The Daleks' Master Plan

The Daleks' Master Plan is a good serial. It's so good that I'm just going to breeze past all of the white actors playing various Asian and Egyptian characters, #DoctorWhoSoWhite. And watching it now, some 50+ years after it was made, it's interesting to take stock of all of things that make this particular serial so unique. At 12 episodes in length (13 if you count Mission to the Unknown), The Daleks' Master Plan is the longest serial in the "Classic" run of Doctor Who. It has the first Christmas episode. It's the first time we see actor Nicholas Courtney on the show, an actor who would end up making regular appearances throughout the entire Doctor Who series. And for the first time, one of the Doctor's companions dies. Yes, poor old Katarina, the young handmaiden from the ancient city of Troy, dies after being ejected from an air lock. There are actually quite a few deaths in this serial. So many, in fact, that they wouldn't show it in Australia because they deemed it "unsuitable for minors." This serial also has some great episode titles. They stopped naming the individual episodes later on in Season 3, which is a shame when we got titles like "The Nightmare Begins," "Golden Death," and "The Abandoned Planet." Dibs on calling my band Abandoned Planet, by the way. Oh yeah, and the Monk from The Time Meddler shows up for a few episodes. The first time a villain other the Daleks makes a return appearance. Only 3 episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan are known to exist today, which means you'll have to sit through reconstructions of the missing episodes if you want to check this one out. Honestly though, if you're interested in the First Doctor era, it's worth making the effort to see this serial.

Rating: Now will you shut up, sir? Hmm?%