The miniaturised Susan and Ian encounter a normal-sized ant. Critics and viewers praised the serial's set design.[1][2]
Cast
Doctor
William Hartnell – First Doctor
Companions
William Russell – Ian Chesterton
Jacqueline Hill – Barbara Wright
Carole Ann Ford – Susan Foreman
Others
Alan Tilvern – Forester
Frank Crawshaw – Farrow
Reginald Barratt – Smithers
Rosemary Johnson – Hilda
Fred Ferris – Bert
Production
Directed by
Mervyn Pinfield
Douglas Camfield (episode 3)
Written by
Louis Marks
Script editor
David Whitaker
Produced by
Verity Lambert
Music by
Dudley Simpson
Production code
J
Series
Season 2
Running time
3 episodes, 25 minutes each
First broadcast
31 October 1964 (1964-10-31)
Last broadcast
14 November 1964 (1964-11-14)
Chronology
← Preceded by The Reign of Terror
Followed by → The Dalek Invasion of Earth
List of episodes (1963–1989)
Planet of Giants is the first serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Louis Marks and directed by Mervyn Pinfield and Douglas Camfield, the serial was first broadcast on BBC1 in three weekly parts from 31 October to 14 November 1964. In the serial, the First Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), and her teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) are shrunk to the size of an inch after the Doctor's time machine the TARDIS arrives in contemporary England.
The story's concept was first proposed as the first serial of the show's first season, but was rejected due to its technical complexity and lack of character development. When Marks was commissioned to write the script, he was inspired by Rachel Carson's 1962 environmental science book Silent Spring, the first major documentation on human impact on the environment. The story was originally written and filmed as a four-part serial, but later reduced to three parts; the third and fourth episodes were cut down to form a faster-paced climax. The serial premiered with 8.4 million viewers, maintaining audience figures throughout the three weeks. Retrospective response for the serial was mixed, with criticism directed at its story and characterisation despite praise for its ambition. It later received several print adaptations and home media releases.
^Wright 2016, p. 125.
^Cite error: The named reference Radio Times Review was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
PlanetofGiants is the first serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Louis Marks and directed...
different compositions, as ice giants. Both names are potentially misleading; the Solar System's giantplanets all consist primarily of fluids above their critical...
gas giant is a giantplanet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giantsof the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was...
distinct class ofgiantplanet, separate from the other giantplanets, Jupiter and Saturn, which are gas giants predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium...
assistance: the moons of the planets beyond Earth; the ice giants Uranus and Neptune; Ceres and other bodies later recognized to be part of the asteroid belt;...
BBC1 between 1964 and 1965. The season began on 31 October 1964 with PlanetofGiants and ended with The Time Meddler on 24 July 1965. Like the first season...
Giants Red giants Blue giants Bright giants Supergiants Red supergiant Hypergiants absolute magni- tude (MV) A red giant is a luminous giant star of low...
planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a supercritical phase of matter...
known planet from the Sun. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giantplanet. It...
A helium planet is a planet with a helium-dominated atmosphere. This contrasts with ordinary gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn, whose atmospheres consist...
and Saturn); and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). All terrestrial planets have solid surfaces. Inversely, all giantplanets do not have a definite surface...
to as "Giants." Aside from their size, the Giants are indistinguishable from Earthlings. Culturally, their society resembles the United States of 1968--the...
in the orbits of the giantplanets, particularly Uranus and Neptune, speculating that the gravity of a large unseen ninth planet could have perturbed...
considered a separate category ofplanets, especially if they are gas giants, often counted as sub-brown dwarfs. The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly...
Planet Nine is a hypothetical ninth planet in the outer region of the Solar System. Its gravitational effects could explain the peculiar clustering of...
spite of this, observations of WASP-12b suggest that it is orbited by at least 1 large exomoon. It has been proposed that gas giants orbiting red giants at...
is a list ofplanet types by their mass, orbit, physical and chemical composition, or by another classification. The IAU defines that a planet in the Solar...
In astrology, planets have a meaning different from the astronomical understanding of what a planet is. Before the age of telescopes, the night sky was...
of an iron planetof the same size. These exoplanets orbit very close to their stars and could be the remnant cores of evaporated gas giants or brown dwarfs...
planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. A gas giant, Jupiter's mass is more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in...
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one...
technology. This type of shellworld can be theoretically suspended above any type of stellar body, including planets, gas giants, stars and black holes...
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