February 25: "The Bomb" / "The Celestial Toyroom"

(The Ark episode 4 & The Celestial Toymaker episode 1)

So Monoid Two's report is cut off mid-sentence, in what must surely be suspicious circumstances.  So Monoid One's decision is to ship every Monoid, including all the miniaturized Monoids in trays, down to the planet's surface.  He's not really a forward thinking kind of person, is he?

This episode is concerned with two things: finding the bomb concealed on the Ark, and watching the Monoids annihilate each other in infighting.  There's not really anything terribly surprising in this episode -- really the only unanticipated part is that some of the Monoids disagree with Monoid One's decisions and choose to return to the Ark, which leads to Monoid One and his followers trying to gun them all down (and watching them shuffle about in their costumes, shooting at each other, has to be seen to be believed).  The battle that ensues seems to wipe out most of the Monoids, leaving the Guardians free to colonize the planet without having to deal with the Monoids too much.  Meanwhile, a Refusian pilots a landing craft back to the Ark and helps the Guardians eject the bomb (hidden inside that big statue) into space, apparently with only seconds to spare, judging by the timing of the explosion.

There are some really quite ambitious model sequences here, with some forced perspective shots and things that are nicely done (even if you can see the wires occasionally).  The takeoffs and landings of the landing crafts, for instance, are often done incredibly close to the camera, to give the impression of a large craft landing nearby -- and fortunately the model is of sufficient quality to carry off the illusion.  It's a charming effect.

Really, that sums up The Ark in general.  As a story it never quite lives up to the promise of its first episode, but there's enough here presented in such a way that you can't help but be entertained by it.  It's not the most perfect story in the world, and you wouldn't be wrong pointing out that the second half is weaker than the first (even though the first is just about a plague and the second has invisible aliens and battles and things), but it's still an enjoyable little tale, aided by some striking direction.

And now it's back to the soundtracks for "The Celestial Toyroom", which is a bit of a pity given how visual this story seems to be.  It's a nicely sinister set-up we're given, as the Celestial Toymaker (and note that's almost certainly "Celestial" as a synonym for "Oriental", the way that word was once used -- the Toymaker's Mandarin garb indicates this is the case) forces the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo to play games for their freedom.  It's a chilling concept, as the Toymaker indicates that if they lose, they have become his playthings and remain in his realm forever.  The Doctor has to play the Trilogic Game (a form of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle) while Steven and Dodo participate in a sort of obstacle course against two of the Toymaker's dolls, clowns named Joey and Clara²¹.  This is where it becomes painfully clear how much this episode loses by being audio-only.  It might have been a bit tedious watching Steven and Dodo play this game, but when all you can do is listen to them play, it becomes a bit difficult to remain engaged in the episode.  Ah well; maybe the next two episodes will work better as soundtracks.







²¹ Lest anyone get any ideas, the pronunciation is different from the BBC Wales' companion's name ([klεɹə] vs. [klɑɹə] in the International Phonetic Alphabet), and as the clown Clara is actively trying to hinder Steven and Dodo's progress, the modus operandi doesn't really fit anyway.

February 24: "The Plague" / "The Return"

(The Ark episodes 2 & 3)

It's a serious business the Doctor has landed them in: because of Dodo's cold, the future of the entire human race appears to be in danger.  So naturally, the acting commander, Zentos, wants to do the right thing and...ensure that the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo are executed for bringing the plague on board the ship.  He seems to be under the impression that this is the result of Refusian agents from their destination planet attempting to sabotage their journey for some reason, but in any case, Zentos is out for blood.  To this end he holds the most amazing hearing, with Steven defending the time travellers from his accusations of deliberate infection -- and he gets a great line, by the way, as he responds to Zentos's accusations: "The nature of man, even in this day and age, hasn't altered at all.  You still fear the unknown, like everyone else before you."  But Zentos spends a lot of time whipping the other Guardians up into a frenzy against the travellers, to the point where Manyak, who's acting as defense for them, has to basically yell to be heard.  "Let him speak!  This is a fair hearing," Zentos then has the nerve to say.  And meanwhile, during this hearing, we keep cutting to the Commander (who's sick, remember) saying things like "That's true!" for some reason.  But nothing, not even Steven himself collapsing from the illness during the hearing, can stop the Guardians from decreeing that the Doctor, Dodo, and Steven be ejected into space.

The Earth begins to burn up as it falls into the sun.
("The Plague") ©BBC

I like the part where, after the Guardians have voted to space our heroes, the Commander has to come on over the intercom and basically say, 'Cut that out; what the hell is wrong with you?' to Zentos.  This means the Doctor can finally be allowed to work on finding a cure.  After a brief moment to lecture Dodo on her English (interesting that even as late as 1966 the word "OK" was deemed to be non-standard in some way), the Doctor gets to work.  A quick montage later (more than a little reminiscent of The Sensorites, it must be said), a cure has been found and everyone is saved.  The Doctor is hailed a hero (even though they brought the thing aboard in the first place) and the travellers are allowed to depart.  Yes, it's a story that wraps up quickly, but it's nice to see that not everything needs to be a 12-episode epic, and the sense of economy here is quite refreshing.

Except that's not quite what happens.  In one of the best cliffhangers ever, the TARDIS leaves, only to rematerialize in the same place.  But it's not the same time: the statue that was going to take 700 years to finish is completed -- except with a Monoid head...

"The Return" shows a much-altered Ark.  The Monoids have had a revolution and taken over, turning the humans into their slaves.  Many of the Guardians were killed; some survive to work in the security kitchen.  Yes, you read that right: "security kitchen."  There are some impressive effects shots in the security kitchen, as tablets are dropped into a liquid and instantly become new potatoes and chicken wings -- one almost gets the impression that the humans are being kept in a kitchen so that they could do those shots.

Monoid Two challenges the Refusians to show themselves.
("The Return") ©BBC

In any event, the Ark's journey is almost over -- they've finally reached Refusis II.  The Doctor and Dodo are sent down in the first landing party to assess the suitability of Refusis II as a place for colonization.  They encounter the Refusians, who appear to be invisible, and who have been waiting for the people from Earth to arrive.  The Monoids aren't terribly friendly to their new hosts though, so while the Doctor has a pleasant chat with their host, where he learns that the Refusians lost their appearance in a "galaxy accident" (er, yes...), Monoid Two tries to warn the others on the Ark, only to have his landing craft blown up by the Refusians.  It's actually a surprisingly brutal act from a species which had hitherto seemed quite civilized, and it's not absolutely clear why they do it.  After all, it's not like the Monoids could see the Refusians in order to shoot them down.  Maybe they just didn't want a whole bunch of Monoids streaming down from the Ark and messing up the place.

Still, after the first episode set up a thoughtful tone, these two episodes are a bit of a letdown.  "The Plague" is concerned more with haranguing the travellers about bringing the illness on board, and "The Return" seeks to show the Guardians' society with the roles of humans and Monoids reversed -- except that rather than explore that relationship in more detail, the Monoids are portrayed as generally unlikable from the start of the episode, so it's difficult to work up any sympathy for them.  Don't get me wrong, these are still pretty entertaining episodes: they just don't seem to have had as much thought put into them as "The Steel Sky" did.

February 23: "Bell of Doom" / "The Steel Sky"

(The Massacre episode 4 & The Ark episode 1)

"Bell of Doom" opens bleakly: Steven has seen the Doctor lying dead in the gutter, and now he has to try and find the Doctor's key to the TARDIS, which he presumably left in his old clothes at Preslin's house.  He and Anne Chaplet spend the entire day tearing Preslin's house apart, trying to find the Doctor's clothes, but all they can locate is his walking stick.  Meanwhile, Catherine de Medici and Marshal Tavannes plot the massacre of the Huguenots in Paris, set for St. Bartholomew's Day; Tavannes originally has a list of Huguenots to take out, but the Queen Mother decides to let mob rule take over, anticipating that this will mean the death of all the Huguenots in Paris.  Steven and Anne are unaware of this, but they are surprised when the Doctor walks in; it turns out he was not in fact the Abbot of Amboise, despite appearances.  But as Steven tries to explain what's been happening, the Doctor becomes greatly alarmed when he realizes what the next day is, and exhorts Anne to break the curfew and take refuge in her aunt's house for the next few days, while he and Steven will leave in the TARDIS.  Anne hurries away and the Doctor and Steven flee, just before the carnage begins.

This part of the episode is concerned primarily with turning the wheels that have been set in motion in the previous episodes, and all it really does is bring the Doctor back into the picture and have him take Steven away before the massacre itself begins.  It's a functional half, but because all the pieces have been carefully maneuvered into place ahead of time, there's a sense of inevitability to the proceedings here, and the TARDIS dematerializes just as Admiral de Coligny is dragged from his bed, triggering the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.  The resulting carnage was reportedly depicted with sounds of violence over illustrations of the proceedings, which were apparently still too much for some viewers.

The second half of the episode shows Steven disgusted with the Doctor's treatment of Anne; he feels the Doctor had essentially condemned her to death by staying in Paris, and he's unhappy with the Doctor's callous disregard for humanity.  The Doctor tries to explain: "My dear Steven, history sometimes gives us a terrible shock, and that is because we don't quite fully understand.  Why should we?  After all, we're all too small to realize its final pattern.  Therefore don't try and judge it from where you stand.  I was right to do as I did.  Yes, that I firmly believe."  But Steven won't hear a word of it, and he storms out at the next stop, leaving the Doctor all alone. Hartnell gives a wonderful, reflective speech as he's left by himself in the TARDIS:

Even after all this time he cannot understand.  I dare not change the course of history...  Now they're all gone.  All gone.  None of them could understand.  Not even my little Susan, or Vicki. And as for Barbara and Chatterton... Chesterton.  They were all too impatient to get back to their own time.  And now, Steven.  Perhaps I should go home, back to my own planet.  But I can't.  ...I can't.

Hartnell does such a great job with this quiet, almost tortured speech that it's something of a shock when Mancunian Dodo Chaplet bursts in, looking for a telephone and totally failing to be impressed that this isn't even remotely a police box, or that it's in fact a time and space machine.  She seems to be looking forward to traveling in the TARDIS, even though she has no earthly reason to believe the Doctor that the TARDIS is a kind of vehicle, but when Steven rushes back in the TARDIS is away on its next adventure...

The Massacre is quite different from the last few Doctor Who tales.  It's a very serious piece of political drama, engineered in such a way that it comes across not so much as a tale of religious conflict but as one of political machinations: Catherine de Medici may consider all the Huguenots heretics worthy of death, but Marshall Tavannes is considering the implications of such an action.  It's a very adult (in the non-tawdry sense) piece of television, and it's something of a shame that we can't see the performances -- but the fact is that this is a story that relies so much on dialogue that the pictures aren't required.  An impressive serial.

It's been four or five stories since we've had a complete serial existing in the archives (depending on how you count "Mission to the Unknown"), but we're back on video with "The Steel Sky".  Occasionally, listening to some of the previous episodes, you sort of wonder how they managed to actually create the sets and stories that you're listening to -- how did they create Kublai Khan's palace at Shang-Tu, or what did the Time Destructor-ravaged Kembel look like?  But here's an instance where we get a story like that that we can actually see, and the result is quite superb.  There's a jungle full of exotic plants and animals, and there's what looks like an elephant on some stock film, until the Doctor, Dodo, and Steven reach out and pat it on its trunk.  "The Steel Sky" looks suitably impressive.  The main alien race on display, the Monoids, are also charmingly weird, even if it's clear from their first sighting how they got that singular eye in the center of the head.

But what's also nice is that some thought has clearly gone into things.  This adventure is depicted as incredibly far into the future, further than we've ever gone before -- the Doctor guesses they're at least ten million years ahead.  This treats everything that we've witnessed as just a tiny chunk of history.  ("Nero, the Trojan wars, the Daleks. But all that happened in the first segment of time," says the commander of the spaceship. "Segment?" the Doctor wonders. "To use your phrase, sir, what segment are we in now?" "The fifty-seventh," the commander replies.)  Paul Erickson²⁰ is thinking in pretty epic terms, and it pays off.  We get an epic script combined with some epic direction (I've mentioned the jungle, but the superimposed screens are also quite good, and the distant depictions of the roof of the ship are also really well done) -- so much so that you can almost forget Dodo's brash attitude as she explores her surroundings, declaring it first to be Whipsnade Zoo and then going around acting like a general nuisance: "You'll have to watch her," Steven warns the Guardians after she states she can't scratch the material that their statue-in-progress is made of, "she'll have the whole thing down."  And one final piece of forethought: Erickson has given Dodo a small cold, but as the people of the future had long ago eradicated the common cold, they have no resistance to it, and it starts to run through the population as a deadly plague...







²⁰ Although Erickson's then-wife Lesley Scott is credited, by all accounts she contributed no actual work to the scripts.

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...