The Daleks' Master Plan

"Do you realise that very few people have seen this in this universe?"

Writers: Terry Nation & Dennis Spooner

Format: TV 

Broadcast: 13 November 1965 - 29 January 1966

Season: 3.04

Featuring: First Doctor, Steven, Katarina, Sara

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands on the planet Kembel and the Doctor goes to find help for his injured companion, Steven. He discovers that the Daleks are on Kembel, and are planning to conquer Earth

Verdict

The Daleks' Master Plan is just sensational. It's audacious, emotional and quite frankly epic. It's a whole world within Doctor Who itself and to have a twelve-part serial of this kind is just incredible. What an idea! I can't imagine how cool this would have been to follow the same story for over two months between 1965-6. Of course, I have blogged this story before in both televised and novelised format, but there's a very special reason for rewatching again here! The news last month regarding the Film is Fabulous! find of both The Nightmare Begins and Devil's Planet was beyond exciting. I woke up at 5am and have push notifications on my phone for the Doctor Who Magazine Twitter feed and to see the words 'Missing Episodes found' put a huge smile on my face. I've been smiling ever since. This blog entry will more focus on the two 'new' episodes that we have to watch and honestly as I turned on iPlayer and pressed play on episode one I couldn't believe how privileged I felt. I've recently started playing catch up on the Doctor Who Missing Episodes podcast and hearing all about the film tapes and what happened to so many of these missing episodes is so sad, so I have an even bigger appreciation for having these returned. They tell us so much! Seeing Bret Vyon in the TARDIS with the First Doctor is so much fun in hindsight knowing who Nicholas Courtney will go onto play and the sheer amount of time we now have with Katarina is staggering! We basically have her entire run now excluding a few scenes in The Traitors and at the end of The Myth Makers. Steven barely knows who she is when he comes around from his poisoning! It's great to know what the Doctor's magnetic chair fully looks like also and it's a super fun contraption. I think The Nightmare Begins was high on a number of people's lists of missing episodes they would like returned and it certainly doesn't disappoint in setting the scene for this absolute epic. Mavic Chen in all his glory as he betrays the Solar System for more power thanks to the Daleks but is stringing them along the whole time anyway is glorious as a villain and I just adore the way the Daleks enunciate his name. Surprisingly though, I think it might be Devil's Planet that's the better of the two found episodes with the story already taken shape and Steven fully in action. Katarina steals the show and it really is so lovely to see her perspective on travelling the universe. She believes she is already dead and on her way to the Place of Perfection and the scene where she's literally touching the stars is incredibly poignant and incredible foreshadowing. A lot of praise I have seen today is for Douglas Camfield's direction of the two episodes and I echo those sentiments. It's just glorious and really highlights all of the positives that come with the Daleks. After being able to watch the opening three episodes in a row (which still doesn't feel real!), the death of Katarina hits even harder. She's a lovely companion and it's a shame she didn't last longer. It's just so good to get so much more of her. I did continue on past part three to watch the Loose Canon reconstructions and the other two surviving episodes, and the story takes so many turns and directions. From around part four or five onwards, it feels like a very different serial to the one taking shape in the found episodes and that's to be expected at twelve parts long! We have Sara arriving as a new companion after killing her brother Bret which feels incredibly sudden and again has a bigger impact as we actually get to see him in full fashion. The Monk shows up pretty randomly for three episodes which is terrific and I love how on more than one occasion it's clearly established the Doctor is not from Earth. The downfall of Chen is great to see and I am still reeling from the conclusion in Destruction of Time. The music that accompanies this episode is so powerful and as the Time Destructor is doing its work. the desperation in the performance from William Hartnell as Sara decays into death is just staggeringly good. I think this might be atop my list of other missing episodes that I most want to be found. Someone out there surely knows something! Oh and before I forget, the continuity with Mission to the Unknown was brilliant as we see Marc Cory's skeleton! What an image. No wonder the Australian censors said no this serial. Just glorious. Overall, simply a privilege to watch two new episodes of this incredible epic. Thank you, Film is Fabulous! 

Rating: 10/10