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
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