Story Title: The Daleks’ Master Plan
Episode Count: 12 Series: 3 Story No: 4
Doctor: 1st Companions: Steven, Katarina & Sara
Date(s) Watched: Tuesday 9th June 2009 (Episodes 1-4), Thursday 11th June 2009 (Episodes 5-10) & Sunday 14th June 2009 (Episodes 11 & 12)
Here it is, the big one, the longest Who story of all (Trial is four stories, deal with it
) and I have to say that this has got to be one of the greatest stories of all time & even at 12 episodes it doesn’t flag one bit.Throughout this story there are superb performances, in particular by Hartnell, Purves, Hill, Marsh, Courtney & especially Stoney as the wonderfully nasty & completely insane Mavic Chen. The aliens in this story are wonderful wacky in design & their “style” has never really been seen again in Who. The Daleks here are, in particular, very vicious & callous throughout, betraying not only Chen but the whole of the Galactic Council. Mavic Chen himself double crosses absolutely everyone be it fellow members of the council, Sara, Steven & The Doctor and even the Daleks themselves. To me Stoney steals the show with his wonderfully camp, insane portrayal of Chen who never slips up once & is convincing throughout the story.
Nicolas Courtney as Bret Vyron is excellent throughout his episodes as well, it’s just a shame he didn’t last in the story a bit longer as Courtney plays the role of Vyron brilliantly & convincingly. We also see some strains, throughout this story, with The Doctor & Steven’s relationship with them arguing quite a bit throughout the episodes as they clash on what’s best to do once they find out the Daleks are involved. It seems that Vicki kept the pair of them calm when together but now she’s gone they seem to be at each others throats at times. This however adds to the story as they are both in a very desperate situation & have a very short time to save the universe from the Daleks.
The sets themselves are brilliantly realised be it the jungle sets, the Egyptian pyramid sets or the, ahem, film sets in Episode 7. The music is spot on throughout and in Episode 12 is suitably dark & rather creepy. The direction is spot on, as is the music which fits in with each episode that is transmitted.
There’s several episodes I’d like to give particular mention to, those being Episode 7, which is perhaps the maddest episode of them all (even more so than The Chase, Episode 4), and although some hate it, I rather like it as although it slightly jars with the story it does give some light relief in an overall dark & moody story. Episode 8 also has some of these moments (with the Cricket game scene) but overall it’s more straight laced.
Episode 12 however is exceptionally brilliant (and if we’re ever only allowed to recover one more episode from this particular story I hope this is the one that turns up). The music is very moody & chilling indeed, the Doctor is greatly fearless when starting up the time destructor & holding the Daleks to ransom and the destruction of Kemble, Sara & The Daleks themselves is very chilling indeed and something which I think both the classic and modern series have never been able to manage to achieve since.
The most interesting thing out of all this is how the two female companions are introduced & wrote out rather quickly. Katarina was only introduced in Episode 4 of The Myth Makers & by Episode 4 of DMP she’s killed off. I feel this is a big shame and a sort of wasted opportunity as we have a companion from a time period who doesn’t “get” modern life. Throughout her short stay she seems to think she’s on a journey to heaven & that the Doctor is some sort of God. I feel that if she had been retained past this story she would have added an interesting angle to the stories, which sadly never happened. However I can see why the producer decided not to go with her as it would have been a bit difficult to keep writing dialogue for the character. Her death though is rather shocking & haunting in some ways especially as LC animated her floating body in space, which sends a slight chill down ones spine.
With Sara Kingdom, again she is another character who would have been great past this story & would have worked brilliantly as a strong female lead, in a similar vein to Ian & Steven as she doesn’t really screech at all & gets stuck into the action. Her demise is even more shocking & haunting that Katarina’s as she rapidly ages before our eyes to an unrecognisable old woman before turning into a skeleton & then her skeleton crumbling into dust (which was redone brilliantly by the LC team).
With this story as well, if this had been Hartnell’s final adventure instead of The Tenth Planet it would have been the greatest regeneration story of all of the Doctors & I feel this was the story that started the deterioration of the First Doctor’s health which then seem to continue in several of the episodes afterwards when his life was put in danger (the forced invisibility of The Doctor in The Celestial Toymaker I feel also causes the First Doctors health to deteriorate). This story also moves Hartnell up as my sixth favourite Doctor to my fifth favourite Doctor.
Overall Rating: 5/5 – Epic, superb & perhaps the greatest Hartnell story of them all, with superb performances, writing & directing throughout, just a shame that only three episodes survive although LC have done a superb job.
Hope that didn't bore you too much
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