The Daleks' Master Plan

021 – The Daleks' Master Plan
Doctor Who serial
The Daleks confer with Mavic Chen
Cast
Doctor William Hartnell (First Doctor)
Companions Peter Purves (Steven Taylor) Adrienne Hill (Katarina) Jean Marsh (Sara Kingdom) [1][2][3][4][5][6]
Others Peter Butterworth — The Monk Nicholas Courtney — Bret Vyon Brian Cant — Kert Gantry Kevin Stoney — Mavic Chen Maurice Browning — Karlton Julian Sherrier — Zephon Roy Evans — Trantis Bryan Mosley — Malpha / Prop Man Terence Woodfield — Celation Pamela Greer — Lizan Philip Anthony — Roald Douglas Sheldon — Kirksen Dallas Cavell — Bors Geoffrey Cheshire — Garge Roger Avon — Daxtar James Hall — Borkar Bill Meilen — Froyn John Herrington — Rhynmal Robert Jewell, Kevin Manser, John Scott Martin, Gerald Taylor — Daleks David Graham, Peter Hawkins — Dalek Voices Michael Guest — Interviewer Clifford Earl, Norman Mitchell, Malcolm Rogers, Kenneth Thornett — Policemen Reg Pritchard — Man in Mackintosh Sheila Dunn — Blossom Lefevre Leonard Grahame — Darcy Tranton Royston Tickner — Steinberger P. Green Mark Ross — Ingmar Knopf Conrad Monk — Assistant Director David James — Arab Sheik Paula Topham — Vamp Robert G. Jewell — Clown Albert Barrington — Professor Webster Steve Machin — Cameraman Roger Brierley — Trevor Bruce Wightman — Scott Jeffrey Isaac — Khepren Derek Ware — Tuthmos Walter Randall — Hyksos May Warden — Elderly Sara Kingdom
Production
Writer	Terry Nation (episodes 1-5, 7) Dennis Spooner (episodes 6, 8-12)
Director	Douglas Camfield
Script editor	Donald Tosh
Producer	John Wiles
Executive producer(s)	None
Production code	V
Series	Season 3
Length	12 episodes, 25 minutes each
Date started	13 November 1965
Date ended	29 January 1966
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Myth Makers The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve

The Daleks' Master Plan is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The twelve episodes (the most of any Doctor Who serial, excluding the four 1986 stories that were together called The Trial of a Time Lord) were aired from 13 November 1965 to 29 January 1966. This serial marks the final appearance of Adrienne Hill as companion Katarina, the only appearance of Jean Marsh as Sara Kingdom and the first ever death of a companion. It was the second Doctor Who story never to be screened in Australia, due to censorship problems. The episode marks the first appearance of Nicholas Courtney in Doctor Who, here playing space security agent Bret Vyon.

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Script 2.1.1 The Christmas episode 2.2 Cast notes 2.3 Missing episodes 3 On stage 4 In print 5 VHS, DVD and CD releases 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Reviews 7.2 Target novelisation 7.3 Audio Adaptation

Plot

Some six months after the events of "Mission to the Unknown", the TARDIS arrives on the planet Kembel, and the Doctor leaves the TARDIS to try to find medical aid for the wounded Steven, leaving him with the Trojan servant girl Katarina.

Meanwhile, two Space Agents, Bret Vyon and the injured Kert Gantry, are also on the planet trying to find out what happened to their agent, Marc Cory. Eventually Gantry tells Vyon to go on without him, as he will slow Vyon down. Seconds after Vyon leaves, a Dalek finds Gantry and kills him. Vyon then spots the Doctor leaving the TARDIS, and takes the key from him at gunpoint. Eventually finding the TARDIS, Vyon demands that the occupants take him off the planet, but Katarina barely understands what's going on, much less how to work the ship. Steven then briefly recovers and knocks Vyon out after seeing him threaten Katarina. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and finds that Vyon left the key in the door. The Doctor freely enters the TARDIS and places knocked out Vyon in a restraining chair then goes back outside.

On Earth, Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, announces to the people that he will be going on a break. However, in reality he is joining the alliance that has been formed by the Daleks, and arrives on the planet Kembel soon afterwards.

Seeing Chen's spaceship (termed a "spar") arrive, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, only to find it surrounded by Daleks.

Katarina had released Vyon, who cured Steven with some field medicine (two white tablets that he has in his jacket pocket), and they meet up with the Doctor soon after, just as the Daleks set fire to the jungle in order to drive out any further intruders. While the alliance prepares for a meeting of its leaders, Chen and another leader, Zephon, watch the jungle burn. Chen goes to the meeting, but Zephon refuses to go with him, saying that he will go when he feels like it. The Doctor and his companions infiltrate the city, and spot Zephon going to the meeting. They knock Zephon out, tie him up, dress the Doctor up in Zephon's large cloak and send him to the meeting while the other three break into Chen's spar.

Arriving at the meeting, the other leaders express irritation at the lateness of "Zephon." The meeting begins, and the Dalek Supreme reports that their ultimate weapon, the Time Destructor, is now complete. Chen reveals that he has procured a sample of the extremely rare mineral taranium (it takes 50 Earth years to produce tiny amount of it), a vital part to operate the Time Destructor. Meanwhile, the real Zephon has managed to untie himself and sounds the alarm. In the resulting confusion, the Doctor steals the taranium and flees. However, Vyon hears the alarm and prepares to take off in the spar without him.

The Doctor manages to get to Chen's spar just in time for take-off. The Daleks blame Zephon for the situation, saying that his tardiness caused the Doctor and companions to find him, but Zephon defends his actions and accuses Chen of arranging to have the taranium stolen back. Chen says that Zephon's accusation is nonsensical and the Daleks agree, concluding that Zephon is the one who's responsible. Zephon tells the Daleks that two of the other leaders will also leave if he does, only to have the leaders in question to swear allegiance to the Daleks. Finally, Zephon announces that he is leaving the alliance. He does not get the chance — a Dalek kills him as he goes to leave.

On course for Earth, the Doctor reveals that he found a tape while he was in the jungle. The group plays it back, and it turns out to be from Agent Cory, whose brief statements confirm what they already know. As they near the prison planet Desperus — where convicts are simply left, without having any guards or means of escape — the Daleks use a randomiser to disable the controls of the spar. The spar crashes down towards the planet below, causing minor damage to the ship upon landing. Realising that the impact should have totally destroyed the spar, the four conclude that the Daleks want them alive and quickly begin repairing the ship. Upon seeing the landing, a group of prisoners attempt to get on-board, but the Doctor electrifies the ship entrance and the prisoners are knocked unconscious. A Dalek ship arrives, but misjudges its landing and suffers a crippling crash. The spar manages to take off again, and Katarina goes to check the airlock but finds a convict who managed to get onboard just before take-off, the other prisoners having discharged the electricity in the ship's entrance.

The convict, Kirksen, holds Katarina at knifepoint and threatens to kill her unless the travellers take him to the nearest planet — Kembel. The group eventually decides to comply, but their decision soon proves irrelevant as Katarina activates the airlock, blowing her and Kirksen into space. Stunned, Steven suggests that she must have done it accidentally, but the Doctor thinks that it was deliberate.

Upon seeing the events, the Daleks remotely destroy the pursuit ship for their failure to land properly, but seem satisfied that the delay caused by the crash will allow Chen enough time to get to Earth and have the trio arrested when they arrive.

Arriving on Earth, the three evade detection, and go to see Vyon's old friend, Daxtar. Daxtar initially seems co-operative, but the Doctor realises he's allied with Chen when he mentions the taranium before anyone else does. Vyon quickly kills Daxtar, much to the Doctor's annoyance, but there's little time to dwell on this as Chen's security agents, led by Sara Kingdom, arrive. Vyon allows the Doctor and Steven to get away by throwing himself at Kingdom, but she overpowers and kills him. She orders Borkar, her colleague, to "shoot on sight" at the intruders.

Sara Kingdom chases the Doctor and Steven to a laboratory, where they are all accidentally caught up in a molecular dissemination experiment and are transported to the planet Mira.

Chen pretends that he planned this accident, and tells the Daleks where to find the Doctor and Steven. On Mira, Kingdom (who turns out to be Vyon's sister) is forced to join forces with the Doctor and Steven as they are attacked by savage invisible creatures. The Doctor and Steven manage to convince Sara of Chen and the Daleks' true intentions, just as a Dalek ship arrives. The Daleks fend off an attack from the invisible creatures, and demand that the three surrender. The Doctor reluctantly announces that "the Daleks have won."

Fortunately for the Doctor and his companions, more invisible creatures attack, allowing the three to escape and steal the Dalek ship. They try to return to Earth, but the Daleks take control of the ship remotely then use a magnetic beam to draw it to Kembel. Realising that they don't have much time, the Doctor decides to build a fake taranium core, which he can give to the Daleks while keeping the real one. Steven then gets the idea to charge up the fake core with gravitic energy, but in the process encloses himself in a forcefield and is left barely conscious.

Upon landing, the three negotiate with Chen (who has since returned to Kembel) to be allowed to conduct the handover of the (fake) taranium core at the TARDIS. The Daleks refuse, but Chen persuades the Daleks that they don't have anything to lose, thinking that the Doctor will be unable to stop them after the core has been handed over. The Doctor and Sara return to the TARDIS, while Steven hands over the core. The Daleks try to kill him, but the forcefield manages to protect him, though it is exhausted in the process.

After leaving Kembel, the TARDIS lands, but the Doctor warns that "the atmosphere outside is entirely poisonous."

The group has actually landed in 1960s England, outside a police station. They get themselves arrested, but later manage to escape. The TARDIS next lands on the set of a silent film, causing many problems for the film crew (such as the Doctor being mistaken for a cultural advisor and the lead actress nearly quitting because she thinks the director wants to replace her with Sara) before escaping. Upon their escape, they have a toast to Christmas, and the Doctor wishes a happy Christmas to the viewers (one of only a handful of occasions in which a character breaks the fourth wall).

Meanwhile, back on Kembel, the fake taranium core is fitted to the Time Destructor, which is then tested on another representative, Trantis, who has proven useless to the Daleks. However, there is no effect and the fake core quickly exhausts itself, leaving Trantis totally unharmed. The Daleks accuse Chen of lying about the taranium, when Chen realises that it was the Doctor that switched the cores. The Daleks send a request to Skaro for a time machine, in order to pursue the Doctor. Trantis is then killed by a Dalek.

The TARDIS briefly lands back on Earth during a cricket match, then on a volcanic planet. The three travellers have been followed by the Meddling Monk, who damages the TARDIS's door lock, then mockingly informs the Doctor and companions that they are stranded on the planet for the rest of their lives. Not to be deterred, the Doctor performs makeshift repairs to the lock, and gets back inside the TARDIS. The Monk is surprised by this, but follows the Doctor to his next destination.

Meanwhile, the Daleks' time machine has arrived on Kembel. The task force leaves in it and the rest of the Daleks join the Supreme in a victory chant.

The Doctor and his companions and the Monk arrive in ancient Egypt, along with Mavic Chen and the Daleks, who begin their search for the taranium.

Realising that the Monk and someone else has arrived, Steven and Sara go to find out who it is while the Doctor repairs the lock, but are arrested as looters by the guards of the nearby pyramid and accused of being in league with the Daleks, who have killed a number of other guards. While the two make their escape the Monk tries to find the Doctor, but is instead found by Chen who offers him an ultimatum — help them find the taranium or the Daleks will kill him. Unsurprisingly, the Monk accepts.

The Doctor sees the Monk and follows him back to the TARDIS, where he attacks him before leaving. Soon, Steven and Sara return, looking for the Doctor, but instead see a bandage-wrapped hand reaching out from a large box

It is the Monk, wrapped up by the Doctor. Steven and Sara take him to go and find the Doctor. However, they don't get far before being caught by the Daleks and Chen, who demands the taranium. In desperation, the Monk suggests using Steven and Sara as hostages. Chen accepts this, and tells the Daleks that the Doctor will not allow the two to be killed.

As the Doctor breaks into the Monk's TARDIS and steals something, Chen announces over a loudspeaker that unless he hands over the taranium, Sara and Steven will be killed. The Doctor is dismayed, but has little choice but to comply. When he hands over the core, the Daleks try to kill them and the Monk but they all escape, helped by an attack by the Egyptian guards. While the guards disable some of the Daleks, most of them escape and return to their time machine with Chen.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor admits that he did not have time to build another fake, and had to hand over the real taranium. But he's stolen the Monk's directional controller — evidenced when the Monk lands on an ice planet and realises that without having any control over the direction of his TARDIS he now has little chance of ever catching the Doctor.

The Doctor fits the control and takes off, but the console room is engulfed in a flash of white light.

The directional control has burnt itself out almost instantly (due to the Monk's TARDIS being a later model than the Doctor's), but it is enough to get them back to Kembel. The three leave the TARDIS, but Sara and Steven lose the Doctor in the jungle and proceed to the city alone. Upon arrival they find the Dalek city deserted, and the alliance leaders imprisoned. They agree to turn on the Daleks, and in exchange are released from the prison cell. They take off in their ships — apart from Chen, who is apparently killed when his spar explodes just after take-off.

Searching the jungle, they find the entrance to a second, underground city, which the Daleks are now using. As they prepare to enter, Chen returns, having faked his death, and takes the two prisoner. He leads them into the underground city.

They go through the underground city and Chen leads them into the control room in grandiose fashion. Thinking that he was still imprisoned in the first city, the Dalek leader announces that their alliance is over. Chen refuses to accept this, and proclaims himself the leader of the alliance. He tries to kill the Dalek leader, but his blast simply diffuses off the Dalek's shield. The Dalek orders Chen taken outside and killed, causing Chen to flee boasting that he is immortal. He's quickly proven wrong when a Dalek patrol corners him and guns him down.

Taking advantage of the distraction, the Doctor enters the control room and activates the Time Destructor. The Daleks return, but are powerless to do anything due to the danger of the Doctor increasing the Destructor's power. He orders Sara and Steven back to the TARDIS, but Sara refuses to go. The two flee with the Time Destructor through the jungle, which rapidly begins to deteriorate and die. The Daleks pursue them, but seem immune to the effects. The Doctor and Sara reach the TARDIS but have been aged massively by the Destructor. The two collapse and Sara disintegrates. Steven rushes outside and tries to deactivate the Destructor, but cannot do anything. As he begins to rapidly age, he tries to help the Doctor, but is ordered to get back into the TARDIS. Fortunately, when trying to deactivate the destructor he managed to reverse it, thus causing the two to revert to approximately their previous ages. The pursuing Daleks try to destroy the Destructor with their weapons but instead cause it to run uncontrollably fast, destroying the Daleks and reducing the planet to a lifeless, barely habitable wasteland.

The Doctor and Steven emerge from the TARDIS some time later, the Destructor having burnt itself out. "What a terrible waste..." mutters the Doctor, referring to the death and destruction that has taken place.

Continuity

• For the dating of this serial, see the Chronology. The Doctor also makes reference to a Dalek invasion of Earth in the year 2157, though the dating is inconsistent with that of the serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
• The death of Katarina, played by Adrienne Hill, marked the first time a companion of the Doctor had been killed. Hill appeared in a mere five episodes in two serials before her on-screen death. Sara Kingdom (Jean Marsh) also died in this serial.
• A younger version of Mavic Chen appears as a minor character in the Virgin New Adventures novel Legacy by Gary Russell.
• Chen notes that the people of the planet Tisar and the entity The Embodiment Gris have both tried to depose Zephon recently. The indigenous population of Mira are the Visians (who are invisible and, according to the Doctor, eight feet tall and extremely vicious).
• Several pieces of licensed fiction have been set between "The Feast of Steven" and "Volcano", allowing for further adventures with Sara Kingdom. The first of these was a 2003 short story entitled The Little Drummer Boy from the Big Finish book Short Trips: Companions. In 2008, Jean Marsh returned to the role to tell new audio stories for Big Finish, starting with Home Truths. In The Guardian of the Solar System, it is revealed that the TARDIS travels back in time and Sara unintentionally meets Mavic Chen over a year before the events of The Daleks' Master Plan. Sara believes that her interference in this brief sidestep may have driven Chen to strike his deal with the Daleks.
• In the graphic novel The Only Good Dalek, the Eleventh Doctor meets another SSS agent, and uses his old friendship with Bret Vyon and Sara Kingdom as a reference to convince the agent that he can be trusted. The agent in return comments that the Doctor's credentials are impressive but he must have started fighting Daleks at a young age, suggesting that Only Good Dalek takes place a few years after these events given the Doctor's physical youth in his eleventh body.

Production

Serial details by episode

Episode	Broadcast date	Run time	Viewership (in millions)	Archive
"The Nightmare Begins"	13 November 1965 (1965-11-13)	22:55	9.1	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Day of Armageddon"	20 November 1965 (1965-11-20)	24:25	9.8	16mm t/r
"Devil's Planet"	27 November 1965 (1965-11-27)	24:30	10.3	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"The Traitors"	4 December 1965 (1965-12-04)	24:42	9.5	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Counter Plot"	11 December 1965 (1965-12-11)	24:03	9.9	16mm t/r
"Coronas of the Sun"	18 December 1965 (1965-12-18)	24:45	9.1	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"The Feast of Steven"	25 December 1965 (1965-12-25)	24:36	7.9	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Volcano"	1 January 1966 (1966-01-01)	24:42	9.6	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Golden Death"	8 January 1966 (1966-01-08)	24:38	9.2	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"Escape Switch"	15 January 1966 (1966-01-15)	23:37	9.5	16mm t/r
"The Abandoned Planet"	22 January 1966 (1966-01-22)	24:34	9.8	Only stills and/or fragments exist
"The Destruction of Time"	29 January 1966 (1966-01-29)	23:31	8.6	Only stills and/or fragments exist
[7][8][9][10]

The series' soon-to-be regular composer, Dudley Simpson, did not work on this serial owing to a serious dispute with director Douglas Camfield. Some time after the production of the serial The Crusade, the two had a small falling out. On the next serial that Camfield directed (The Time Meddler), Camfield elected to use percussion music, feeling that it lent to the story's atmosphere. However, Simpson interpreted this as a snub by Camfield, causing the dispute to escalate. By the time this serial had entered production, relations between the two had grown so bad that Camfield refused to even consider Simpson, instead hiring Tristram Cary. The dispute was still unresolved at the time of Camfield's death in 1984.

Script

• According to the credits, the serial was written by Terry Nation (episodes 1–5 & 7) and Dennis Spooner (episodes 6, 8–12), with the credit "From an idea by Terry Nation" on Spooner's episodes. Script editor Donald Tosh claimed in an interview that the work done by Nation on the serial amounted to less than 20 pages of work, and that he wrote most of Nation's episodes. However, Doctor Who historian David Brunt has disputed this, saying that Nation submitted over 30 pages of script for each of his episodes (apart from "The Feast of Steven") and that Tosh only polished the dialogue and/or cut scenes out for time or budget reasons.
• Another controversy involves the title of the serial. Perhaps because of the multiple authors and/or typists, virtually every conceivable variant of the title The Daleks' Master Plan was used in contemporary documents, though this version is on a plurality of camera scripts. During production the story was referred to as Twelve Part Dalek Story on some documents.
• The original intention was that the police station scenes of the Christmas episode would feature a crossover with the characters and location of the BBC's popular police drama Z-Cars. However, the Z-Cars production team vetoed the idea, although the Liverpool-area location of the police station survived in the transmitted episode. John Peel's novelisation of the serial references this plan by using the cast names of the Z-Cars actors for the police characters' names.
• According to the liner notes for the CD release, the fictional mineral taranium was originally called "vitaranium", but was shortened during production because of concerns about William Hartnell's ability to pronounce it. Also, it was felt that "vitaranium" sounded too much like "vitamin".

The Christmas episode

• Tosh and producer John Wiles would later claim that the scene where the Doctor and his companions celebrate Christmas was not originally in the script, and that either the scene was hastily written by director Douglas Camfield when the episode ran short or that Hartnell made an unscripted ad lib. However, it appears on Camfield's camera script and it was indeed common practice at the time for BBC shows to have a direct address to camera for a Christmas episode, whilst editing would have allowed for the removal of the line if necessary.

Cast notes

• Kevin Stoney would return as Tobias Vaughn, another villain working with an alien force — the Cybermen — against the Earth, in the Second Doctor serial The Invasion. Additionally, Stoney also played Tyrum in the Fourth Doctor serial Revenge of the Cybermen.
• The lead actress of the film seen in "The Feast of Steven" was played by Sheila Dunn, who was Douglas Camfield's fiancée at the time the episode was in production. The two would marry just before the serial completed production. Camfield would later cast her in a minor voice role in The Invasion and a major screen role in Inferno.
• Reg Pritchard, who appears in "The Feast of Steven" as "Man in Mackintosh" had previously played Ben Daheer in The Crusade, and the Doctor seemingly mistakes him for this character.
• The alien delegates at the Daleks' conference on Kembel differ from those seen in Mission to the Unknown, and as that episode is lost, there is some confusion over which is which. Those that do reappear here had all been recast (see Ronald Rich), while some are new to Master Plan and some seen in Mission are missing – this only came to light when Day of Armageddon was returned to the BBC archives.
• Jean Marsh had previously played Princess Joanna in The Crusade (and later played Morgaine in Battlefield). She was also once married to Third Doctor actor, Jon Pertwee.
• Brian Cant later played Chairman Tensa in The Dominators.^[11]
• Royston Tickner later played Robbins in The Sea Devils.

Missing episodes

• Currently, only episodes 2, 5, and 10 are known to exist. All 12 episodes were recorded on and transmitted from magnetic videotape. Subsequently, BBC Enterprises had 16mm film telerecordings made for potential overseas sales. However, the Christmas episode "The Feast of Steven" was excluded from this and the story offered for sale was an 11-part version. The original videotapes of Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 are listed among the first Doctor Who episodes ever ordered to be wiped, on 17 August 1967. At this point, "The Feast of Steven" became the first episode of Doctor Who to be seemingly lost forever.
• BBC Enterprises retained their film copies, although the story was never purchased by any overseas broadcasters, until at least 1972. A set of viewing prints was sent to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but the story was declined (as it was judged to be A (adults only) on the basis of its overall storyline, rather than cutable scenes) and the fate of these prints is unknown. At some point in the next four years, the BBC's film copies were junked.
• A film copy of "The Traitors" wound up in the BBC Film Library, although the reasons for this are unclear as that library had no formal mandate to retain such material. In 1973, the episode was loaned to the Blue Peter production office for a feature on Doctor Who and never returned. Its ultimate fate remains unknown.
• By 1976, the entire story was considered to be lost. However, Episodes 5 ("Counter Plot") and 10 ("Escape Switch") were returned in 1983 after being discovered in a trunk inside a LDS Church in Clapham, South London. Episode 2 ("Day of Armageddon") was returned to the BBC in early 2004 by Francis Watson, a former BBC engineer.
• Since this was one of only two Hartnell stories that were never screened outside of the UK (the other being "Mission to the Unknown"), the recovery of the missing episodes from overseas sources remains unlikely. For more information, see Doctor Who missing episodes.

Various clips from Episodes 1, 3, and 4 also survive:

• "The Nightmare Begins" - In late 1991, a mute copy of the pre-filmed inserts for the story was discovered in a film can in the BBC archive. In 1998, these inserts were combined with the off-air soundtracks. A colourised version of this footage, made by Stuart Humphryes and James Russell, was included as part of The Dalek Tapes, a featurette on the Genesis of the Daleks DVD.
• "Devil's Planet" - A clip of around 90 seconds was screened in a 1971 edition of Blue Peter (then co-presented by Peter Purves, who played the Doctor's companion Steven Taylor). Purves, in introducing the clip, erroneously identifies the serial by the title Devil's Planet, when it was only this individual episode.
• "The Traitors" - A 1973 edition of Blue Peter featured another item on Doctor Who and included a clip of the scene leading up to Katarina's ejection from the airlock.
• In addition, prior to the recovery of the episode itself, the prefilmed inserts for "Day of Armageddon", including the raw soundtrack, were retained by the BBC Film Library and never junked. In 1991, the archive copy was discovered to be missing, but it was recovered in 1993. In 1998, these inserts were combined with the off-air soundtracks to reproduce the scenes as transmitted.

On stage

The serial was adapted as a charity stage production in October 2007 by Interalia Theatre in Portsmouth, UK, as a finale to their highly successful run of previous Doctor Who stage shows. It was adapted and directed by Nick Scovell and produced by Rob Thrush. Scovell starred as the Doctor, as in the company's previous productions. Nicholas Briggs guest starred as the voice of the Daleks and also, briefly, as the Doctor following a regeneration scene at the play's end.

In print

Doctor Who book
Mission to the Unknown
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	141
Writer	John Peel
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Alister Pearson
ISBN	0-426-20343-7
Release date	21 September 1989
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

Doctor Who book
The Mutation of Time
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	142
Writer	John Peel
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Alister Pearson
ISBN	0-426-20344-5
Release date	19 October 1989
Preceded by	'
Followed by	'

The Australian Doctor Who fanzine Zerinza had published a novelisation of the story in 1980, as issue #14/15/16 (thereafter reprinted a few times), but was not novelised by Target Books for almost ten more years, when it finally appeared in two volumes. The first, Mission to the Unknown, consisted of an adaptation of Mission to the Unknown and Episodes 1-6 of Master Plan. The second, The Mutation of Time, adapted Episodes 7-12. Both were written by John Peel and were published in September and October 1989, respectively.

Peel had intended to write the novelisation as a single, long book, but at the time Target Books had a page limit maximum which required splitting the manuscript into two parts.

Peel made one major change to the televised storyline by placing a six-month gap between the first and second volumes; he later stated that this was to enable future writers to develop original storylines involving the character of Sara Kingdom.

In May 2010 unabridged readings of both volumes by Peter Purves and Jean Marsh, with Dalek voices supplied by Nicholas Briggs, were released by BBC Audiobooks. The titles were slightly modified to Daleks - Mission to the Unknown and Daleks - The Mutation of Time.

VHS, DVD and CD releases

• Episodes 5 and 10 were released on VHS on the tape Daleks - The Early Years in July 1992, which also included the silent pre-filmed inserts, which had been then-recently recovered (see above).
• In November 2004, all three surviving episodes were released on Region 2 DVD, in the three-disc Lost in Time box set, along with all extant clips from the story.
• Soundtracks of all the episodes survive due to several fans recording the original transmissions. In 2001, the entire story (together with Mission to the Unknown) was released on CD, combining the best quality sections from the various collections.
• The music from this serial was released as part of Doctor Who: Devils' Planets - The Music of Tristram Cary in 2003.

References

External links

• The Daleks' Master Plan at BBC Online
• The Daleks' Master Plan episode 2 photonovel at BBC Online
• The Daleks' Master Plan at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Daleks' Master Plan at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! An interview with Andrew Martin, Steve Roberts & Richard Molesworth regarding the surprise finds of 2003/2004, including "Day of Armageddon".
• Doctor Who Locations - The Daleks' Master Plan

Reviews

• The Daleks' Master Plan reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• The Daleks' Master Plan reviews at Outpost Gallifrey

Target novelisation

• The Mutation of Time reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Mission to the Unknown
• On Target — The Mutation of Time

Audio Adaptation

• The Daleks' Master Plan audio reviews at Outpost Gallifrey

Doctor Who season 3 serials Galaxy 4 "Mission to the Unknown" The Myth Makers The Daleks' Master Plan The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve The Ark The Celestial Toymaker The Gunfighters The Savages The War Machines

Doctor Who: Dalek television stories First Doctor The Daleks The Dalek Invasion of Earth The Chase "Mission to the Unknown" The Daleks' Master Plan Second Doctor The Power of the Daleks The Evil of the Daleks Third Doctor Day of the Daleks Planet of the Daleks Death to the Daleks Fourth Doctor Genesis of the Daleks Destiny of the Daleks Fifth Doctor Resurrection of the Daleks Sixth Doctor Revelation of the Daleks Seventh Doctor Remembrance of the Daleks Ninth Doctor "Dalek" "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting of the Ways" Tenth Doctor "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" "Daleks in Manhattan" / "Evolution of the Daleks" "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End" Eleventh Doctor "Victory of the Daleks" "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" Minor appearances The Space Museum The Wheel in Space The War Games The Mind of Evil Frontier in Space Logopolis Mawdryn Undead "The Five Doctors" Doctor Who "Human Nature" "The Waters of Mars" "The Beast Below" "The Wedding of River Song" See also Davros Dr. Who and the Daleks Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death

Novels and novelisations featuring Daleks First Doctor Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (Frederick Muller, 1964) The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Target, 1977) The Chase (Target, 1989) Mission to the Unknown (Target, 1989) The Mutation of Time (Target, 1989) Second Doctor The Power of the Daleks (Target, 1993) Evil of the Daleks (Target, 1993) Third Doctor Day of the Daleks (Target, 1974) Doctor Who and the Space War (Target, 1976) Planet of the Daleks (Target, 1976) Death to the Daleks (Target, 1978) Fourth Doctor Genesis of the Daleks (Target, 1976) Destiny of the Daleks (Target, 1979) Fifth Doctor Resurrection of the Daleks (TSV Books, 2000) Sixth Doctor Revelation of the Daleks (TSV Books, 1992) Seventh Doctor Remembrance of the Daleks (Target, 1990) Eighth Doctor War of the Daleks (BBC Books, 1997) Legacy of the Daleks (BBC Books, 1998) Tenth Doctor I am a Dalek (BBC Books, 2006) Prisoner of the Daleks (BBC Books, 2009) Unspecified Doctor The Dalek Factor (Telos, 2004) Collections Short Trips: Dalek Empire (Big Finish, 2006)

Dalek stage plays Stage plays featuring Daleks The Curse of the Daleks (1965) Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday (1974) Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure (1989) The Evil of the Daleks (2006) The Daleks' Masterplan (2007) Doctor Who Live (2010)

Doctor Who Christmas specials "The Christmas Invasion" "The Runaway Bride" "Voyage of the Damned" "The Next Doctor" The End of Time "A Christmas Carol" "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" See also "The Feast of Steven" "Attack of the Graske"