{"id":4157,"date":"2012-08-22T15:15:37","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T21:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=4157"},"modified":"2012-08-22T15:15:50","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T21:15:50","slug":"daleks-master-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=4157","title":{"rendered":"Daleks Master Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Is Sara Kingdom officially a companion? Is the Christmas Day episode \u2013 in which Hartnell\u2019s Doctor breaks the fourth wall for the first time in the series by raising a glass to everyone back home \u2013 as rubbish as it sounds? Only three of its episodes are known to exist in their entirety and it\u2019s impossible to judge the remainder on audios, all-too-brief clips and telesnaps alone, but let\u2019s pick out the key features in this all-dancing, all-exterminating extravaganza.<\/p>\n

Triumphs, including exceptional slices of Doctor Who, have rarely been as hard won as this.
\nThe story goes that BBC Managing Director Huw Weldon\u2019s mother-in-law, Mrs L.G. Stroud, loved the Daleks, and so the production team hoped to please him and her (but mainly the public, whose tastes Weldon believed were generally reflected by those of Mrs Stroud) by stretching a Dalek story to twelve episodes (and let\u2019s not forget there had already been a linking, cutaway episode five weeks earlier in the form of Mission to the Unknown). The result is a \u2018travelogue\u2019 type of story, in which the action is spread across several different times and places, a format pre-empted by Keys of Marinus and the previous season\u2019s Dalek story The Chase. As with Marinus, the plot is driven by a classic MacGuffin, in this case the Taranium Core, which the Daleks and their arch ally Mavic Chen intend to use to power the awesome Time Destructor.<\/p>\n

Cue a relentless chase across time and space as the Doctor cheekily pinches this (plot) device and is pursued by his adversaries to Earth in its futuristic, contemporary and early twentieth-century guises, not to mention the Great Pyramid of Giza, plus the jungle planet of Kembel, the equally jungly planet Mira, the prison world Desperus, and the volcanic Tigus. In fact, The Chase would have been an apposite title for this serial if there hadn\u2019t already been one with that name; it\u2019s real cat and mouse stuff as the Doctor and co. constantly try to outwit their pursuers. But there will be a terrible price to pay for their ultimate victory\u2026<\/p>\n

One thing that makes this story so entertaining is its variation in tone. Yes, there is notable grimness; aside from the deaths of two of the Doctor\u2019s companions, there\u2019s the grim theme of fratricide when Sara Kingdom kills her own brother, Bret Vyon. There\u2019s also the striking, verbally violent ending to Episode Four, The Traitors, in which the misguided Sara instructs her colleagues in the Space Security Service that the Doctor and Steven \u2018will be shot on sight \u2013 but aim for the head.\u2019 Hardly the stuff of Saturday tea-time adventures for children, is it?<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also comedy in the shape of the Monk, played, as in The Time Meddler, by Peter Butterworth with a gleam in his eye; and the knockabout nonsense of Christmas Day episode The Feast of Steven, which doesn\u2019t feature the Daleks or Chen but does feature a daft 1920s Hollywood silent movie set and a humorous encounter with 1960s English police. This jamboree of wildly different styles and settings actually improves on the similar approach used in The Chase; unlike that whopper, it\u2019s generally competently done \u2013 often much better than competent \u2013 and it\u2019s The Fast Show of Doctor Who: don\u2019t like the Keystone Cops stuff? Then don\u2019t worry, we\u2019re off to Ancient Egypt in a moment. Don\u2019t care much for the Monk? No matter \u2013 he\u2019ll be gone soon and we can get back to the serious business of the Doctor vs. the Daleks. That said, The Feast of Steven does leave a lot to be desired in the eyes of many, and besides, how could the idea of Doctor Who on Christmas Day ever catch on?<\/p>\n

The First Doctor displays his relentlessly ruthless streak, stopping at nothing to prevent the Daleks from activating the Time Destructor, even while casualties are made of all those who are close to him bar Steven. He\u2019s not pitiless and may regret the waste of lives by the end, but he\u2019s frequently merciless up to that point. Look how he ambles casually between the pyramids in Ancient Giza as the Daleks and Chen broadcast an ultimatum regarding his captured friends\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

With that boater on his head and his walking stick in his hand, the Doctor is every inch the retired ex-pat living comfortably in the sun, and only a hardened look gives away what\u2019s really going on beneath the surface.
\nWith that boater on his head and his walking stick in his hand, the Doctor is every inch the retired ex-pat living comfortably in the sun, and only a hardened look gives away what\u2019s really going on beneath the surface. Earlier on, there\u2019s something majestic about him infiltrating that conference room full of aliens in the Daleks\u2019 city on Kembel. We might expect to see the far younger Steven Taylor knocking out weirdy plant-man Zephon before disguising himself in the alien\u2019s cloak and stealing the Taranium Core from under the Daleks\u2019 and Chen\u2019s noses, so it\u2019s thrilling to see the old man doing it before scarpering in the confusion as the security alarm goes off. He\u2019s obviously not as old and doddery as he likes to make out.<\/p>\n

Steven is well-played by Peter Purves as always; unlike many companions, he\u2019s solid and never annoys. But perhaps the real surprise in Masterplan is the recently-acquired companion from Troy, Katarina. Adrienne Hill makes the most of her brief time on Who, giving her character a credible air of innocence and otherworldly gentleness \u2013 she doesn\u2019t know what tablets are, and thinks the Doctor is a god taking her on a journey through the underworld. However, when it comes to the crunch, Katarina shows her mettle, bravely sacrificing herself via a spaceship airlock to ensure that the evil convict Kirksen can\u2019t get control over the Spar, which the Doctor so desperately needs if he\u2019s to evade the Daleks. This must have been a shock for viewers in 1965; no sooner has a companion been introduced than she\u2019s been killed off. It makes sense, as it\u2019s hard to see how Katarina could really have developed as a long-running, regular character. She\u2019s killed off early in this one so that Sara can be used in her place, as the latter can more readily fulfil the role of an \u2018action\u2019 character.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Courtney plays Bret Vyon as a hardened soldier \u2013 a tough cookie, not amusingly pompous or lovable like his more famous Brigadier. Jean Marsh makes the most of Sara Kingdom, who initially appears ruthless and dedicated to the Space Security Service but who later suffers grief and a guilty conscience when she realises that her unswerving obedience has led her to obey orders far too readily, including wrongly killing her own brother. She\u2019s not a character we can easily feel affection for, and even her supposed toughness doesn\u2019t quite ring true, as she screams when she sees the Monk swathed in bandages, mistaking him for a mummy. That said, it\u2019s impossible not to feel shocked when the Time Destructor ages her to death in that grim finale.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Doctor vs. the Daleks\u2019 fixture may have been starting to feel stale for viewers by this point. \u201cThey\u2019re coming after us again,\u201d says the Doctor, as if in recognition of this. But the metal monsters emphatically restate their nasty credentials several times; they even exterminate some cute white mice, the utter bastards! There\u2019s a terrifically cold line near the end that Russell T. Davies would surely have loved to have written, when the Dalek Supreme orders its cohorts to kill Chen: \u201cTake him away and exterminate him. But do not fire in here. You will damage us, and some of the controls!\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the story itself, there isn\u2019t a lot of depth to Mavic Chen\u2019s character; he\u2019s a B-Movie character played by a Class-A actor, and so Stoney imbues him with intricate subtleties.
\nLike the story itself, there isn\u2019t a lot of depth to Mavic Chen\u2019s character; he\u2019s a Grade-A galactic villain in the vein of Ming the Merciless, an impression enforced by his bizarre appearance (a result of Caucasian actor Kevin Stoney being unconvincingly \u2018blackened up\u2019 to play him). We get very little background on Chen, though we have no doubts about his arrogance and his lust for absolute power. He\u2019s a B-Movie character played by a Class-A actor, and so Stoney imbues him with intricate subtleties \u2013 he holds a pen in an engagingly odd manner; he has the sheer cheek to slap a Dalek\u2019s eye stalk; he has a delightfully disdainful, xenophobic moment when he addresses Zephon: \u201cTraitor? An archaic word for so advanced a\u2026 man as yourself.\u201d Note that pause as he gestures at the alien\u2019s non-humanoid form!<\/p>\n

He\u2019s consistently the most entertaining thing in this story, a silky smooth operator with a purring voice who oozes charm while cunning, arrogance and complete untrustworthiness vie for supremacy on his saturnine features. His motives are clear from the outset: \u201cI am Guardian of the Solar System. Would you be satisfied with just a part of a galaxy?\u201d He presumes he can use the Daleks as allies to conquer the universe before casting them aside, but we know it will end badly for him as early as the second episode, in which a Dalek refers to him as \u2018the creature from Earth.\u2019<\/p>\n

There aren\u2019t any truly deep, underlying themes in Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner\u2019s scripts, which could be seen as workmanlike by some; sacrifice, bravery, treachery and ambition are the order of the day. The plotting and counter-plotting between Chen, the Daleks and their Alliance and the Space Security Service, plus the use of certain motifs such as a prison planet, prefigure Nation\u2019s work a decade later on Blake\u2019s 7. Where this story scores highly is in its presentation. Some of the sets by Barry Newbery and Raymond P. Cusick are excellent, particularly the conference room in the Dalek city, the jungles of Kembel and Mira, and the matter dissemination chamber on Earth. A falling-out between director Douglas Camfield and incidental music maestro Dudley Simpson led to a more percussive score by Tristram Cary being used for this serial, and it works, underscoring the more severe moments perfectly.<\/p>\n

The twelve episodes are replete with standout scenes and moments: the Doctor returning to the TARDIS in the jungle on Kembel after spying on the Dalek city, only to find that there are Daleks waiting outside his ship in episode one\u2019s cliffhanger; the eerie \u2018cosmic dripping tap\u2019 sound effect of the matter disseminator; Mavic Chen\u2019s face as he surveys a burning jungle from within the Dalek city on Kembel, the light of the fire from outside flickering across his face; the diverse alien members of the Dalek alliance thumping their claws and fists on the conference table \u2013 a strikingly cinematic moment worthy of Stanley Kubrick.<\/p>\n

The final episode alone, The Destruction of Time feels remarkably brutal forty-six years later; Sara and the Daleks are aged to death in seconds as Kembel is reduced to a desert.
\nBut the final episode alone, The Destruction of Time, is worthy of special attention. The Doctor activates the Time Destructor on Kembel in a desperate attempt to beat the Daleks. Several minutes ensue with little or no dialogue, just the relentless, creepy ticking of the Time Destructor as it builds in power, and an alarming, howling wind which intensifies as the device affects all the living matter around it (Camfield would use a similar trick with equal success in Inferno, which features the constant sound of the giant drill to signify impending doom and increase the tension). What follows still feels remarkably brutal forty-six years later; Sara and the Daleks are aged to death in seconds as Kembel is reduced to a desert; the Doctor also begins to age rapidly, and while this process appears reversed when the Destructor burns itself out, it\u2019s not improbable to surmise that it results ultimately in the Doctor regenerating before 1966 is over. Steven remembers their fallen comrades, cutting short the Doctor\u2019s exultant talk of ridding this planet of Daleks.<\/p>\n

\u2018A waste\u2026 what a terrible waste,\u2019 murmurs the Doctor before they solemnly depart in the TARDIS. Triumphs, including exceptional slices of Doctor Who, have rarely been as hard won as this.