Doctor Who - Planet Of Giants [1964]

Planet of the Giants opened the second season of Doctor Who with William Hartnell s Doctor and companions Susan, Barbara and Ian finding themselves in a mysterious labyrinth filled with dead giant ants. A TARDIS malfunction has left the travellers an inch high and they have landed in the cracks in a garden path, part of a testing ground for an insecticide which could trigger a biological apocalypse. The plot combines the urgent warning of Rachel Carson s 1962 environmental landmark Silent Spring, with the basic scenario of Richard Matheson s The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), the characters facing similar hazards including being menaced by a domestic cat. The low budget means the huge props necessary to realise the story are limited, but what there are prove surprisingly good. Even the over-size ants and a big fly look fairly impressive. The story maintains an unsettling mood, with an effective cliff-hanger involving the laboratory sink. Continuity problems stem from the original four-episode story being re-edited into three parts prior to transmission, but this is still a superior example of early Doctor Who, predating the popular American TV series Land of the Giants (1968) by four years. Lindsay Gutteridge s once popular 1973 novel Cold War in a Country Garden owed much to the story. --Gary S Dalkin

Planet Of Giants is so underrated! - I don t really see what s wrong with this story. Everyone I ve met and asked seems to like it, but most reviews on the internet always give it a bad one. The sink set is very good effects wise, but some of the other things aren t... but so what? What makes it good is it is just very simple- the Doctor and his companions wandering round discovering deadly traps. Worth the money, so buy it!

a bit nothingy really! - A rather odd story because there isn t really much to it - at 3 episodes it still feels 1 episode too long and it has an inconsequential feel to it. The suppoting cast are quite dull, and although the regulars and the sets are good it s very difficult to work up any interest in what s going on

An Ambitious Start to Dr Who s 2nd Season! - Don t believe everything you read in reviews, especially when they re full of inaccuracies! This story is three episodes long, not because of problems with any other story, but simply because the last two episodes were edited together before broadcast to make a much more taut result. Ray Cusick s giant size sets work well, as do the optical effects used to render the TARDIS crew only one inch tall. Listen out too for future regular composer Dudley Simpson s very first incidental score for the programme. This is also the first Dr Who story where the direction was credited on screen to Douglas Camfield, arguably the series finest director. Although not perfect the story is still highly entertaining and well worth buying, especially for the opportunity to see Hartnell s Doctor on video as opposed to film for the first time since the original transmissions, thanks to the new VidFIRE process being applied!

Average Hartnell - You can tell why the BBC have left The Planet Of the Giants to the end of the video releases - it is two 25 minute episodes and one 30 minute episode, because a latter story took up a week more than it should have. It has the original TARDIS crew, and started the 2nd season. It just does not feel right - the plot just does not work. There are no major faults, it just does not work. Very Average.

Doctor Who - Planet Of Giants [1964]