February 22: "The Sea Beggar" / "Priest of Death"

(The Massacre episodes 2 & 3)

What's striking about "The Sea Beggar" (as well as "War of God" before it) is how different it is from The Daleks' Master Plan.  Although these episodes still strike a pretty serious tone, stylistically these are less like an action/adventure and more like a political drama.  Each episode seems to encapsulate roughly a day's worth of events, with no cliffhanger reprises, and the stakes are more about political maneuverings than the fate of the universe.

The other interesting thing about "The Sea Beggar" is the disappearance of the Doctor.  On its own this isn't particularly surprising, since William Hartnell's been on vacation before, but there's never been a sole companion around.  This means that most of the events focus squarely on Steven, as he tries to convince his new friends first that a) the Doctor and the Abbot of Amboise are different people, despite looking the same, and then that b) the Doctor is pretending to be the Abbot of Amboise for some reason, but that he couldn't possibly have an ulterior motive against the Huguenots.  This leads to Steven overhearing of a plot to assassinate the Sea Beggar, and then the plot shifts to Steven trying to get someone to listen to him and work out who the Sea Beggar is.  It's a plot driven by dialogue more than visual events, which means it's one of the easier stories to follow on audio, and it's also relatively engaging, as we work along Steven trying to figure out what's going on.  And then, in the episode's closing moments, we learn that the Sea Beggar is in fact Admiral de Coligny.

The Target novelization (from On
Target - The Massacre)

"Priest of Death" continues in a similar vein, only this time Steven gets a chance to tell Nicholas Muss about the planned assassination of de Coligny on that very day.  This means that they have very little time to stop the assassination.  The other new wrinkle is that William Hartnell is back as the Abbot of Amboise (or is it the Doctor? -- the character of the Doctor is nowhere to be found), but here he's playing a very serious character.  There aren't any "hmm"s or "eh"s or anything like that, which (as has been mentioned before) does illustrate how much of the Doctor's character is in fact characterization, rather than just William Hartnell stumbling over lines or inserting filler words to give himself time.  It's a strong performance.  And Steven's belief that the Abbot is in fact the Doctor does help sell the "is he/isn't he?" storyline.

But this is predominantly about the Admiral's attempted assassination.  Steven and Nicholas are too late to prevent it, but by a fluke the Admiral bends down at just right the moment and is only wounded instead of killed.  This attempt is apparently because de Coligny is firm friends  with King Charles IX, and the Catholics in France would like to see the Protestant influence with the king be removed.  But, since it fails, the Abbot of Amboise takes the fall and is killed, and then his death is blamed on the Huguenots.  It's a continuing political drama, and one can't shake the feeling (even if you didn't already know the outcome) that an inevitable, tragic end is coming.  Plus, that cliffhanger, as Steven finds someone who's apparently the Doctor lying dead in the street, is also quite effective.  John Lucarotti and/or Donald Tosh's story (there's some uncertainty as to just how much of Lucarotti's original scripts remain in the finished product) moves from strength to strength.

February 21: "Destruction of Time" / "War of God"

(The Daleks' Master Plan episode 12 & The Massacre episode 1)

And so we come to "Destruction of Time"¹⁸, the final installment of The Daleks' Master Plan.  It starts with Mavic Chen, clearly unhinged, announcing his presence to the Daleks and demanding to be informed as to the latest developments of the invasion plans.  He seems utterly surprised that the Daleks have no more use for him, and he ultimately ends up dead, exterminated by them.  But meanwhile the Doctor has reappeared, having somehow gained control of the Time Destructor (maybe it was clear how on video), and thereafter the episode is a visual tour-de-force, showing the Doctor and Sara struggling to get back to the TARDIS as the Time Destructor accelerates time all around them.  It's a bit of shame, then, that we only have the soundtrack.  But based on the descriptions, and Douglas Camfield's direction on the episodes we can see, this was probably pretty impressive.  Certainly even with just Peter Purves' narration on the official CD release, Sara Kingdom's death, as she ages to death as a result of the Time Destructor, is very effective.  And when Steven ventures out of the TARDIS to help the Doctor, the Doctor's anguished cry of "No, don't touch me!" is powerful.  And in the end, all that's left on Kembel is dust, as time was accelerated and then reversed.  Steven's final line, as he remembers the dead, is also very well delivered.

Thus The Daleks' Master Plan comes to its conclusion.  It's been a huge epic, unlike anything Doctor Who had ever done before.  But, final episode not withstanding (and once again, this sounds like it was one of the best final episodes ever), it's not clear if this was really worth the length.  There are quite a few episodes that feel like they consist of one primary event surrounded by a lot of filler.  It's frequently very good filler, but it's still filler.  That said, there's a seriousness of tone here on display for most of the story that really helps convey the mood: the Daleks are the most dangerous threat the galaxy has ever faced, and everyone responds appropriately.  We're leagues ahead of The Chase, whose story structure The Daleks' Master Plan resembles in many respects.  But this treats its subjects with respect, and as a result things are improved dramatically.  I'm just not convinced that its 12 episode length (13 with "Mission to the Unknown") is justified.  It might be different if we could see the entire thing -- the visual elements might paper over any narrative longueurs.  But as it stands (and this has been said before about other stories), I think people are more entertained by the idea of a 12-part Dalek epic than what we actually get.  It's good, but it's not great.

Next up is "War of God", the first episode of The Massacre¹⁹, which sees Steven and the Doctor arrive in Paris in 1572.  The Doctor goes off to visit an apothecary named Charles Preslin (who doesn't appear to be a real historical figure) and warns Steven not to get into trouble while he's gone.  So Steven goes into a pub and learns about the high tensions that exist between the Catholic rulers and the Huguenot (Protestant) citizens, due to repeated religious wars.  Most of this episode is setting up the historical background for this story, with a discussion of the killings at Vassy ten years earlier, where Catholics killed a hundred Huguenots ("Because they were Huguenot", Gaston says), that led to the French Wars of Religion, with frequent flare-ups over the intervening decade.  And Steven encounters a serving girl named Anne Chaplet who overheard a conversation suggesting that another such event might happen.

And periodically throughout the episode, we hear of the cruelty of the Abbot of Amboise (also not a real historical figure), who is both virulently anti-Huguenot and anti-science (or, at least, the work of Charles Preslin).  Then the cliffhanger of "War of God" reveals that the Abbot of Amboise is...the Doctor?!







¹⁸ There appears to be slight confusion on whether this was called "The Destruction of Time" or just "Destruction of Time" -- one of the minor problems associated with missing episodes.  Most fans tend to use the former, but both the Radio Times and the BBC's Programme-as-Broadcast paperwork used the latter, which does suggest that there was no initial definite article on the broadcast title.
¹⁹ This is the last major title discrepancy we're going to get until season 23.  The Target novelization and the outside cover of the BBC soundtrack release refer to this story as The Massacre, while the inside of the BBC release and some contemporary documents called this The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve -- which is both somewhat redundant (the word "massacre" was coined by Christopher Marlowe to refer to these events) and inaccurate (as the massacre occurred on St. Bartholomew's Day, not St. Bartholomew's Eve).  Note that some people have argued that, as this story is about the events leading up to the massacre, the title is actually referring to the [massacre of St. Bartholomew's] eve -- which both suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how the English language generally works and is itself inaccurate, as this story takes place over the preceding four days, rather than just the one immediately before.  In any event, I'll be referring to this story simply as The Massacre.  

February 20: "Escape Switch" / "The Abandoned Planet"

(The Daleks' Master Plan episodes 10 & 11)

"Escape Switch" is the last of the three episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan currently existing in the archives.  It also bears the distinction of being Doctor Who's 100th episode.  But there's no pomp and circumstance here, as we're still in the middle of our Dalek epic.  Instead we learn that that mummy hand from the last cliffhanger was in fact the Monk, who'd been wrapped up in bandages by the Doctor.  But then the Monk, Steven, and Sara are kidnapped by the Daleks, and the episode becomes a standoff between Mavic Chen and the Daleks, and the Doctor.

The Doctor announces his terms to the Daleks and Mavic Chen
as Sara, the Monk, and Steven look on. ("Escape Switch") ©BBC

The Monk still manages to lighten the proceedings, even when he's a prisoner of the Daleks, as he insists that getting them captured was purely to save their lives, so that they could be used as bargaining chips against the Doctor.  But this is primarily about the stand-off between the Daleks and the Doctor, and the Doctor has no choice but to hand over the taranium core.  But as he does so the ancient Egyptians strike back, although to be honest it's a bit of a lackluster fight: a bunch of them are exterminated, and then oddly a Dalek starts to call for help while the Egyptians surround it with rocks, rather than just exterminating the lot of them.  But that's not the primary concern.  Instead we care about how the Doctor and his friends are going to stop the Daleks, now that they have the core of the Time Destructor.  Fortunately the Doctor has stolen the directional unit from the Monk's TARDIS, so they have one chance of getting back to Kembel.  Of course, this means that the Monk is now traveling as randomly as the Doctor.  "I'll get you for this, Doctor! I'll get you one day!" he vows, but he never does.  (At least, not on television.  Various pieces of spin-offery have addressed this plot strand, including Virgin's New Adventures, but they're rather beyond the scope of this blog.)  Farewell then to Peter Butterworth's wonderful character and perfect foil to Hartnell's Doctor.

"The Abandoned Planet" returns us to Kembel, which starts with the delegates talking of overthrowing Mavic Chen, but then he arrives to take control of the council -- except the Daleks have no more use for any of them, and so they're all put in prison cells (it sounds like).  This sets the stage for Steven and Sara's exploration of the Dalek outpost, which appears to be completely abandoned.  (Incidentally, is William Hartnell actually in this episode?  After the episode reprise he features in one scene at the beginning -- which could have been prerecorded -- and then he's not heard from again for the rest of the episode.)  It's a somewhat eerie effect, Douglas Camfield clearly interested in creating a mood for this section.  Steven and Sara find the delegates and convince them to warn their galaxies of the impending Dalek invasion, which they are willing to do -- it would seem the delegates have lost their taste for conquest. 

All, that is, except for Mavic Chen, who seems convinced that the Daleks still need him.  Kevin Stoney does a nice job of showing that Chen has gone mad -- admittedly, all we have to go on is the audio, so he could be drooling over himself and waving his arms about manically, but that seems unlikely.  Particularly nice is the moment when Sara Kingdom announces her presence in the Dalek city over the loudspeaker system (a potentially foolhardy choice, to be sure, but then they are trying to convince the Daleks to bring the Doctor to the control room, so they at least have some plan), and Mavic Chen is convinced Sara is there to rescue him: "She has come back out of loyalty to me, to ensure my safety as the Guardian as the Solar System."  It's clear he's become unhinged, and then after the other delegates leave, he insists on taking Steven and Sara into the Daleks' hidden underground base...

February 19: "Volcano" / "Golden Death"

(The Daleks' Master Plan episodes 8 & 9)

"Volcano" opens with no mention of the previous episode, so you can see how they could get away with cutting out "The Feast of Steven" for (as it turned out, nonexistent) overseas sales.  In fact, this episode seems to follow on directly from "Coronas of the Sun", with the Daleks testing the fake taranium core in their Time Destructor and learning it doesn't work.  Since they were testing it on delegate Trantis at the time, he seems quite relieved to have survived -- only to be cut down by the Daleks as he leaves the test chamber.  The Daleks then decide to pursue the Doctor with their own time machine.

But the Doctor, Steven, and Sara are unaware of this.  All they know is that they're pursued by another time machine.   This leads to a stopoff at the Oval cricket ground, where the commentators seem more concerned about how this affects England's chances rather than any sort of amazement at a police box materializing out of thin air.  It's a bit of dry humor that's more than a little familiar to anyone who's read Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams -- maybe he saw this episode on transmission and unconsciously borrowed from it.  But then it's off to a volcanic planet named Tigus (one wonders if they used the same volcanic eruption footage as later seen in both The Enemy of the World and Inferno), where it turns out that it's not the Daleks chasing the Doctor but rather the Meddling Monk, from Dennis Spooner's last story.  This leads to a rather more light-hearted sequence from this serial than we've previously gotten (Christmas episode aside).  The first half of this serial has been decidedly serious in nature, depicting a universe where the Daleks have gained powerful allies that are ruthlessly aligned against our heroes.  But this shows a lighter touch, with some humor injected into the proceedings again -- it's a lot more like season 2 was, and since Dennis Spooner was story editor for that season this is perhaps unsurprising.  But nevertheless it's a welcome change.

Covers for the two volumes of the Target novelization of
this story. (from On Target - Mission to the Unknown and
The Mutation of Time)

This trend continues in "Golden Death", with the TARDIS arriving in ancient Egypt.  The Doctor sticks around to repair the TARDIS lock (damaged by the Monk last episode) while Steven and Sara look around, waiting for the Monk's arrival.  But they're captured by Egyptians, and meanwhile the Daleks have arrived, along with Mavic Chen.  So there's still a lighter, more humorous touch to the events here, but Dennis Spooner inserts the Daleks into these events as the same creatures as earlier.  So while Sara and Steven are busy overpowering Egyptians and the Doctor is chatting with the Monk, the Daleks are ruthlessly exterminating the local population as they proceed toward their goal of recovering the taranium core.  This shows that Spooner understands that the Daleks are at their most effective when they're shown to be inhuman killers, not when they join in the frivolity of the moment (as they did in The Chase).  It makes for a striking contrast and throws the Daleks into a sharper relief than they've been in for the past few weeks.

But then after establishing this sense of danger and realism (well, as real as Daleks in ancient Egypt could be), weirdly the episode seems to end with a cliffhanger depicting a mummy approaching Sara...

February 18: "Coronas of the Sun" / "The Feast of Steven"

(The Daleks' Master Plan episodes 6 & 7)

Last time the Daleks had cornered the Doctor, Steven, and Sara on the planet Mira.  But fortunately it's the Visians, 8-foot tall invisible creatures, to the rescue as they choose that moment to attack the Daleks and let the travellers make their escape by making off with the Daleks' spaceship.  This is followed by a lengthy sequence in the ship (which curiously makes the same "ship traveling through space" noise as the Earth ship Spar did) where the Doctor creates a duplicate taranium core to fool the Daleks with.  But it needs to be energized somehow, which Steven does with a very dangerous piece of technobabble that nevertheless almost kills him -- and let's just take a moment to appreciate how a good a scream Peter Purves lets loose.  This also has the effect of surrounding Steven in a forcefield that withstands a Dalek blast -- so he's able to make his escape into the TARDIS back on Kembel without harm.

This is yet another episode that probably looked better than it sounds, as it's concerned mainly with making the fake taranium core and the consequences of those actions.  At least the Daleks get a couple good lines though: "You make your incompetence sound like an achievement," the lead Dalek says to Mavic Chen after he attempts to convince the Daleks that he intended for the Doctor and company to be transported to Mira.  But beyond that, this seems like another episode marking time rather than significantly changing events or anything like that.  And this is the second episode in a row with a nice-sounding title that doesn't actually seem related to the events of the episode.

The Doctor has a chat with Bing Crosby. ("The Feast of
Steven" -- off-air photo taken by Robert Jewell.  From The
Destruction of Time - Off-Air Photos)

But now it's time for Doctor Who's first ever Christmas episode, "The Feast of Steven", which chooses to take a break in the middle of this Dalek epic and have some fun instead.  "The Feast of Steven" also has the dubious honor of being the least likely missing episode to ever be recovered, since there's no evidence that it was ever telerecorded -- certainly it was never offered for sale and wasn't part of the Daleks' Master Plan package that Australia passed on.  Which is a bit of a shame, because it sounds like it was quite fun.

The first half takes place in a police station, where the Doctor, Steven, and Sara each in turn head into the police station to either rescue the others or because they themselves have been arrested.  This is also the sequence where one of the first Doctor's more famous lines comes from: "Your ideas are too narrow, too small, too crippled... You might say that I am a citizen of the universe, and a gentleman to boot!"  Of course, what's less well remembered is the constable's reply: "He's having us on a bit, isn't he, sir?"

But after the shenanigans in the police station there's a quick reminder that we're in the middle of a serial ("I'd forgotten about the Daleks," Sara says), and then it's off to Hollywood in the silent era.  This part is less successful, in part because it's clearly visual; it's like listening to the soundtrack of a Three Stooges short and trying to imagine what's going on.  Peter Purves does his best narrating the soundtrack (even if he seems to be putting on a bit of a funny voice at times), but alas, this is a sequence that was probably best seen rather than heard.  Still, it's still charming in its own way.  And then it all ends with that (in)famous moment where William Hartnell turns to camera and wishes the audience "a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!"  And we have a photo to prove he turned to camera, too.  And thus ends Doctor Who's only 20th-century Christmas episode.

February 17: "The Traitors" / "Counter Plot"

(The Daleks' Master Plan episodes 4 & 5)

Wow, this is a brutal episode.  It opens with Katarina being held captive by a dangerous criminal, but then she sacrifices herself to kill him by opening the airlock to space while they're both inside it.  The Doctor gives a nice little speech about how he'll always remember her as one of the daughters of the Gods, and then we apparently got a shot of her floating through space that was so good, Stanley Kubrick asked Douglas Camfield how he'd achieved it.  Not bad for someone who's only been around for 4-and-a-bit episodes, but it also serves to underline the stakes in this story.  Up to this point we've been larking about on jungle planets and such, dealing with Daleks and their strange allies; it's been dangerous but not really threatening.  But now things are brought sharply into focus with Katarina's death.

Things continue in this vein after the Spar crash-lands on Earth.  Bret is forced to kill one of his friends, who accidentally reveals that he's working for Mavic Chen.  Bret Vyon has been labeled a traitor, since it's known that he and Kurt Gantry went looking for Marc Cory after they received his distress signal (odd, that, since Cory never launched the distress signal beacon and in fact the Doctor found the tape in the jungle -- of course, if we're discussing odd things, the same scene has Mavic Chen, upon learning that Vyon and Gantry were on Kembel, declare that they must be the ones who "took over my Spar"; you'd think he wouldn't want to broadcast that he himself had been on Kembel, but maybe given the ship Bret and company stole it was unavoidable).  And then, in the final moments of the episode, he's gunned down by fellow agent Sara Kingdom -- another life lost.  "The Traitors" is a brutal episode, and it's becoming clear that the days of Verity Lambert running the show are over.

The Daleks corner Steven, the Doctor, and Sara on the planet
Mira. ("Counter Plot") ©BBC

"Counter Plot" is fortunately another episode that exists on video.  Funny, that; Marco Polo is a serial that was sold to 23 different nations, and none of its episodes survive.  The Daleks' Master Plan was sent to a single country but never aired, and yet we have three of the twelve episodes existing in the archives.  Interesting how things work out.

But in any case, this episode begins with the Doctor and Steven trapped on Earth -- although they don't actually know that yet, and they don't even know that Bret's been killed.  All they know is that they're caught in a room with Sara Kingdom and some white mice when suddenly all three are disseminated across space to the distant planet Mira, caught up in a science experiment.  After the events of the last episode, things go back to the way they were before, with another episode that seems to be marking time.  But we do get some wonderful gloating moments from Mavic Chen (along with some sinister acting from his right-hand man Karlton), and the Doctor gets a good line after he realizes he's been transported across space: "The mice couldn't have done that."  But beyond that, the primary function of this episode is to get the Doctor and Steven away from Earth and convince Sara Kingdom that Mavic Chen is a traitor, which they seem to do easily enough.  Then she reveals that Bret was in fact her brother, just to give a sense of how strong her sense of duty is.  And then the Daleks find them.  "I'm afraid, my friends, the Daleks have won," the Doctor announces sadly.

It's not the strongest or most interesting episode, but it is nice to be able to see "Counter Plot".  Much how a fairly standard episode like "Day of Armageddon" revealed some nice camera work and interesting direction, so too does "Counter Plot" reveals some interesting moments -- the shots of the Doctor, Steven, and Sara being transported through space via cellular dissemination are pleasingly unusual, with good direction blended with unusual sounds to create something wonderfully evocative.  It once again shows how good Douglas Camfield is, and "Counter Plot" ends up being a reasonably entertaining episode.  Even if we never actually discover what the counterplot is.

February 16: "Day of Armageddon" / "Devil's Planet"

(The Daleks' Master Plan episodes 2 & 3)

Hooray!  Back on video for "Day of Armageddon", and you can get a bit of a sense of what we've missed by being audio only.  Because let's be honest: in terms of plot, it's not very exciting.  The Daleks burn down the jungle, the Doctor impersonates a delegate to the Dalek conference, and Bret, Steven, and Katarina steal Mavic Chen's ship.  Everything else is just talking.

Bret, Steven, and Katarina prepare to steal Mavic Chen's ship.
("Day of Armageddon") ©BBC

But when you can see the images, you can tell what Douglas Camfield is doing with the camera.  There are some great shots, not just of the Daleks burning down the jungle (which were shots that already existed prior to 2004), but also of the conference.  You can see Kevin Stoney's performance as Mavic Chen, which plays with a sense of mischievous superiority. And seeing pictures of the delegates is one thing; seeing them move and interact is something else quite entirely.  "Day of Armageddon" is largely a setting-up episode (we learn what the Daleks' plans are and how Mavic Chen is involved), but it's directed with enough flair that you don't really notice until subsequent viewings.

Back to the soundtrack for "Devil's Planet" (other than a minute and a half clip from Blue Peter) which seems mainly like complications.  Trantis, the delegate from last time that the Doctor impersonated [edit: the doomed delegate's actually Zephon, not Trantis -- keeping all the delegates straight is hard work], is executed by the Daleks (their word), while the Daleks manage to drag the Spar off course and down onto the planet Desperus, "the penal planet of the Solar System", where convicts try to escape their imprisonment.  Oh! and we learn that the Doctor stole the core of the Daleks' ultimate weapon, the Time Destructor, which consists of a full emm of taranium (Terry (Nation) + uranium, perhaps?), which is both incredibly powerful and incredibly rare.  That's apparently a big deal, and so the Daleks are keen to get it back.  Anything else?  Oh yes, the Doctor produces Marc Cory's last message (as seen, sort of, in "Mission to the Unknown"), so that plot thread is wrapped up.  But this is just another episode marking time, it seems, full of incident but not much plot.  Still, it's a hell of a cliffhanger scream from Katarina.