Acting for Two: Not only do both Michael Wisher and Roy Skelton qualify for this by virtue of each playing several different Daleks, Skelton also plays the Spiridon Wester, along with the unnamed Spiridon who captures Vaber and delivers him to the Daleks and Wisher voices the Dalek Supreme as well as a few mook Daleks.
Creator Backlash: Barry Letts makes clear on the DVD commentary that he was really unhappy with the model Dalek army that's seen in this story. He also wasn't too happy with the sets used for the interior of the Dalek city, though conceded that there probably wasn't the money in the budget to do both the city and the jungle justice.
Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Katy Manning's hair is shorter in the studio sessions than it is in location footage. Manning had her hair cut between the two lots of recording.
Recycled Script: Terry Nation rehashed most of the plot of "The Daleks". The general structure of the episodes, with Daleks in a city encountering the Thals on a desecrated planet; the Doctor being imprisoned and paralyzed; and the Daleks by the end trapped inside their city. Replace the neutron bomb with a virus and it’s obvious how much was recycled.
Spared by the Cut: Originally, Episode Four was to end with all of the Thal characters massacred by the Daleks. Terrance Dicks, however, asked that Terry Nation not include this plot point, as the series was beginning to be criticised for its violent content.
Latep was originally named Petal. This was changed to avoid confusion with Patel from "Frontier in Space".
This serial was originally intended to be parts 7-12 of "Frontier in Space", which consequently would've tied the latter with "The Daleks' Master Plan", also co-written by Terry Nation, for the position of the show's longest serial by episode count (discounting the 14-part "The Trial of a Time Lord", which was produced as four separate serials). However, the production staff ultimately opted to bill "Frontier in Space" and "Planet of the Daleks" as separate, but interconnected stories; the fact that episode one of "Planet of the Daleks" opens by reprising the closing moments from episode six of "Frontier in Space" is a remnant of the original idea.
David Bowie and his backing band at the time, the Spiders from Mars, visited the Doctor Who team on-set while this serial was being taped. Reportedly, a passerby saw Bowie and co. in their ostentatious Glam Rock getups and jokingly asked if they were playing a group of aliens on the show.
