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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
"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
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Ambitious Start to Dr Who's 2nd Season!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Doctor Who - Planet of Giants [VHS] [1964] (VHS Tape)
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!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Planet Of Giants is so underrated!,
This review is from: Doctor Who - Planet of Giants [VHS] [1964] (VHS Tape)
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!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Doctor goes down the plughole,
By
This review is from: Doctor Who - Planet of Giants [VHS] [1964] (VHS Tape)
The Doctor is attempting to return Ian and Barbara to earth, but when they get there they find that they have all been shrunk to 1 inch tall, and are in a garden where a powerful new insecticide has been tested, and has killed every living creature. They find themselves in all sorts of trouble, being menaced by a cat, Ian being stuck in a matchbox, the Doctor and Susan nearly getting flushed down the drain when the tap is turned on etc. And they have to try and stop the spread of the deadly insecticide.
This is a very amusing and unusual Doctor Who story, with plenty of excitement and some very cleverly construced props (I thought the giant plug and plughole were particularly convincing.) I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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