Season Three

Was Season three the longest season ever? I wouldn’t be at all surprised. It was a massive 10 stories long for a start, and even if you say, yes, well, Mission to the Unknown was only 1 episode, the fact is that the Daleks’ Masterplan was 12 episodes!

Season three for me saw the best of the comedy historicals, in Donald Cotton’s clever and funny The Myth Makers. John Lucarotti’s “The Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve” was right up there with his own “The Aztecs” as the most enjoyable of all of the historicals, and maybe even better. If we’re trying to characterise Season Three, I think I can discern at least a couple of trends, namely –

A hefty turnover of companions. Yes, this season saw the Doctor say goodbye, for one reason or another, to Vicky, Katerina, Sara and Steven. Alright, Sara was maybe never conceived as a long term companion, and Jean Marsh has gone on record as saying that she had no intention of carrying on the role even if they had asked her to. The haste with which Katerina was discarded, though, smacks of a lack of foresight and planning. Somehow as well I get the impression that nobody really sat down and worked out what Dodo was going to be like either. So I don’t know whether Dodo was just poorly written, or poorly acted by Jackie Lane, but she never convinced me. What was she doing on the TARDIS? She just sort of arrived. What did she get out of being on the TARDIS? Probably exactly the same as what she would have got out of sitting on a chair in Wimbledon Common for a couple of months. Stupid is as stupid does.

The sidelining of William Hartnell. – In both “The Massacre” and “The Celestial Toymaker” the Doctor disappears for much of the story. In “The Savages” he spends a whole episode comatose. By the end of the third season William Hartnell only has 2 stories left as the Doctorand it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that for producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Gerry Davies this wouldn’t be a moment too soon.

Stories that had interesting concepts, but were not properly realised on screen. Of course I’m referring to the Celestial Toymaker – I’ve already seen how cuts affected the script and what eventually appeared on screen, but it’s also largely true of the Ark, which started so brilliantly, but finished as a rather tame piece of space opera.

I do think we’re in a position to make some reflections on the Hartnell era as a whole, but as there are two stories still to go it is only fair that we watch them first. So let’s have a look at how the stories of the third season rated.

Mighty 200 Positions

The Daleks Masterplan – 42

The Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve – 86

The War Machines – 108

The Myth Makers – 126

Mission to the Unknown – 133

The Celestial Toymaker – 151

The Ark – 154

The Savages 162

Galaxy 4 – 172

The Gunfighters – 175

Now my rating

The Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve

The Myth Makers

The Daleks’ Masterplan

The Savages

The Ark

The Gunfighters

The War Machines

The Celestial Toymaker

Mission to the Unknown

Galaxy 4

The War machines so far down? Well, this is a personal list, and it comes down to enjoyment. The fact is that the last two episodes of The Ark are poor, but I enjoyed the first two episodes so much that I can’t honestly put it any further down the list even though the last to episodes are rubbish. Am I really saying that I enjoyed The Gunfighters that much more than the War Machines? Too right I am. The Gunfighters has it hands down for me. I’ve already put on record how much I enjoyed the Massacre, and while The Daleks Masterplan has some wonderful moments, it is uneven, which is only what you’d expect from such a mammoth twelve parter. 

27: The War Machines

Before Watching

The reputation of this story precedes it. The first Doctor Who story entirely set on contemporary Earth. The first ‘megalomaniac giant computer’ story. The first story in which not one companion remains from the previous story by the end of it. Think about that one for a minute. In “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” Susan leave, but Ian and Barbara stay. In “The Chase” Ian and Barbara leave but Vicky stays. In “The Myth Makers” Vicky leaves but Steven stays. In “The Savages” Steven left but Dodo stayed – unfortunately.

It’s often been said that the UNIT era during Jon Pertwee’s tenure owes a lot to this story, “The Web of Fear” and “The Invasion”. So it will be interesting to see just how true this will prove to be, and whether there is a recognizable development, or whether it’s just a superficial similarity based upon the fact that “The War Machines” is set in contemporary Britain.

After Watching

Well, yes, on reflection, you can see some of the features of the UNIT era which are also apparent in this story. WOTAN, the megalomaniac supercomputer, capable of mind control, seems to me to be a close cousin of BOSS, the computer in The Green Death.

The Doctor seems to be no stranger to officialdom either. He effortlessly talks his way in to see WOTAN, and is quite chummy with the Minister all the way through. Professor Brett, the unfortunate inventor of WOTAN – why does everyone call it VOTAN by the way – seems very chummy with the Doctor as well. In fact the first 15 minutes or so of the first episode remind me a lot of a number of stories from the Pertwee era, with the Doctor popping in to look at some research project or other which is just about to be hijacked, or to go terribly wrong.

This story seems to be pretty much a sea change for the Doctor and for the series as a whole– something you can tell right from the way that the title – the Machines together with the number of each episode, is typed up on the screen in that futuristic and asymmetrical font they used to use in the 60s and 70s to make things look futuristic. The story is an interesting inversion – by this stage of the show the Doctor is our point of fixed reference, a point of normalcy with which we the viewers can identify. Here, though, presumably the original viewers could have identified with a great deal more in this story. Blimey, I was only born in 1964, but a lot of the London in which the story is set still looks pretty familiar to me. This does affect the atmosphere of the show, in a way which is going to be picked up by The Web Planet and The Invasion in the next few years.

I kind of think that the machines themselves are the last attempt for this season at least to make something with the popular appeal of the Daleks. In some shots they are pretty impressive, but the fire extinguisher guns are a mistake – not unlike the guns the Daleks use in the two Peter Cushing films. They’re a decent enough attempt, and some of the scenes of them trundling along the streets of London are effective.

There were some pretty funny things going on with the regular cast by this time. Apologies if what I say is inaccurate, but it’s what I’ve read. Clashes with William Hartnell allegedly led to John Wiles quitting the show as producer, and Innes Lloyd was reputed to want to replace him asap. Actually, as far as screen time goes, The War Machines plays a lot fairer by William Hartnell than the Massacre, The Celestial Toymaker, and even The Savages did. But the messing around with Hartnell really pales into insignificance next to the very cavalier way that Dodo is dropped from the show. because that’s exactly what she is. There’s no leaving scene at all. Dodo’s mind – what there is of it – is put under the control of WOTAN. After the Doctor uses hypnosis to free her from its control he sits her on a chair, then arranges for her to go to the Minister’s place in the country to recover. She never comes back! All that happens is she sends a letter to the Doctor telling him that she’s off in the last scene. I suppose it’s better than sacrificing yourself like Sara or Katarina, but at least they got to do it on screen.

Which brings me to the new companions, Polly and Ben. Polly, played by stunning Anneke Wills, former Mrs. Michael Gough, is a PA (what else in the 1960s?) working for Professor Brett. Ben is a sailor that Polly meets when she takes Dodo to a fab and groovy nightspot – a place which the Doctor visits and finds he is actually really on trend clothes wise. It’s probably right that the crew was refreshed at this point. Steven lasted for 11 stories, and that isn’t actually a bad length of time – it’s longer than Susan for example, but I think the possibilities of his character were becoming exhausted, as were the possibilities of finding more and more humiliating things for Peter Purves to do. Good old Peter Purves – always gave full value for money whether in Doctor Who or Blue Peter. As for Dodo, well she only stuck around for 5 stories – 6 if you count her appearance right at the end of the Massacre. She only arrived halfway through this same season, but frankly, that was more than enough. I don’t know that any writer ever really had much of a handle on what she was all about, and she was a bit of a dud. These two at least have a bit of  life about them. Mind you they are going to have to work hard in the Smugglers and The Tenth Planet, because by the end of the Tenth Planet they are going to have to be the focus of normality for the viewers to tide them as gently as possible through the Hartnell to Troughton regeneration.

Back to the War Machines.  I can’t say that I think it’s a classic, because I don’t. I think it’s importance lies in the fact that it is the first story to be set on contemporary Earth – in fact, contemporary London, and as such it was setting a template for a significant amount of what was to follow. As a story in its own right, though, well it’s OK, but I can’t help comparing it with another megalomaniac mind control super computer story, “The Green Death” from the 10^th season during Jon Pertwee’s tenure, which knocked this into a cocked hat.

What Have We Learned?

The Doctor seems to have some friends or at least familiar acquaintances in high places – maybe accumulated during the months that he and Susan were on earth immediately prior to An Unearthly Child. 

26: The Savages

Before Watching

I can say but little about this one. All I remember is that Steven stays behind at the end of the story, and this is Peter Purves’ swansong.

As for the story, well, I must have read the synopsis somewhere along the line, but I can’t remember one thing about it. Still, as my grandmother used to say, “Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.”

After Watching

Maybe I’m going soft, but at least the basic concept of this one seemed to hold a little more water than some. Not for the first time in the show’s history, this is a story which seems to draw some of its inspiration from HG Wells’ The Time Machine. The Doctor and his companions land on a planet in the far future where there seem to be two distinct groups of humans – those who live in the city led by the Elders, and those who live outside in a virtually paleolithic existence, and dubbed by the city dwellers as the savages. By the second episode it becomes clear that the Savages are being kept almost as farm animals. They are harvested, and their life force is technologically drained from them, to augment the life fore of the city dwellers. The average city dweller doesn’t know what is going on, it is all down to their nefarious Elders, led by Frederick Jaeger’s Jano. So, dirty and smelly as they may be, the noble Savages are cast in the role of the Eloi, and the self satisfied and smug city dwellers are the Morlocks. Although the word vampire hasn’t been mentioned I could argue that this is Doctor Who’s first take on the theme of vampirism. It won’t be the last. As I say, at least I can see a motive behind the nastiness that is going on, and that’s always a plus point.

In the first episode as the TARDIS lands the Doctor says we’re so far in the future we’re in an unprecedented age of peace and prosperity. After he goes off wandering with a piece of funny looking equipment called honest to God, a reacting vibrator, for reasons he never really explains, Steven and Dodo deduce that we’re back in the Stone age after seeing one of the Savages. The city soldiers who come to welcome the Doctor have by far the silliest hats since the Robomen.  When the Doctor met the Elders, there was a surprise when I saw that their leader Jano was played by Frederick Jaeger. He appeared in two memorable Tom Baker stories, Planet of Evil, and The Invisible Enemy – he was the creator of K9 in that story. Lot to answer for in my opinion. Jano at least seems to be blacked up – I wonder what made them take that particular decision?

The leader of the soldiers, Exorse has a lightgun which in some shots looked like a seaside telescope – I couldn’t help but wonder if he had to put a shilling in it to fire it? The city set looked quite impressive in some of the snaps.  The light gun has the effect of sapping the will of anyone caught in its beam, and the unlucky recipient in the first episode was a savage girl called Nanina. She looked to be dressed in a costume which reminded one of Raquel Welch’s One Million Years BC. The Savages may have been short on technology, but judging by Nanina they’re not short on hair care products.

Coming back to the City Dwellers, I’ve already drawn the comparison with “The Time Machine”  Actually with the people who show Steve and Dodo around the city not wanting to look through the windows to the outside, and insisting that they have everything they need in the city, I’m also reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s “The City and the Stars.”

Now, here’s a thing. In the end of the first episode Dodo wandered off, and accidentally blundered into the corridor where the scientists release the de-vitalitised savages back into the wild. The two city dwellers who had been showing her and Dodo around, called Avon and Flower suggested that maybe she was hiding playing a game, and Steven replied, “Not even Dodo’s stupid enough for that!” Heartfelt words by the sound of it. Was this a sign that the production team had had enough of Dodo? I know that she disappears for good before the end of the next story.

Hartnell is superb when he confronts the soldier sent to follow him out of the city. He is full of righteous indignation saying “They are men, human beings – like you and me!” Of course the presumably unintentional irony is that he isn’t a human being himself! Which he already told us many stories ago. This continues even more so when he confronts Jano – again a terrific performance from Hartnell. When the Doctor is having his vitality removed, the third assistant is played by Tony Holland, who would go on to create Eastenders just a couple of decades later.

In the third episode Jano takes the intransference – the vitality transfusion – from the Doctor himself. Edorse follows Steven and Dodo into the cave of the savages, and this bit goes on a bit too much. It turns out that it’s another wordless week for Hartnell, as he’s unconscious. There’s just a hint of possible future romance between Exorse and Nanina after she prevents Tor from killing him. You just knew that when Jano recovered he was going to be doing a William Hartnell impression. Which makes no sense. If that was how it worked, then every time someone intransfers savage vitality, then they’d start acting like the savages do.

Oh well, it was nice to get a sudden flash of video towards the end of the third episode, although it only lasted for a couple of seconds. As for the last episode, the big question is how will Jano act when the party of soldiers goes out with him to try to recapture the Doctor, Steven and Dodo? Back in the cave Nanina is having a hard time convincing the rest of the savages not to listen to Tor, and to leave Exorse alone. Her hair still looks lovely though. The Doctor is still suffering from the effects of the vitality transfusion, and Dodo once again shows that she is no mental giant when it turns out that she has had capsules from the Doctor which could have helped him all the time, but forgot. D’oh! Once the Doctor starts to recover he gives us an interesting contrast which shows just how far he and the series has come since An Unearthly Child. That story was all about getting back to the TARDIS and leave well alone. In this one he absolutely refuses to go back to the TARDIS because he wants to stay and help the oppressed people (his words).

Yes, this is a story with its heart in the right place, and you can only applaud the Doctor’s determination to get back into the city to destroy the machinery. Knowing that Jano has been changed through being transfused, the two of them come up with a plan to convince the Elders and soldiers to let them in and start smashing the machinery, which they do with true luddite abandon. Then almost immediately after Jano turns to the savages’ leader Chal and says they will have to all find a new leader, Steven shows leadership quality when the soldiers under Edal burst in. That was handy. Steven is unsure when both the Chal and Jano say he is the man for the job, but the Doctor pushes him forward with almost indecent haste. At least they got a handshake, and he told Steven he was very proud of him. Don’t expect anything like that for you Dodo.

Good old Peter Purves. It didn’t matter how silly the lines he was given were, or how humiliating the things he was asked to do, he always gave it his all.  As for this story, well, it wasn’t at all bad. For all that you could accuse it of being a bit preachy, the fact is that this story had its heart in the right place.

What Have We Learned?

Dodo has the memory of a goldfish

The Doctor is very proud of Steven

25: The Gunfighters

Before Watching

Before it became possible to watch old episodes of “Doctor Who” the wisdom we received from our olders and betters was that “The Gunfighters” was one of the worst Doctor Who stories ever made, and a good reason why nobody should mourn the passing of the historicals as a genre. As good as the reputation of The Celestial Toymaker used to be – the reputation of the Gunfighters has been the complete opposite. I have a clear memory of reading that this story, together with (surprisingly) Planet of Giants, was one of the worst that classic Doctor Who has to offer. It’s a funny thing – while “The Romans” has been approvingly compared with “Carry on Cleo”, “The Gunfighters” has been unfavourably compared with “Carry on Cowboy”.

Television didn’t become a popular mass medium in the UK until the 1950s, when the Coronation was the real catalyst for many households buying or renting their first television. In those first couple of decades of popular television, the 50s and 60s, imported American western ‘cowboy’ shows were a staple of both channels, as they were in the cinema throughout the 50s. When “The Gunfighters” was first broadcast, shows like “The Virginian” and “Gunsmoke” for example were still going strong. If I’m honest, the western genre never really appealed to me in the slightest. To me all that stuff was my Dad’s generation’s thing – he did actually love Westerns, especially those starring John Wayne – and they were not for me. Also, the fact is that Brits just don’t do Westerns very well. Which means I don’t look forward to this show with a great deal of anticipation.

On the other hand, and this may just be perversity on my part, but of the stories with a very poor reputation that I’ve already watched – I found that only “The Web Planet” and “Galaxy 4” really deserved a lot of what was said about it, and even with the Web Planet so much can be forgiven because they were trying something so different to everything that had been done before. “The Keys of Marinus”, and even “The Sensorites” had something to offer. Also, this is scripted by Donald Cotton, who gave us the consistently enjoyable “The Myth Makers” So what the hell. Bring it on.

After Watching

No, this isn’t bad Doctor Who. By whichever standards you might want to judge it, you cannot claim that this is bad Doctor Who. Let’s examine some of the criteria: -

The story and the script: - Like other historicals, this story is based on a real event. The Gunfight at the OK Corral saw a 30 second or so shoot out between Marshal Wyatt Earp, Earp’s brothers and his friend ‘Doc’ Holliday, and the Clantons and Claibornes, in which three of the Clanton side were killed, and men on both sides were injured. It actually only became the most famous shoot out of the Wild West about 50 years later in the 1930s, when a highly romanticised biography of Wyatt Earp was published. It has been the subject of several Hollywood movies.

Donald Cotton, the writer of this story, also wrote “The Myth Makers” and as you would expect, this is not short on comedy. Much of it revolves around a combination of coincidences that see the Doctor being mistaken by the Clantons for Doc Holliday. I wouldn’t claim that it’s laugh a minute, but there are certainly a few laughs, and more importantly the story never really flags. I mean, I don’t even particularly like Westerns, but I found myself hoping that the Doctor, Steven and Dodo would disappear for a while so we could get on with the story. That’s a common failing of Historicals – the fact is that the Travellers can never be that much more than observers to the main story, and as such can come to seem surplus to requirements.

One odd thing about the script was the decision, presumably the director’s, to continually punctuate the action with Lynda Baron’s rendition of The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon. Lynda Baron is best known as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the joyous “Open All Hours”, but she began as a singer as well as an actress, and it has to be said that she does have a terrific singing voice. As an idea it’s neat and original, but the effect is lost because my God, that song is repetitive. We get the same lines over and over again to punctuate the action, and so even when it is actually commenting on what we’ve just seen it’s just annoying.

Sets and Locations: - I have seen it said that this is the first ever television Western filmed in Britain, and this may well be the case, but all of the sets are recognisably ‘wild west’. After all, what do you need? A main street exterior, a saloon bar interior, and a jail lockup. I don’t say for one minute that the sets in “The Gunfighters” looked any cheaper than those in the US made western series which were being aired at the same time.

Performances: It’s easy to be distracted by some of the accents, because the Clantons, for example, are spectacularly bad. God alone knows where Billy’s accent came from, but it certainly wasn’t much further west than Weston Super Mare. In fact everything on the baddies’ side for the first two episodes is purest cardboard, until the arrival of the eponymous Johnny Ringo after whom episode 3 is named. The offhand way in which he shoots the barman at least underlines that there is some threat and menace there.

On the positive side though, Wyatt Earp is acted by John Alderson, who did spend part of his career acting in the USA, and he brings a world weary credibility to the show, especially after his youngest brother Warren is killed by the Clantons. Above all else, though, there is Anthony Jacobs’ Doc Holliday. Jacobs even looks a little like Kirk Douglas’ Doc Holliday from the 1957 film “Gunfight at the OK Corral”, and he’s probably the main character in the story. It’s important that he comes across as a rogue and a cheat, but still one with a little charm and humour, and Anthony Jacobs for me plays this to perfection. As compared to the Clantons, his attitude towards an American accent is to throw the kitchen sink at it, ah doo dee-clare, but it kind of works, and just emphasises his credentials as a genuinely larger than life character.

Given at least a respectable amount of air time in this story, William Hartnell seems to be having great fun. He was an actor who could handle comedy with ease. In the previous story poor, game Peter Purves was expected to dance, and in this one the cringe factor was ramped up to a whole new level by having him sing a different arrangement of the ubiquitous Ballad of the Last chance Saloon. Being Peter Purves he gives it his all. Fair play to him, others might have just gone through the motions.

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Wobbly accents aren’t a good enough reason for panning a story. Neither is the use of a little comedy either. In fact this story does turn from broad farce to the darkest of black humour about halfway through when Ringo enters, and there’s real pathos in Wyatt Earp’s reaction to the murder of his brother Warren. There is also an understated examination of the concept of vigilantism, and whether a lawman such as Wyatt Earp is ever justified in taking the law into his own hands. So “The Gunfighters” may not be to everybody’s taste, but it’s just not fair to call it a bad story, because whichever way you look at it, it isn’t.

What Have We Learned?

Both Steven and Dodo are professional-level piano players

Steven is not a professional level singer

For all that the Doctor says that you can’t change History he still can’t resist trying to now and again

24: The Celestial Toymaker

Before Watching

I love the surreal. One of my earliest memories of Doctor who was watching “The Mind Robber” when it was first broadcast in the late 60s, and seeing Zoe trapped in what I thought was a giant drum. Actually it was a jar. Why? It was all to do with the riddle – when is a door not a door? Now, I can’t say that my love of the surreal can be traced back to watching The Mind Robber when I was a kid – but on the other hand, I can’t swear to it that it wasn’t either.

When I was formulating my mental list of the ‘missing’ stories I most wanted to see, back in the late 70s, “The Celestial Toymaker” was almost universally viewed as a ‘lost, surrealist classic’. If you just read the synopsis, and consider that the Toymaker himself was played by an actor of the calibre of Michael Gough, then you can see why it enjoyed the reputation that it did.

Well, it’s probably not unfair to say that few if any Doctor Who stories have suffered such a drastic critical reappraisal over the years. I’m afraid that many fans don’t have much nice to say about it at all. I intend to try to find out why.

After Watching

There’s bad stories and there’s bad stories. Let me put that another way. You can get a bad story where you just kind of accept it, because it could never be any better bearing in mind the unpromising raw material from which it’s made. Then there’s the kind of bad story which gets you really frustrated because, bearing in mind the raw material it’s made from, it ought to be a lot better than it really is. Such a story is the Celestial Toymaker. Why?

Five Reasons Why The Celestial Toymaker Should Be Better Than It Is.

Michael Gough. The late Michael Gough, who passed away in 2011, was a terrific actor, and had a very fine career both in Britain and in Hollywood – he’s maybe best remembered for playing Alfred the butler in the Tim Burton Batman films. Yet he gives a disappointingly two dimensional performance in the title role of the Toymaker. This is an immortal being of seemingly limitless power. Yet . . . he’s a bore, and he’s made of cardboard. Michael Gough does manage to imbue him with a little bit of feline charm, I suppose, but it’s very tame stuff when compared with what he was capable of. I’m willing to put that down to the script and the direction – although it should be noted that Michael Gough’s later appearance in Doctor Who was as renegade Time Lord Councillor Hedin in another turkey called “The Arc of Infinity”. To appear in one poor story may be seen as unfortunate , to appear in two . . .

William Hartnell. If he was hard done by in “The Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve”, he is almost criminally underused in this. In the cliffhanger at the end of “The Ark” we saw the Doctor starting to fade. For most of this story he’s either invisible or just his hand can be seen (which wasn’t even William Hartnell’s, so the story goes), and for much of this time he is not allowed to speak either. All of which means we never get a really good confrontation scene between the Doctor and the Toymaker – and the irony is that Hartnell is absolutely brilliant at that sort of thing. Just think back to his scenes with the Monk if you want to know what I mean by that. It would surely have helped the character of the Toymaker come across better too.

The Surreal and Nightmarish concept. The unknown is frightening. However, when you can take something that is real, well known, and normally not in the least bit frightening – the trappings of childhood for example – and twist them so that they take on a frightening and sinister aspect, then that can make for great and scarey television. “Doctor Who” would go on to do it on a number of occasions in the future. Yet, and I’m sorry to say this, it just doesn’t come off. The reason is – well – and I admit I have only seen recons of the first three episodes, together with the 4^th episode which does exist – the script and direction consistently undercut any really frightening qualities that the story has. Take the clowns in the first episode. Joey and Clara, well, for all that they are playing a game of Blind Men’s Buff with Steven and Dodo with the stakes being the companions’ continuing humanity – well, they’re just not sinister at all. The only thing they do is to cheat. Big deal. Yet it really isn’t a difficult job to make clowns sinister. Just think of The Greatest Show In The Galaxy , for instance.

In the second episode the game involves Steven and Dodo playing against some playing cards to find the safe chair out of seven. Now, the way the other 6 chairs deal with the sitters is suitably macabre – but it’s all so matter of fact. For the most part it’s just dolls who get their comeuppance, and who cares about that? The level of threat is so downplayed that one suspects even Mary Whitehouse could have watched this story without foaming at the mouth and reaching for her green biro.

The third episode has a protracted game of hunt the thimble, which is punctuated by a long and pointless episode with two characters, Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs. I presume that this part was meant to be funny – although I wouldn’t presume for one moment that anybody has ever found it the least bit amusing, but whether it is funny or just tedious ( it is just tedious) that misses the point. This is totally the wrong place for comedy – and there’s far too much of it anyway. Then Steven and Dodo have just to dance their way around some dancing dolls, and the speed and ease with which they do it suggests that this wasn’t much of a challenge in the first place.

A supporting cast who give their all for a dying cause. That’s a bit mean, but give credit to Campbell Singer, Peter Stephens and Carmen Silvera (Madame Edith from the seemingly endless ‘Allo ‘ Allo) who give it 100%, and they each have to play several roles. Peter Stephens in particular is excellent as cheating schoolboy Cyril. Yes, of course he’s meant to be Billy Bunter. Why they bothered I don’t know. Bunter was a bit of a fool, but he wasn’t renowned for cheating at games or being a bad loser, really. I did read somewhere that Frank Richards took exception to this usurpation of his most famous character - well , it could only have happened through a medium since he died in 1961 – but I digress. Each of them deserves a hell of a lot better than the lines they get given to say, although to be fair Campbell Singer and Carmen Silvera do manage to squeeze just the tiniest bit of pathos from the fact that it seems that if they lose to Steven and Dodo, then what tiny bit of their humanity remains will be lost forever. Now that might have been worth exploring properly in the script. Fat chance.

The Script. Actually you might ask which script. Take one – the original script was written by Brian Hayles. The same Brian Hayles who later created the Ice Warriors, and wrote a further three stories to feature them.  Take two – it was never uncommon for the production team to request rewrites, but Brian Hayles was unavailable to do them. So then script editor Donald Tosh did the rewrites, and it was agreed he would take the writing credit, with Brian Hayles credited with the original idea. No worries there – Donald Tosh co wrote The Massacre so he knew how to write for Doctor Who. Take three. Donald Tosh’s tenure as script editor came to an end, and Gerry Davies took over with new Producer Innes Lloyd before the story would be aired. The budget for the show was cut, which meant that Davies had to do re-writes, which Donald Tosh didn’t like – hence his name being removed from the production, and the writing credit returning to Brian Hayles. So what you actually have is a script by committee, which has undoubtedly been watered down from the original versions in order to save cash. So what ends up on screen is still an intriguing idea, but poorly realised, because they couldn’t afford to do it properly. You can’t blame the cast for that.

How Bad Is The Celestial Toymaker?

It’s not easy to strip away the two layers of reputation that have attached themselves to this story over the years. First of all it was viewed as ‘the great lost classic’ back in the 70s and 80s when it was unavailable in any form, and then, when people could actually hear it and see parts of it the disappointment led to its reputation as a turkey of epic proportions. Even ignoring all of this, and trying to judge it solely on what I’ve seen over the three recons and the surviving episode, it’s very hard to find much that is very positive to say about it. This isn’t a great Doctor Who story, it isn’t even a good Doctor Who story. It isn’t awful though – for example it never descends into the levels of tedium already plumbed by Galaxy Four. It is, though, a good example of why, however good the idea, if you can’t do a particular story properly, then you’re better off not doing it at all. A missed opportunity.

What Have We Learned?

The production team at this point just seem to want to keep Hartnell off screen at all costs

The Doctor has escaped from the Toymaker at some point in his past

The Toymaker is immortal and indestructible. . . and a bit of a bore

23: The Ark

Before Watching

This was another from my Hartnell Hit List. A story whose synopsis really took my imagination decades ago, and which I still think could produce a very interesting and enjoyable story, depending on how it is brought to the screen. The fact that it is not generally regarded as a classic does worry me a little bit. Right, confession time. I have actually seen the first two parts of the story before, way back in the days when UK Gold would sometimes show a whole story late on a Friday night, going into Saturday morning. Little remains of these episodes in my memory though.

It seems like a long time since we’ve had a regular female companion in the TARDIS. With Katarina it was a case of blink and you’ll miss her, and Sara Kingdom was only ever going to be around for the Daleks’ Masterplan. The Massacre was very much Steven’s story to my mind, so it will be interesting to see what Dodo Chaplet brings to the party – if anything.

After Watching

I really don’t know if this is a very original observation to make, but I can’t help thinking that if the 3^rd and 4^th episodes of this story were missing, then it would probably enjoy a far greater reputation than it does, and we’d probably all be lamenting them, and thinking they were a lot better than they actually were.

The direction of the first two episodes is pretty impressive. The TARDIS lands aboard a gigantic spaceship, the Ark of the title. At first they think they’re in a jungle. The Doctor Who set designers loved making a jungle in a studio, and to be fair to them they were very good at it too. The jungle is full of animals, including an honest to gosh, real life elephant. One can only hope that they didn’t have the same kind of problems with her that Peter Purves was soon to encounter with the baby elephant Lulu in the Blue Peter studios.

The Earth is dying, and most of the human race, and animal and plant species have been miniaturized and are being carried on the Ark to a new home on the planet Refusis. The journey will take a good 600 years or so. A crew of humans remains awake and full size, who are called the Guardians. As they die they will be replaced by their children, and their children’s children and so on. This is actually a hard Science Fiction concept, called a generation starship, and has formed the basis of a number of serious science fiction novels. The Guardians are accompanied by a race of mute aliens of somewhat alarming appearance, called the Monoids. Imagine walking treetrunks, with no necks, no leaves, one eye and no mouth, and a beatle wig for hair. Surprisingly, in these first two episodes the Monoids have a strange kind of dignity. I think it was a very good idea to have them voiceless, and it’s one of the beefs I have with the 3^rd and 4^th episodes that they give the Monoids voices.

The Sci fi content continues to be pleasingly high in the first two episodes when it transpires that the Guardians’ ancestors wiped out the common cold many generations before. As a result, they have lost all immunity to it. And so when Dodo’s cold spreads, it becomes a deadly epidemic. The rest of the first two episodes centre around the Doctor’s race to find a cure before the remainders of the Guardians on Monoids turn on them and kill them. There’s a nice plot point where one of the Guardians takes the travelers to show the statue they are building. Each Guardian puts their own bricks in place, so that the statue of a guardian will be completed by the time they arrive on Refusis.

None of which to say that the first two episodes are perfect. For one thing, we see a Guardian court find one of their number guilty of something or other, then sentence him to be miniaturized and stored with the rest of the human race until they arrive at Refusis. I wondered in what way this might be called a punishment. Shades of Dave Lister in Red Dwarf. I’m always quick to highlight the quality of guest performances in Doctor Who, but I’m afraid that some of the acting in the first two episodes is poor. Poor old Inigo Jackson just doesn’t cut it as Zentos, and though I have no doubt he was a very good actor in his own right, in this story his performance is pure mahogany. The denouement of the second episode is very good, though. The TARDIS leaves, and then, of its own volition, seemingly, rematerializes in the same spot. Or so it seems. As the crew leave the TARDIS and start to explore they have no idea that they have rematerialized at the end of the voyage, until they see the statue, and as they look up they realise that it is complete, and more than that, it has the head of a Monoid. That is just a terrific, in fact I’d go so far as to say an iconic cliffhanger.

Trouble is, that’s about as good as it gets for the Ark.

For me, it’s almost as if writer, director et al put their heads together and said – alright – that’s your innovation and originality quota for this story filled, now we can go back to the clichés. So what’s happened? The Monoids have secretly plotted, and with the Guardians’ encouragement and help they’ve developed artificial voice boxes suspended round their necks, and what seem like electronic cattle prods. The cold virus the travelers left behind apparently mutated, and sapped the Guardians’ will, and made them easy meat for the lean – well, leaning – and hungry Monoids. Giving the Monoids voices – especially giving the Monoids mechanical monster voices – of the sort possibly rejected by the Daleks – was a bad move. I don’t know why this should be, but the moment they start talking they look more like men in rubber costumes than ever.

Full marks to the team for trying to give us an alien planet, having the Doctor forced to go down to Refusis with the first Monoid. No marks for the design of the dwelling that the Refusians have prepared for the humans whom they knew were on their way. It’s a little like a trendy designer’s suburban living room from the 60s, which come to think of it was probably the inspiration. The Refusians don’t show their presence from the start, so what does the Monoid do to attract their attention? That’s right – he smashes a vase. It wasn’t even meant to be funny either.

What we’ve got in these last two episodes are, well, rather sub – Terry Nation sort of stuff. There’s a Monoid civil war – hardly enough of them to make it worthwhile I would have thought but there we are. The Refusians are that favourite of designers, a race of invisible aliens. Invisible aliens of incredible power, it turns out, and just as well, because otherwise the humans would never have removed the statue through the airlock, and the bomb that the head Monoid, if you’ll pardon the pun – had planted in it would have killed them all.

In the first series the Doctor and his companions would probably have left once the Refusians do their deus ex machina and bring both humans and Monoids to the table, but the Doctor now can’t resist having the last words, to preach the gospel of tolerance and understanding. Right enough too.

The last two episodes were rubbish, then, but notwithstanding that I still feel a certain undiminished affection for the story. You can’t help feeling that it deserves at least some credit for having a go.

What Have We Learned?

The TARDIS actually does have a mind of its own, and can land itself on a sixpence with pinpoint accuracy if it feels the need to.

22: The Massacre of St. Bartholemew's Eve

Before Watching

Throughout my formative Who-watching years , from the Jon Pertwee era right up until the end of the Tom Baker era, it was pretty much a given that the Doctor only had one companion. Yes, he had the backup of the UNIT lot in Jon’s time, and for a few stories he had Harry Sullivan at the start of Tom’s tenure – but the most part he was with just Liz Shaw – just Jo Grant – just Sarah Jane Smith – just Leela – just Romana (don’t let’s get into how much of a companion K9 was just right now). So it’s with some surprise that I come to realize that as far as I can tell, this is the first story where the Doctor has just the one companion – Steven. Katarina, who only came aboard in The Myth Makers, bit the dust last time out, leaving just Steven. Thinking about it – I’m pretty sure that this will be the only Hartnell story where he has only one companion for its whole duration. I know that Dodo Chaplet rears her homely head right at the end, but that’s after the ‘story’ part of the story is over. Steven leaves at the end of the Savages, but Ben and Polly (we’ll get to them afterwards) are there right throughout The War Machines, and stay right through into Patrick Troughton’s tenure.

As for this story – well, I’ll be honest and say that I’m not looking forward to it. Our last venture into historical France, The Reign of Terror failed to interest me much, and so I’m pretty sure that my candle will remain unlit through this one.

After Watching

One of the first nice surprises about the first episode was the presence of Eric Thompson as Gaston. Nowadays probably best known as the father of double Oscar winner Emma Thompson, Eric Thompson was asked by the BBC to take the tapes of a French programme for young children, called Le Ménage Enchanté – and translate it into English and record the voices for it. The thing was, Eric Thompson didn’t actually speak French. So what he did was to rewrite each episode based on what he saw on screen, and what he created was a thing of great wit and charm, which appealed to adults to an extent as well as the kids it was written for. He also created one of the great characters of kids TV in Dougal. He wrote several books of stories based on the characters, and these were witty and funny and just beautifully written.

To this story, then. The TARDIS has indeed landed in France again, several centuries earlier than in the Reign of Terror. The real life Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve happened in 1572. This is not a period of French history that most viewers would have known a great deal about. Basically, it was a time of great religious upheaval. It was a rather complicated period to try to explain in a few lines, but we’ll try. At the time of the story, the Huguenots – French Calvinist Protestants – were fighting for greater power and acceptance of their religion. They had already been subjected to one terrible massacre at Vassy ten years earlier. Their great hope lay in the fact that the heir to the French throne, Henri de Navarre, was protestant himself. In 1572 the reactionary Catholic, the Duc de Guise, had his supporters murdered the Admiral de Coligny, who had the ear of the King, Charles IX. This began 5 days of Catholic violence against Huguenots, in which perhaps as many as 10,000 were killed. This was known as the St. Bartholemew’s Day Massacre.

When the TARDIS lands, and the Doctor works out where and when they are, he decides to go off on a jolly to visit the scientist Preslin – Elvis Preslin?  - and so he tells Steven all of this as they are sitting in a tavern, and warns him to stay out of trouble. Hello pot – this is the kettle, ringing to tell you that you’re black. Of course, the tavern does happen to be a hot bed of Huguenot intrigue, as Steven falls in with the patently good and earnest David Weston as Nicholas Muss, and the hotheaded Eric Thompson as Gaston de Lerans. They accept Steven into their company and as they are toddling off home, they rescue a frightened servant girl, Anne Chaplet, who tells them she worked for the Abbot of Amboise, and overheard plotting for another massacre like that of Vassy.

There’s an interesting directorial choice here. The decision was made to have Anne say her lines in a ‘peasant’ accent. The trouble is, the more she speaks, especially in the second episode, the more her delivery reminds me of Pam Ayres.

The second pleasant surprise of the first episode was seeing that Preslin was played by Eric Chitty. People of my vintage will remember Eric Chitty as Smithy in the sitcom Please Sir, but for classic era Doctor Who fans he will always be Co ordinator Engin in my all time favourite story “The Deadly Assassin”.

The Doctor fades out of this story about halfway through episode one , but William Hartnell has to play two roles in the story as it turns out. The big cliffhanger at the end of the first episode is that the evil Abbot of Amboise, the architect of the massacre to come, is in fact a dead ringer for the Doctor, and played by Hartnell as well.

Episode two focused largely on the baddies’ attempts to get Anne back, even though half the time they are also saying that she isn’t important. Hmm. It’s a completely Doctorless episode, and so Steven has to take the centre stage a lot, and fair play to good old Peter Purves, he has a pretty good lash at it as well. He is with his Huguenot mates when he sees the Abbot of Amboise, whom he immediately identifies as the Doctor. Made aware of his mistake he gets Nicholas to take him to Preslin’s, where a dotty old bag tells him that Preslin has been in prison for the last two years. Huh? Steven gives an angry Nicholas the slip, then later overhears the Catholic baddies discussing plans to murder the Sea Beggar. He tries to tell the Huguenots, but Gaston is having none of it, and even draws on Steven, who saves himself by not fighting. Hmm. Gaston won’t listen to him, and sends him away. Again, we got a nicely different type of cliffhanger in this episode, which ends with the Admiral Coligny revealing that his championing of a treaty with the Dutch against Spain has earned him the nickname of the Sea Beggar. Oooh!

I was really enjoying this story, and hoping that episode three would be as good as the first two, and . . . it was! What I think happened is that the production team made a tense, well written political drama, and I found that I was being drawn into the goings on in and outside the royal court. In fact, Steven’s actions came to be something of a diversion, and I almost wished he’d just let the story get on with it. I don’t know if it does help to already know something about the background leading up to the massacre, for example,  I was a little confused when Coligny survived the assassination attempt, since Coligny’s assassination was actually the catalyst for the atrocities that followed. Here might be the time to mention the number of other good actors who turn in fine performances – Leonard Sachs and Andre Morell to name but two. As the episode worked its way to a conclusion though, I did wonder where it was going to go. After all the massacre did actually happen, and nothing Steven or the Doctor could do would prevent it. You can see the swerve the story is taking, though, with the killing of the abbot, and Steven’s fear that he is going to be stranded .

Episode 4 was rather strange – not bad, and not unenjoyable, but strange. In fact it was very enjoyable, but it was remarkable how quickly the story leaves behind the political drama. The Doctor suddenly reappears, and refuses to explain his absence other than the fact he has been held up. I can’t help thinking that William Hartnell has been rather shabbily treated in this story – all in all he must have been absent for over 2 episodes’ length. Yes, he got to do the cameo as the Abbot, but it’s not the same as having a sizable amount to do as the Doctor. He always rose to the occasion when he was given a script as good as this one as well. He hasn’t been back 5 minutes when he’s reaffirming the Aztecs doctrine – namely that you can’t change History, not one line of it. Oh yeah? Why did you spend so much energy thwarting the Monk, then? Why not just sit back and wait for it all to go pear shaped? It’s not the only throwback to an earlier series in this episode either. The Doctor’s haste to get to the TARDIS and get out is very familiar, and some of his former harshness seems rather evident in the way that he insists that Anne Chaplet should go to her auntie, rather than accompanying them. Mind you, considering what happened to his last two female assistants I suppose you can’t blame him. To lose one companion may be looked on as misfortune, but to lose two . . .

Whether you liked or disliked this episode  (I loved it ) there’s no way that you could call it boring. Following their departure we’re treated to a montage of woodcuts showing the horrors of the massacre. That’s something different. Then Steven, disgusted with the Doctor’s attitude to Anne, insists on jumping ship at the next stop. This happens to be Wimbledon Common. Steven hops out, and the Doctor leaves the door open, and then embarks upon a short but mesmerizing monologue about his former companions. Hartnell at his absolute best, showing everyone what they’d been missing during the story. A young dark haired woman with a (vague) resemblance to Susan runs in. The suspicion that she may not be the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer is raised by the fact that she doesn’t seem to notice that the inside is bigger than the outside. Hmm. She is none other than Dodo Chaplet, possibly a descendant of Anne Chaplet, who may have survived the massacre after all. She hasn’t got Anne’s French/mummerset accent though. Dodo is determinedly Mancunian. Well, we’ll see how long she keeps that up.

Make no bones – that was great. Seriously, Doctor Who at its best

What have we learned?

Apparently you can’t change time again (but you can)

21: The Daleks' Master Plan : Parts 9 - 12

Episodes 9 – 12

Episode 9 – Golden Death

I find myself hoping that we do actually get some real plot development now. After all, we still have 4 episodes to go, and this story is now in danger of becoming The Chase on a grand scale.

OK – who’s writing this one? Oh, Dennis Spooner again. Right – where are we? Well, in Ancient Egypt so it appears. As the Dalek machine approaches, Chen muses why it is that the TARDIS has landed, and not tried to take off again. The answer is that the Doctor is trying to properly repair the TARDIS lock. So what else actually happens in this episode? Well, the Daleks arrive, Steven and Sara see their ship land, and think it’s the Monk’s. They investigate, but get hauled off by the Egyptians after seeing the Daleks and Chen emerge. The Monk arrives, and walks out of his ship straight into an ambush by Chen and the Daleks. The miserable worm agrees to help them and to get the taranium from the Doctor – who has of course been eavesdropping. He sabotages the Monk’s TARDIS, having removed the directional unit. The Monk tries to get into the Doctor’s TARDIS – can’t, and the Doctor attacks him. Ho hum.

Episode Ten – Escape Switch

Oh, we’re back in live action. That’s a relief. So, Sara and Steven free the Monk from the sarcophagus into which the Doctor put him. Guess what? The three of them get captured by the Daleks. The Monk’s duplicitousness actually saves them when he tells the Daleks that he has brought the Doctor’s companions as hostages, and that the Doctor will exchange the Taranium cores for their release. It’s Chen who latches onto the idea, saying that the Doctor’s loyalty to his companions is unshakeable. I wonder how he can say this based just on his brief acquaintance with the Doctor? Meanwhile, back in pyramid HQ, the Egyptian workers decide that they will attack the Daleks at precisely the same time that the handover is taking place, which enables the Doctor to get away, but not to take the taranium with him.

Having removed the Monk’s directional unit, the Monk’s TARDIS will work, but without the Monk being able to control where it lands. In fact, in exactly the same position that the Doctor himself has been – which at least puts him slightly better off than he was previously, since he’s not marooned. The last we see of the Monk is him swearing to get revenge on the Doctor. Well, it hasn’t happened yet. I know that the Monk has never reappeared (I’m not a subscriber to the Monk-regenerated-and-changed-his-identity- theory) which is a bit of a shame. I think that there was quite a bit of mileage left in the character, but I guess that he was created by Dennis Spooner, whose time as script editor had already ended, and who would not write for the series again. So nobody else fancied resurrecting him. Shame.

Episode 11 – The Abandoned Planet

Guess what? The planet isn’t actually abandoned – it’s just meant to look that way. Things are at last coming to a head. The directional unit despite blowing up seems to have worked since the travelers are actually back on Kembel. The Doctor does make a point of telling us, though, that this is a one shot deal, and it’s definitely up the spout now. So the Doctor heads off back into the Dalek city for a final showdown, and is captured by Chen. As for Steven and Sara, well, they watch Chen’s ship blow up, thinking that he is on board. They then find a doorway in the mountainside which is obviously the way that the Daleks come and go from the city. They conveniently find all of the treacherous allies of the Daleks imprisoned, and free them all to go back and warn their galaxies of the impending Dalek invasion.

I mean, we’re obviously building up to a climax here, but for all of that there isn’t a great sense of urgency. Still, now that we’re coming towards the climax I am actually looking forward to the last episode – and not just because it is the last episode. This story might not necessarily be epic in scope, but it has managed to keep me at least partially interested throughout the 12 episodes, and that’s not easy when you consider that I often fidget through 6 parters.

Episode 12 – Destruction of Time

Well, this is it. Mavic Chen’s usefulness appears to have come to an end as he finally indulges in one carpet chewing scene too many, and the Daleks dispose of him. A shame, perhaps that it’s so abrupt, but it does serve to illustrate the point that however smart you are, ultimately this is exactly what working with Daleks will bring you. It’s much better than, I don’t know, having the incorrigible old Tom Jones lookalike suddenly repent and make some great self sacrificial gesture against the Daleks.

The deus ex machina in this particular situation, then, is actually the Doomsday Weapon itself. The Doctor activates the Time Destructor, and puts the Daleks into the dilemma that they want to shoot the Doctor, but they will destroy their weapon if they do so. It’s very like the stand off with the taranium in earlier episodes.

On the telesnaps the Time Destructor looks just like a globe with some Perspex tubes sticking out of it, but the ticking effect imbues it with a real menace, and for me it dominates the last 15 minutes of the story. The ageing of Sara looks good on the surviving photos – I wouldn’t be surprised if it looked even better in live action. Very hard lines on her though, since all she was trying to do was to help the Doctor. Now, when Steven flicked the switch that put the Time Destructor into reverse, the Doctor was given back the years that had been taken away from him, but it didn’t bring Sara back to life – which is probably just as well since that was a place in which the classic series certainly didn’t want to go. It begs the question, does Sarah Kingdom count as a real companion or not since she only featured in one story? Well, she was certainly in more episodes than her predecessor Katerina was.

It’s difficult to know what to say to sum up The Daleks’ Masterplan in any fair way. It’s sometimes described as epic, which claim can only really be justified in terms of its length. As it is the story itself only really takes place over 11 of the 12 episodes, since you can’t really count The Feast of Steven. I think in some ways it’s quite clever in the way that the story is structured, at least cleverer than it’s often given credit for. The first 4 episodes for example foreground Bret Vyon. The next two are about Sara Kingdom and how she becomes a companion. Episode 7 is a lighthearted pantomime – which works like a caesura in the development of the story. Episodes 8,9 and 10 benefit from the Monk’s presence, while the last 2 endings are the climax. 

What Have We Learned?

It is possible to construct a story which plays out over twelve episodes. Whether it is a good idea to do so is another question.

Ancient Egyptians were wimps.

The Monk presumably is still out there somewhere, endlessly wandering

Taranium comes from Uranus

21: The Daleks' Master Plan : Parts 1 - 4

Before Watching

My impression, judging by Mission to the Unknown, is that this should be a return to the more familiar ‘serious’ Dalek mode, after the supposedly comedic excesses of The Chase. I’ve already made my mixed feelings about the Daleks clear, and the thought of twelve consecutive episodes of them doesn’t exactly fill me with anticipation.

There are a couple of things which hold out some hope to me, of course. Jean Marsh is always good value and brings a little touch of class to whatever she appears in. Nicholas Courtney’s first Doctor Who role as Bret Vyon should be worth watching. Then there’s the reappearance of the Monk, which I know happens sometime in the second half of the story.

Since this is no ordinary Doctor Who story, what I’ve decided to do is to try to review it in three chunks of 4 episodes each.

After Watching

Episodes 1 – 4

I think that part of my problem with this story so far isn’t that it isn’t any good, but just that it really isn’t all that much my sort of thing. I’ll try to explain.

Now, as we know from “Mission to the Unknown”, the Daleks plan to invade our galaxy, using an alliance of outlying planets and systems. “Mission to the Unknown” took place on the jungle planet Kembel. The TARDIS lands on this planet, since the Doctor needs to find medical aid for Steven who was injured in Troy. He meets Bret Vyon. Now, I’m sure that all even slightly well informed fans know that Bret Vyon was the first character in Doctor Who to be played by Nicholas Courtney, who would go on to play Colonel, then Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart from The Web of Fear with Patrick Troughton, until The Terror of the Zygons with Tom Baker, then a couple of guest appearances in The Five Doctors, Mawdryn Undead, and Battlefield. The Doctor becomes caught up in Vyon’s mission to find out what happened to Agent Marc Cory from “Mission to the Unknown”. Despite their initial antagonism towards each other they discover not only the Daleks’ plan, but also that Mavic Chen – Guardian of the Solar System, is treacherously in league with the Daleks.

The Daleks’ Master Plan of the title centres on their use of their latest Doomsday weapon, the Time Destructor – which I presume will do exactly what it says on the tin. To work, the Time Destructor needs a core of the mineral taranium, which happens to be the rarest in the Universe – and this is where Mavic Chen comes in, for he supplies it to the Daleks. The Doctor, who disguises himself as one of the delegates, steals the core, and he, Bret Vyon, Steve and Katarina escape on Chen’s Spar – an ultra-modern spaceship as opposed to an old-fashioned corner shop. Their plan – to deny the Daleks the taranium cores they need, and to inform Earth of Chen’s treachery – they handily found Marc Cory’s tapes on Kembel as proof.

Now, OK, as a set of 4 episodes the first 4 are coherent, and do follow a tight, internal logic. The development of the relationship between Bret Vyon and the Doctor is not without interest. There’s plenty of action and incident as you’d expect from a Terry Nation script – alright, Terry Nation only wrote some of the episodes, the others being written by Dennis Spooner.  But. . . well, I know that this is sacrilege to some people, but in some ways the story so far has reminded me a little of a Blake’s Seven style space opera, and I’m afraid I was never a great fan of Blake’s Seven.

I’ve gone on record before with my ambivalence towards the Daleks. I respect their contribution to the success of Doctor Who, and when I was a kid I was just as prone to running around the playground with one arm out shouting “Exterminate!” as anyone. But I found classic Doctor Who Daleks often to be two dimensional and rather repetitive – although to be fair some of the Dalek stories, such as Genesis of the Daleks did rise well above the common herd. The ‘new’ series Daleks, revived in Rob Shearman’s ‘Dalek’ are far more interesting. Now the Daleks so far in this story have at least been rather more serious and threatening than we saw in The Chase, which is all to the good. But however you dress it up, you can have spam with eggs, spam with beans, or spam with bread and butter, but at the end of the day it’s still spam, if you know what I mean. No? Well, the Daleks are always just Daleks.

The Daleks force the Spar (where did they get that name from? And more importantly, why?) to crash land on a prison planet, Desparus. Before they can take off again, a convict sneaks into the airlock, and he traps Katarina in there with him after they take off. Katarina makes the ultimate sacrifice, opening the airlock to become the first companion to die. This is a hugely dramatic moment, and it’s a shame that this only exists in still photos – and not many of them either, judging by the recon I was watching. I can’t help saying that it is something of a jarring note, though. This is the first time that the Doctor has taken someone on his travels in the TARDIS, and not either returned them (close to) home, or left them in a better situation than the one they came from. Now, you can argue that Katarina may well now be in a better place, but that’s an article of faith, not fact. For me the whole thing was just a little callous, and smacked of just wanting to get rid of a tricky companion who was proving far too difficult to write convincingly for. Almost as shocking was the sudden death of Bret Vyon, gunned down by his sister Sara Kingdom, who has been told he is a traitor.

Well, as I say, I doubt that “The Daleks’ Masterplan” is going to make it onto my all time top 10, but it’s not without its positive attributes so far. There’s precious little slack in these first four episodes, although I could do with a little less of the convicts nattering to each other. I’ve mentioned Mavic Chen. He’s played by an actor called Kevin Stoney, and his appearance is somewhat similar to the current appearance of Sir Tom Jones, what with the perma tan and the shocking white hair and beard. He is terrific though. In the recons he’s consistently the most interesting thing on the menus in this, and that’s just with his voice. In the second episode, “Day of Armageddon”, which still exists, it is very difficult to tear your eyes away from him when he’s on screen.

Overall, well, I’ve seen better, but crucially, I have also seen worse. This hasn’t yet outstayed its welcome, and I’m pretty much ready to watch the next four episodes.

What Have We Learned?

Being a companion of the Doctor just became very dangerous

Taranium is the rarest mineral in the Universe, until the next rarest metal in the universe comes along.