The Daleks’ Master Plan (DMP) is a lot.

 

I think that’s fair to say. It is the longest story in all of Doctor Who at more than 4 hours total, but it’s more than just length that makes this story stand out. It’s by far the largest in scale the show has ever gone. And with at least 7 audio adventures in the middle of it, it’s legacy only continues to grow. On top of that, it also feels like a mission statement for the rest of the season with a change in tone, but time will tell if that’s really the case.

 

The story starts straight after the Myth Makers, with new companion Katarina and Steven being poisoned by an arrow. The Doctor is trying to land the Tardis in a safe location and find Steven the help he needs. Sadly, he instead lands on the planet Kembel, which we have already seen in “Mission to the Unknown”. The Daleks are using the planet as a base to prepare for a massive attack on the solar system. They plan to use a mysterious weapon known as the “Time Destructor”. They’ve also allied themselves with several powerful figures, most notably Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System.

 

Luckily for the party, the Time Destructor is not yet complete. It lacks 1 crucial element: a Terranium core, which the party has managed to get their hands on. This leads to a chase across different planets, time zones, the works.

 

And you might have noticed, that this bears a striking resemblance to “The Chase” the previous Dalek TV episode. You’d not be entirely wrong. What sets DMP apart, however, is the tone. Where the Chase was fun sci-fi shenanigans, DMP goes for a more serious story. Gone are the days of Daleks vs Dracula. This tries to put the fear back into the Daleks.

 

And I’d argue that worked. This story is remembered for its dark elements, like the deaths of several potential companions and the entire last episode. Those moments hit hard and are done wonderfully. They’re given the right amount of reflection from the main cast. Never taken for granted. It also leads to some possible future directions for the show, more on that later.

 

But while there is some clear ambition, it isn’t all sunshine and roses (or, considering the dark material, moonlight and lilies?). While the idea of “The Chase 2” with double the episodes sounds fun, at a certain point it maybe becomes too much. The setpieces overtake the overall narrative and we lose cohesion. We have some good initial setup, but what happens after that setup is basically a roll of the dice. We are in Egypt! Or a planet of invisible monsters! Or a prison planet! Or a volcano! It’s unbridled adventure where anything can happen, and while that’s exciting, I wish it all connected a little more.

 

It, of course, doesn’t help that most of the story is missing. Only 3 of the original 12 episodes are currently available. It also has no animated version. With all these locations, some visual excitement is part of the experience. But we don’t have that visual part, so some of the excitement is gone.

 

So how do we deal with that giant hole? Well, we do have 1 twinkle of hope. Youtuber Josh Snares has taken it upon himself to animate most of this story himself, using 3d models and photo stills to turn it into a really solid reconstruction. Consider it a “creative slideshow”, if you will. It’s probably the best way to experience the story, so I recommend you check it out.

 

But despite these fan efforts, the visuals we currently have are still very limited. That automatically puts the narrative and characterization under some higher scrutiny. If you don’t have visuals to look at, the other aspects of the story become more noticeable.

 

And those other aspects are… iffy. Like I mentioned, it suffers from a lack of overall narrative. For example, the central theme is stopping the creation of the time destructor, but what does a time destructor actually do? Sure, it has an intimidating name, but the story never takes a break to tell us why this is actually a weapon worth stopping.

 

The same happens to characters. We see Sara Kingdom shooting her brother on sight. Not a moment is spared. Meet him. Shoot him. Speaking 2 sentences with each other would have prevented this whole thing. Yet almost immediately afterwards, we are supposed to feel sorry for her and she becomes a companion for a bit. It’s incredibly erratic.

 

And we do get a glimpse of what the story could be like if it paced itself a little better. In episode 1, the story feels much more natural. The Doctor explores the dangerous new planet alone, while Katarina meets Bret and tries to save Steven from his poisoning. It’s much slower. Allowing us to meet both Bret and Katarina. Katarina is shown as out of her depth and not very proactive. She is a bit of an onlooker. She watches how others resolve the plot. It’s not like she’s pushed to the sideline. She just prefers to watch and learn. She’s is consciously written as a more passive character. Meanwhile Bret is shown as threatening at first, but he also cures Steven’s poison, showing the good guy underneath and allowing that initial bond of trust.

 

But these kinds of moments get lost in the later scramble. Sara has the least amount of characterization out of the 3 newcomers, because when she enters the story, we’re already planet hopping without standing still. I would’ve gladly given up 1 among the dozens of locations in this story, if it meant we got a bit more character. Instead, we’re just too busy.

 

And it’s interesting how “The Chase” didn’t have similar problems, because it just had a really strong main cast. Ian, Barbara and the Doctor were established 2 seasons ago, while Vicki had an extremely solid entrance in the second season. Yet even then, when Steven was introduced. We took a lot of time and really made it count. I can still remember his reaction when Barbara first said his name. The first time he heard it in 2 years and it showed. DMP doesn’t have those same luxuries. We know the Doctor and Steven well enough, but Katarina, Bret and Sara mostly pass us by. Our base characterization is not as solid as it was then, so our investment is lower.

 

But even with that lower investment, I think there are plenty of moments that still land. Like I mentioned earlier, the tone of this story is a massive shift from the previous season. Doctor Who got darker. I can’t put it better than Samuel Davis: The only icon of childlike innocence is ejected out of an airlock. It’s a brutal mission statement. And that brutality carries on in loads of places. This story has a massive kill count of main characters, which makes every mention of the words “exterminate” or “kill” hit that much harder.

 

And that’s not even mentioning the last episode, where the story hits its peak. In those last 20 minutes, the time destructor turns on. While late, we now find out why this is a weapon worth destroying. It turns the entire jungle planet into a desert wasteland. Everything decays before our eyes. Sadly, this includes Sara, who slowly turns old and grey, before later turning to dust. It is brutal and genuinely disturbing. Seeing Sara’s decayed skeleton blow away in the wind while the doctor is unconscious and half-buried in the sand is a sharp contrast from the doctor happily skipping around on new planets last season. A real mission statement. Let’s hope it gets found one day, because this is something that can’t be replaced.

 

It also leads to an ending which leaves so much room for further character exploration. We’re in a wasteland with nothing left standing. It’s all dust except Steven, the Doctor and the Tardis. Nothing but decay. So the doctor looks around, put his fingers on his lapels like we’ve seen him do so many times, and chuckles. He congratulates himself on a job well done. Another plan stopped. He only remembers the bad side when Steven counts up all the names of people they’ve lost along the way.

 

It's genuinely a bit shocking of first watch. And might even feel out of character. Our hero has destroyed a world and then chuckled to himself. But on lookback. It makes sense. This goes back to season 1. This is the same man who laughed at danger and forced his companions into the Dalek city so he could feed his own curiosity. This is the same man who in a comedic moment invented the great fire of Rome. The same man who left behind a group of women on a planet that was falling apart. He’s a complex character with a simple world view. This view has been tested a lot since then, and he has learned kindness and empathy, but will those messages stick when the people that taught him that are long gone? Can he still do “the right thing” on his own?

 

It's an impasse in his development. He is a better man than he was before, but that doesn’t make him perfect. It’s interesting to put some pressure on that and I wonder if anything will come from it. A really interesting note to end the story on.

 

And that’s how the Daleks’ Master Plan ends. It’s a long saga with many characters, locations and iconic moments. And just to top it off, it also has a really interesting tonal shift that shows great promise for the future. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It’s a very visual affair that no longer has it’s visuals, it’s so busy throwing stuff at the wall that it forgets to reinforce what actually sticks and it’s main plot is often forgotten in between. But the end product is still really fun, creative and memorable. Take your time with it, sprinkle some audio’s in between and you’re guaranteed a good time.

Bonus: The Feast of Steven:

This one is odd. Officially part of the Daleks’ master plan, but such an odd one out. That’s why it gets its own discussion.

 

First of all, like most of DMP, this story does not actually exit anymore. It also hasn’t been remade like the other parts. Reason being it really isn’t all that relevant to the other episodes. However, youtuber DocMagister has made an animated version, which is the definitive way of experiencing this story.

 

Te story is basically a random series of events with the Doctor, Steven and Sara. There’s no real throughline. It’s just some sightseeing. We enter a police station and a movie set, with some adequate humor in between.

 

Part of this humoristic venture seems to be a lot of random screaming and yelling over each other. Presenting business as comedy. Can’t say my ears love that.

 

This episode is remembered for 2 reasons.  First of all, this is a Christmas special, ending with the Doctor talking to the Christmas and wishing “a merry Christmas to all of you at home”. A sentence burned into the heart of many a who fan, I’m sure.

 

The other reason this is remembered is a bit more notorious. This is the story where the doctor goes “It’s a madhouse! It’s all full of Arabs”. Which is a bit racist.

 

This story is probably not the best place to talk extensively about racism in Doctor Who, but this sentence is the one people always point to as the biggest example. I’ll just throw in that, on average, I’ve not experienced the first Doctor as a racist. Granted, I wasn’t actively paying attention to racist remarks. And I won’t deny that there are clear 60s sensibilities at times. But I wonder if I’ve missed something obvious. Are there really that many moments besides this one hidden in a terrible off-shoot Christmas special? I wonder. Once again, not denying them, but I’m curious what I’m missing.

But yeah, except 2 snippets, there really isn’t much this episode has going for it. In fact, it’s quite bad as a whole. An indulgence of the time. Worth watching? Nah. Feel free to miss it. We now have Christmas specials that actually play with the Doctor Who premise, instead of a runaround that happens to have the Doctor in it.

 

Conclusively, I suppose there’s only one thing left to say: A Merry Christmas to all of you at home 😊