‘PLANET OF GIANTS’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

Honey, I Shrunk the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara

For William Russell

At long last! I’ve updated my reviews on Season 2 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series! 🙂

It’s taken me a while to come to this point, but I’m glad I’ve been able to revisit Season 2 of classic ‘Doctor Who’ on Blu-ray through its ‘Collection’ box set. A lot has happened since it was released back in December 2022, but I’m very pleased I can now talk about this season after such a long time.

Let’s cast our minds back to when Season 2 of classic ‘Doctor Who’ on Blu-ray was announced back in August 2022. I was excited when I saw the announcement trailer via the official ‘Doctor Who’ YouTube channel. It had Maureen O’Brien reprise her role as Vicki in the mini-episode ‘The Storyteller’.

It also had a preview of the various behind-the-scenes extras exclusive to the Season 2 Blu-ray box set, including the ‘Behind the Sofa’ items for Season 2, which featured Janet Fielding, Wendy Padbury and Sarah Sutton. As always, Sarah Sutton is the often the reason I purchase these box sets.

There was also Maureen O’Brien, Peter Purves and Carole Ann Ford as well as Bonnie Langford and Sophie Aldred in the ‘Behind the Sofa’ items for Season 2 of classic ‘Doctor Who’. I was disappointed that not every story in Season 2 was getting the ‘Behind the Sofa’ treatment, as I would’ve liked that.

Then again, this is like 9 stories featured in Season 2 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series and the box set itself is a 9-disc set. I suppose it would have been a huge ask for the ‘Behind the Sofa’ viewers to contribute to every story featured in the season, but it’s a shame and it feels incomplete.

But yeah, Season 2 of ‘Doctor Who’ is on now on Blu-ray! 🙂 You might be surprised by my delight in that, but this is like the first season of ‘Doctor Who’ out of the William Hartnell era to be released on Blu-ray. For a long while, we have mostly had seasons of ‘Doctor Who’ in colour via Blu-ray releases.

This is the first time we have a season of ‘Doctor Who’ in black-and-white released on Blu-ray. And this is like the earliest we’re going to get in terms of a classic ‘Doctor Who’ season from the black-and-white days being released in ‘The Collection’ series. It’s something not to be taken for granted. 🙂

I did wonder why Season 1 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series didn’t get released on Blu-ray first, especially to tie it into the 60th anniversary celebrations that would come in the following year – 2023 – but then ‘Marco Polo’ is still missing, and it would require a huge animation job on the story.

Mind you, at the time of this review, I’m not sure if Season 1 of classic ‘Doctor Who’ on Blu-ray is going to be possible due to the licensing issues concerning ‘An Unearthly Child’ as of October 2023. Maybe it’s a season I’ll do updated reviews on regardless of whether it gets a Blu-ray box set or not.

I suppose Season 2 is more complete compared to Seasons 1 and 3 of the William Hartnell era, and it’s likely Seasons 5 or 6 will get the Blu-ray treatment despite some gaps missing. Mind you, there’s an issue I have with Season 2 released on Blu-ray concerning one story, which I’ll get into another time.

The Blu-ray box set of Season 2 of ‘Doctor Who’ contains the following nine stories. There’s ‘Planet of Giants’, ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, ‘The Rescue’, ‘The Romans’, ‘The Web Planet’, ‘The Crusade’, ‘The Space Museum’, ‘The Chase’ and ‘The Time Meddler’. All with unique bonus content.

It’s interesting to talk about Season 2 of ‘Doctor Who’ and my viewing/listening experience of it. As with other seasons of ‘Doctor Who’ being released on DVD before Blu-ray came, I didn’t watch the stories in chronological order. The stories themselves were being released in random order on DVD.

I believe ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ was the first time I came across Season 2 of ‘Doctor Who’ on DVD after checking out ‘The Beginning’ DVD box set, which contained ‘An Unearthly Child’, ‘The Daleks’ and ‘The Edge of Destruction’. I checked out the rest of Season 2 gradually on DVDs and CDs.

At this point, Season 2 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series followed a huge success with the first season. William Hartnell had captured the hearts of many viewers, including children, with his performances as the First Doctor. And of course, the Daleks had captured everyone’s imagination. 🙂

Admittedly, the TV series was relatively new, and there’s no denying that technology back then wasn’t as sophisticated in the early 1960s compared to what we have now. But there’s also no denying that ‘Doctor Who’ had made an impact on many people once it began its tenure in November 1963.

However, there were issues concerning the behind-the-scenes making of ‘Doctor Who’ in the early 1960s for the William Hartnell era. For one thing, the cast and crew had to work to very demanding and punishing schedules with making about over 50 episodes per week for each season in the 1960s.

You might be surprised by that revelation, considering that ‘Doctor Who’ episodes aren’t shown every week nowadays compared to back then, but that was how things were done in the 1960s. It’s like the equivalent of a soap opera being made each week, except there are special effects involved.

Plus, 1960s TV productions were more in a theatre sense as opposed to a movie sense. The cast and crew had to do rehearsals for the first four days of each week before finally recording the episode on the fifth day. And there wasn’t time to do retakes of certain scenes if someone had fluffed on a line.

This was incredibly frustrating for William Hartnell who played the Doctor in the early 1960s, as he would often forget or fluff his lines when recording a particular episode of a story. He would often have people like William Russell and Jacqueline Hill to help him out to say the lines he had to say. 😐

I know that’s quite a contrast compared to how things are done nowadays, especially when we have bigger budgets on the latest seasons and there are opportunities to do retakes of lines compared to how it was done back then, but that is essentially how TV was made. Astonishing that it ever occurred.

Mind you, the fact that production schedules were tight in the early 1960s, and actors and crewmembers had to follow certain guidelines when, say, in BBC Television Centre doesn’t mean that not every story gets a well-deserved treatment in terms of how its output is executed on TV screens.

This depends on how long a story is, which can vary from being a four-parter to a six-parter to even a twelve-parter, which would happen in Season 3. Not very often, a story would be truncated from being four episodes to three episodes (which I’ll get to shortly) or from six episodes to five episodes.

But does that mean the season is not great for it? Is Season 2 actually a good season to check out, despite the punishing schedules the actors had to endure? Do all the nine stories hold up reasonably well by today’s standards compared to how they would’ve appealed to TV audiences in the 1960s? 😐

Well, let’s take a look. 🙂 The season begins with the three-part story ‘Planet of Giants’ by Louis Marks, who provides his first contribution to the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. Unfortunately, even from watching the story on DVD and Blu-ray, I don’t find this particular TV story living up to the title.

The story goes like this. The Doctor is trying to land the TARDIS in mid-20th century Earth. Despite the fault locator saying there’s nothing wrong, the TARDIS doors open just before the ship materialises. Ian, Barbara and Susan help to shut the doors, but all isn’t as it seems to be afterwards.

Our heroes soon venture out of the TARDIS to discover that they’re in mid-20th century Earth, but have been reduced to size. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan must do all they can to survive when exploring the dangers at every turn as well as solving the mystery of a murder and some pesticide. 😐

I have to tell you, for this updated review, I’ve had to sort-of see two versions of this story. The transmitted three-part TV story and two reconstruction episodes that form the original third and fourth episodes of this story. I’ll explain in more detail on what I mean by that as we progress here. 🙂

Back in August 2012, I purchased ‘Planet of Giants’ on DVD when I was on a family summer holiday in Scotland. I was attending the ‘Collectormania Glasgow 2012’ convention at the time when I purchased the story. Sarah Sutton, Colin Baker and David Gooderson were guests for that convention.

I was looking forward to checking out this ‘Doctor Who’ story on DVD when I returned home from my holiday in Scotland. Sadly, when it came to checking out the story on DVD, I found it rather uninspiring. Even when watching the reconstruction episodes on Blu-ray, it didn’t excite me much. 😦

When I wrote my original review on ‘Planet of Giants’ back in 2016, I assumed this was supposed to be the penultimate story of Season 1. I also assumed with the season being long, it was decided by the producers to end Season 2 with ‘The Reign of Terror’ and to begin Season 2 with ‘Planet of Giants’.

I don’t know how I came to that assumption, and I can’t recall where I read it, but I don’t believe that’s really the case here. ‘Planet of Giants’ was supposed to be part of Season 1, although it was meant to be the opening story of the season instead of it being ‘An Unearthly Child’ as the first story.

I imagine the story would have opened with the first episode of Ian and Barbara following Susan to 76 Totter’s Lane to meet the Doctor in the TARDIS and then the rest would have been the ‘Planet of Giants’ story instead of ‘the cavemen story’. But it was decided to scrap the idea for the opening tale.

Presumably, it was to avoid going into the ‘bug-eyed monsters’ thread of storytelling that Sydney Newman, the BBC Head of Drama who instigated ‘Doctor Who’, didn’t like. There were supposed to be giant spiders featured in the story as well, so it makes sense this story be the Season 2 opener. 😐

I think C. E. Webber was supposed to write the story originally before it got passed on to someone called Robert Gould until eventually, it was Louis Marks who wrote ‘Planet of Giants’. Louis Marks would go on to pen stories like ‘Day of the Daleks’, ‘Planet of Evil’ and ‘The Masque of Mandragora’.

And no, Louis Marks is not the guy who made the awful Dalek toys under the brand Louis Marx during the Dalekmania heyday of the 1960s. 😀 It’s fascinating he only contributed one ‘Doctor Who’ story in the 1960s before he wrote three more stories in the 1970s with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. 🙂

Originally, ‘Planet of Giants’ was supposed to be a four-part story made for television. The four episodes were recorded as per usual featuring the original cast. Unfortunately, when Donald Wilson, one of the BBC executives, saw the story before transmission, he’d lost ‘the urge to live’, so to speak.

He felt it to be an unsatisfactory opening to Season 2 of ‘Doctor Who’ and preferred to open the season with ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ instead. But of course, Susan’s departure prevented that change, and thus, he opted for ‘Planet of Giants’ to be truncated to three episodes instead of four. 😐

This isn’t the only time that this would happen in 1960s ‘Doctor Who’ TV history, as later in Season 6, Derrick Sherwin decided to truncate ‘The Dominators’ from six episodes to five episodes. This consequently caused the next story ‘The Mind Robber’ to be extended from four to five episodes. 😐

Essentially, the original third and fourth episodes of ‘Planet of Giants’ were compressed into one episode. At the time of the story’s transmission from October to November 1964, viewers would have probably not been aware that the last episode had been compressed from two episodes into one. 😐

This does beg the question: Who directed ‘Planet of Giants’ as a story? You see, there are two directors for this – Mervyn Pinfield and Douglas Camfield. From watching the reconstruction episodes, Mervyn Pinfield directed the original three episodes whilst Douglas Camfield did the fourth.

Yet, on the transmitted third episode of the story, it’s claimed to be all directed by Douglas Camfield, even though it’s a compression of the third and fourth original episodes. When the end credits roll up, the third episode should be credited as being directed by Mervyn Pinfield and Douglas Camfield.

I know that sounds like a minor thing to harp upon; but considering the quick turnaround of episodes being produced at that time, I’m surprised Mervyn Pinfield wasn’t given credit on the actual third episode being transmitted on TV, since he did the majority of work on ‘Planet of Giants’.

I found the story rather dull when I saw it on DVD back in 2012 and when I revisited it in 2016. Having checked out the story on Blu-ray, both in its original form and in its reconstruction episodes, it has been fascinating to check out. However, I don’t really regard it as one of my favourite stories.

Admittedly, it’s an interesting idea to have the TARDIS characters be reduced to the size of an inch and to have them solve a murder mystery with environmental concerns thrown in. But the story needed better pacing, as very often, it was quite slow-going, and the story’s limitations are obvious.

Also, when I think of a story like ‘Planet of Giants’, I expect it to be about the Doctor and his friends visiting an alien planet and actually meeting giants on it. Instead, we have our characters in the TARDIS being reduced to size, finding themselves on Earth and everything else is bigger than them. 😦

If you think I’m being unfair about this, there’s a TV series called ‘Land of the Giants’, which was made from 1968 to 1970 after this ‘Doctor Who’ story in 1964. It depicted the heroes visiting an alien planet where their inhabitants are giant-sized and they have to endure many perils in every episode.

Admittedly, the alien planet is similar to Earth, except everything is twelve times larger in size, but at least it’s better than having our TARDIS heroes shrunk to size on Earth instead of actually visiting a ‘planet of giants’. This story is so much like ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ instead of ‘Land of the Giants’.

Heck, ‘Planet of Giants’ probably inspired the filmmakers who made ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ in 1989. It wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case, and I’d like to think they learnt some lessons on how to do a story about humans getting shrunk to size compared to this ‘Doctor Who’ TV adventure.

In a way, I’m quite glad that ‘Planet of Giants’ is reduced to three episodes instead of four, as sometimes it can be hard-going to check out, even when watching the reconstruction episodes. Yes, I know, visual effects were limited in those days, but surely the story could have been more exciting.

Incidentally, this story is the closest the Doctor has been in getting Ian and Barbara home, as I assume ‘Planet of Giants’ takes place in 1964 when it was transmitted, as it does feel contemporary. A shame Ian and Barbara didn’t get to go back home once they’d been restored to their normal size.

The murder mystery and environmental aspects of this story are intriguing, but I’m afraid they’re not exciting enough to maintain my interest. Very often, our heroes find it difficult to hear what the ‘giants’ are saying when reduced to size, trying to solve the mystery, and returning to the TARDIS. 😐

The visual effects for ‘Planet of Giants’ are pretty bad. Most of the time, our heroes see giant things like people’s faces and large telephones, and it’s often achieved through the use of photographs and actors standing in front of them, either via a blue screen or a green screen, which is pretty noticeable. 😐

Again, I stress, I know the visual effects are limited in terms of what the production team had to utilise, concerning the technology they had. But with the story being so dull and hard-going to watch, it’s so easy to see through the effects, despite the good intentions to establish certain shots.

I liked it when the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan got to see giant-sized versions of smaller objects like a matchbox and a matchstick. Also, the giant-sized insects including ants, bees and flies tended to be quite disturbing, especially when Barbara sees a fly right before her before she promptly faints.

I did find the cat featured in this story a little disappointing, especially when it appeared giant-sized to the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan at the end of the first episode and the beginning of the second episode. The cat didn’t do much, and it’s clear it’s film footage being utilised to establish he’s a giant.

Comparing this to the cat in the original ‘Star Trek’ episode called ‘Catspaw’, which featured shots of the cat being giant-sized, I found it more impressive there than in ‘Planet of Giants’. The scary music in the ‘Star Trek’ episode is better than what Dudley Simpson provided in this ‘Doctor Who’ story. 😐

Incidentally, when checking out the reconstruction episodes, the cat plays a pivotal role in the original third episode, since he’s killed off by the pesticide DN6. It’s a shame that’s not in the transmitted third episode of the story, as the cat is completely absent and without an explanation. 😐

William Hartnell is pretty good as the First Doctor in this story. I liked it when he worked out where he and his friends were and that they’ve been shrunk to size. I don’t think this story has him doing many standout moments, apart from climbing up a water pipe and him sharing scenes with Susan. 🙂

Mind you, it’s interesting to see him being observant of Barbara when she’s becoming very tired after touching the pesticide. Almost as if he’s working out what’s wrong with her before the reveal is made. I also like how he coordinated tasks with Ian, Barbara and Susan, and they all work as a team.

Carole Ann Ford is equally good as Susan in this story. I liked it when Susan got to explain to Ian that they’ve been reduced to size, which occurs at the same time when the Doctor explains to Barbara what their situation is. Susan almost fulfils the Doctor role in that regard when she’s with Ian in this.

Sadly, Susan doesn’t get that much character development, although she’s not as screamy and panicky as she would be in some of the other stories. Despite Carole Ann Ford’s reservations about Susan’s character, she plays her very well, and I like the relationship Susan has with her grandfather.

William Russell is very good as Ian. In the story, Ian is easily taken in a matchbox by someone who picks it off the ground. Thankfully, he reunites with his friends at the end of the first episode. I liked it when he showed concern for Barbara, especially when she seemed tired, despite wanting to help.

The close friendship that Ian and Barbara have is pretty evident. Ian gets to use a giant matchstick with Susan helping him to light a fire. I found it funny when the Doctor told him how to do it right with striking the match, and Ian’s reply is, “Doctor, have you ever tried to lift one of these things?” 🙂

Jacqueline Hill is also very good as Barbara. Sadly, I’m afraid she suffers as a character in this story. Nothing wrong with Jacqueline Hill’s performance or with how Barbara behaves and acts. It’s just there’s a certain direction with Barbara’s character I’m unhappy with and wish could’ve been better.

In the story, Barbara touches a seed that’s infected with the DN6 pesticide. Gradually, she becomes weaker and doesn’t tell her friends about the fact she’s ill. Her friends soon discover that Barbara’s infected and they do all they can to save her life and return her to the TARDIS as soon as possible. 😐

And if I might go off on a tangent here, there’s something that bothers me about this. That is… Why didn’t Barbara tell her friends that she was ill the moment she touched the seed? Perhaps it’s not out-of-character as I assumed it to be, but it is unusual for her to not let her friends know about this.

I became anxious for Barbara in ‘Planet of Giants’ and found myself insisting that she tell Ian, Susan and/or the Doctor that she got infected before it was too late. Maybe she wasn’t in a right frame of mind after touching the seed, but I would’ve thought Barbara had more sense than that in this story.

Again, people are bound to have different reactions to these kinds of things when it concerns making a mistake like touching a lethal substance without realising it beforehand, but surely Barbara could have told Ian of this. Maybe she didn’t think the pesticide was deadly until it was very apparent.

There’s likely to be a time when I’ll check out the ‘Planet of Giants’ Target novelization/audiobook by Terrance Dicks and perhaps I’ll find out more about Barbara’s mindset from that. But on its own, it’s peculiar and quite often, Ian and Barbara are close and share things when concerned for each other.

Then again, Nyssa didn’t share with Tegan and the Fifth Doctor that she was becoming a vampire in ‘Goth Opera’, so there’s bound to be some ground for Barbara not wanting to share to her friends that she’d been infected. Whether it’s embarrassment on her part that she didn’t share it, I’m not sure. 😐

The story’s guest cast includes Alan Tilvern as Forester. Alan Tilvern would go on to guest star in a couple of ‘Dad’s Army’ episodes, including ‘Battle School’ and ‘My British Buddy’. He also appeared in the 1988 film ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’. It’s so amazing to find him in this ‘Doctor Who’ story. 🙂

In ‘Planet of Giants’, Alan Tilvern plays a bad guy in Forester, as he wants the DN6 pesticide to go ahead on the production line and he’s willing to kill someone with a gun to stop anything get in his way. It was so fascinating to see how his motivations as a villain were unveiled throughout this story.

The story also features Frank Crawshaw as Farrow, a civil servant who receives a sticky end once he refuses to give the go-ahead on DN6 to Forester. There’s also Reginald Barratt as Smithers, a nervous and cynical scientist who works with Forester in the second and third episodes of this story.

And there’s Rosemary Johnson as Hilda Rouse and Fred Ferris as Bert Rouse, a married couple who suspect that all is not as it seems at the farmhouse with Forester and Smithers. Hilda is a telephone exchange operator whilst Bert is a policeman. 🙂 They both appear in the transmitted third episode. 🙂

Interestingly, in the reconstruction episodes of the original third and fourth episodes of ‘Planet of Giants’, Hilda and Bert had more scenes compared to the compressed transmitted third episode shown on TV. It’s a shame a lot of Hilda and Bert’s scenes were cut in the transmitted third episode.

In terms of the reconstruction episodes, there are some voice actors playing certain characters in the story. Whilst William Russell and Carole Ann Ford reprise their roles as Ian and Susan, John Guilor is voicing the First Doctor whilst Katherine Mount is voicing Barbara, which I found intriguing to hear. 🙂

Toby Hadoke voices Forester in the reconstruction episodes whilst Paul Jones voices Smithers. For the record, I’ve actually met Toby Hadoke and Paul Jones at conventions over the years. 😀 I’ve seen Toby Hadoke at ‘Big Blue Box 2’ and ‘Dimensions 2013’ in 2013 as well as ‘Timey-Wimey 1’ in 2014.

I’ve seen Paul Jones at the ‘Regenerations’ conventions over the years, including the recent one in 2023. Both Toby and Paul have done audio work for Big Finish and radio respectively. Patricia Merrick (who’s been in BBV productions) voices Hilda Rouse and Steve Johnson voices Bert Rouse. 🙂

The reconstruction episodes have been interesting to check out and I appreciate them representing what could have been different had ‘Planet of Giants’ been a four-parter instead of a three-parter. Very often, I found the reconstructions jarring with the mix of original footage and new voicework. 😐

The original DVD special features were as follows. There were the reconstructions of the original third and fourth episodes of ‘Planet of Giants’ themselves, which was compiled together as a single feature and the episodes contain new dialogue and animation from the original TV scripts. There was the ‘Rediscovering The Urge to Live’ making-of documentary on the reconstructions of the original third and fourth episodes of ‘Planet of Giants’, featuring behind-the-scenes interviews with William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, John Guilor, Toby Hadoke, Paul Jones and director Ian Levine. There was ‘Suddenly Susan’, a 2003 interview with Carole Ann Ford, and there was ‘The Lambert Tapes – The Doctor’, a 2003 interview with producer Verity Lambert. There was a photo gallery of the story, an English dual mono sound audio mix option for the story, an Arabic dual mono sound audio mix option for the story, and an audio commentary with vision mixer Clive Doig, special sounds creator Brian Hodgson, make-up supervisor Sonia Markham and floor assistant David Tilley, moderated by Mark Ayres. There was an info-text commentary option to enjoy, and PDF materials, including a ‘Radio Times Listings’ PDF of ‘Planet of Giants’ and ‘Prop Design Plans’. There was also a ‘coming soon’ trailer for the 2-disc Special Edition DVD release of ‘Vengeance on Varos’, starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, which is now available on Disc 1 of the Season 22 Blu-ray box set (containing ‘Attack of the Cybermen’).

On Disc 1 of the ‘Doctor Who – The Collection – Season 2’ Blu-ray; the reconstructions of the original third and fourth episodes of ‘Planet of Giants’ can be found on there. Thankfully, they can be viewed individually instead of being a single feature. The ‘Rediscovering The Urge to Live’ making-of documentary, the English dual mono sound audio mix option, the Arabic dual mono sound audio mix option and the DVD audio commentary can also be found on there. The photo gallery and the info-text commentary option have been updated for 2022 on the Blu-ray. The ‘Suddenly Susan’ 2003 interview with Carole Ann Ford is now included on Disc 2 of the Season 2 Blu-ray box set (containing ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’). ‘The Lambert Tapes – The Doctor’ 2003 interview with producer Verity Lambert isn’t included on the ‘Planet of Giants’ Blu-ray disc.

The new special features on Blu-ray include the ‘William Russell: In Conversation’ interview conducted by Matthew Sweet. Sadly, there isn’t a ‘Behind the Sofa’ item included for ‘Planet of Giants’ on Blu-ray, which is a shame, as I would have liked to have seen and enjoyed the reactions of Maureen O’Brien, Peter Purves and Carole Ann Ford; Janet Fielding, Wendy Padbury and Sarah Sutton; and Bonnie Langford and Sophie Aldred to this story.

On the PDF front, as well as the ‘Radio Times Listings’ of ‘Planet of Giants’ and ‘Prop Design Plans’ (possibly design drawings), there are production documents, one rehearsal script and four camera scripts, the studio floorplan for the original third episode, PasB (Programme as Broadcast) paperwork for Season 2, BBC Enterprises sales sheets for Season 2, the 1966 ‘Doctor Who Annual’ (taken from ‘The Web Planet’ DVD), and production documentation for the 1966 ‘Doctor Who Annual’. You need a special Blu-ray computer drive for that.

‘Planet of Giants’ isn’t the most exciting ‘Doctor Who’ story I’ve seen and it’s not very inspired to open Season 2 on. It’s a shame this story got compressed into three episodes instead of four episodes, but it’s probably for the best it occurred that way, as sadly, as the tale didn’t maintain my interest.

It’s not a terrible ‘Doctor Who’ story by any means. It’s adequate enough and the performances of the main leads, including William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford are very good. But in the end, ‘Planet of Giants’ is very average and lacks in terms of pace and inspiration.

‘Planet of Giants’ rating – 5/10

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