only source of repair.
    Once in the city the time-travellers find it far from dead.
    Hideously scarred mutants in metal machines - the survivors of a terrible thermonuclear war - capture and imprison them, believing the four to be Thals, the other race on this planet whom these Daleks once fought.
    Sent back into the forest to fetch medicine from the TARDIS, Susan encounters one of the Thals. He and his people are in need of food, and a party has been sent here to investigate the Dalek city.
    The Daleks establish contact with the Thals and promise them food, but it is a trap. Their intention is extermination only. The travellers escape and manage to warn the Thal party in time to save most of them. Back in the forest the Doctor discovers the Daleks have taken the piece he sabotaged from the TARDIS. Without it they are stranded here forever.
    Gradually they enlist the help of the Thals, persuading them to overcome their pacifist lifestyle and to fight for their share of this planet. The struggle must be carried back to the Dalek city, they argue. Eventually a two-pronged attack is agreed on. Ian and Barbara will lead a small expedition into the city from the rear, while the larger group creates a diversion.
    The trek proves long and arduous, with casualties mounting as they forge through swamps and mountains before finally breaking into the Dalek city.
     Fighting begins when they learn the Daleks intend to pollute the atmosphere with even more radioactive fallout, which will kill the Thals. Dalek firepower threatens to destroy the expeditionary force until the attackers hit on the idea of disabling the city's power generators. With no static electricity coming through the floor the Dalek machines fail, killing their occupants inside. The planet now belongs to the Thals...
    Recovering the fluid link device from the TARDIS the time- travellers set off once more. But no sooner have they dematerialised than an explosion rocks the ship...

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Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format © 1963
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