dv said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

With some glee I watched the returned Hartnell stories, The Nightmare Begins and The Devil’s Planet, respectively the 1st and 3rd episodes of the sprawling 12-part epic, The Dalek’s Master Plan. We also watched ep 2, for continuity.

Prior to this find only episodes 2, 5 and 10 were in the BBC archives (though audio for all Classic DW episodes exists thanks to home recordings). I’m very familiar with the three existing eps, and I’ve seen crude amateur animated reconstructions of some of the other crucial parts of the story. I’ve been fond of Kevin Stoney’s maniacal turn as Mavic Chen.

The story follows on from The Myth Makers (fully missing except for audio). Vicki has remained in Troy to become the mythical Cressida, Steven has blood poisoning from an untreated wound, Katarina is a handmaiden of Cassandra who believes the Doctor is a god taking her to the Underworld…

But the story also follows on from Mission To The Unknown, a story that came before the Myth Makers but is a direct prequel to The Dalek’s Master Plan. MTTU is also missing except for audio. It is unique among Old Doctor Who in being a single-episode story, and unique among all DW in that the Doctor does not appear at all. On the planet Kembel, the Daleks have set up a base from which to launch their attack on the solar system. They have fortified their defences with Varga plants, which reproduce by turning their prey into more Varga plants. A United Nations team is investigating, but one by one they get killed off. The last of them, Cory, manages to record a message for transmission before being exterminated by Dalek scouts.

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Episode 1 opens with the Doctor trying to land on Kembel to find medicine for Steven. A couple of UN Space Security officers, Vyon and Gantry, are investigating what happened to Marc Cory, but are now stranded: Gantry gets killed, and the other points a blaster at the Doctor to obtain the Tardis key. Bret Vyon is played by Nicholas Courtney. The Doctor manages to secure him in the Tardis so that he can explore. Bret provides Katarina with a cure for Steven.

The Doctor finds the corpse of Cory, and his taped final message. The companions and Vyon catch up to him: they team up to try defeat the Daleks. The Daleks are burning the forests, blacking access to the Tardis, so the team press on to the nearby city.

In this city, Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, has gathered various Galactic representatives to cut a deal with the Daleks. Their plan requires a time destructor, fueled by an Emm of the rare metal Taranium. This Emm has been obtained by Zephon, who looks like a walking mass of lichen in a black robe.

Vyon conks Zephon out, and the Doctor impersonates him to do some espionage, infiltrating Chen’s meeting. The rest of the crew get ready to steal Chen’s ship: Zephon recovers and raises the alarm, and in the confusion, the Doctor nabs the Taranium and joins the others aboard the ship. They take off and attempt to flee, taking time to listen to Cory’s message, but the Daleks remotely force them to land on the marshy prison planet Desperus.

There are no guards there: prisoners are simply dumped and left to their own devices. Three of them try to attack the ship. The Doctor stands in the open airlock and lowers a power cable into the swamp, giving the prisoners a zap to knock them out.

Vyon takes off. One of the convicts, having stowed away, pops out and puts a knife to Katarina’s throat.

—

Various observations of things I hadn’t seen previously:

*The major thing is probably that it is made plain that the Doctor is responsible for Katarina’s death. When he went out to zap the convicts, he left open the outer door of the airlock open. *Hartnell’s memory loss due to arteriosclerosis began to worsen during Season 3 and his tendency to flub his lines has been much commented on, but it’s still seems very weird to me that they just left them in rather than making another take or just doing some sound editing. I’ve know that they had a limited budget for edits but some of them would have been called for. Or maybe he was flubbing so much that they just gave up. The worst of them: “The Daleks will stop at anything to prevent us!”

*The story was offered to the ABC for sale, and prints were sent out here, but it was never broadcast, purportedly because it was not considered suitable for the time slot. There is more death than usual: early in ep 4, Katarina kills the convict and herself by releasing the airlock. Later in that ep, Vyon is killed by Sara Kingdom, his own sister. In the episode 12, Kingdom foolishly tries to rescue the Doctor from the effects of the Time Disruptor and is aged to death. The visuals are also a bit more disturbing than average DW of this era. Marc Cory’s remains are unpleasant to see, and Kurt Gantry’s corpse has a frozen expression of horror. The BBC was not able to make any overseas sales of this story, nor the prequel Mission to the Unknown.

*Nice to see Courtney’s first moments in the franchise, and also more of Adrienne Hill as Katarina. Although she filmed 5 episodes in total in DW, prior to this recovery all that remained as her work was a few minutes of screentime in ep2, and her death scene in ep4. The character is not complex, defined by her idea that the Doctor is a god taking her to the afterlife, but these recovered eps have made it easier to appreciate the performance. *When Mavic Chen’s interview is being broadcast, Roald starts mouthing the speech as Chen gives it, indicating the words are well worn. His colleague Lizan had a beehive hairdo.

• When the Doctor joins the others aboard Chen’s ship, he’s still in disguise as Zephon.

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We now have 4 of the first 5 episodes available to watch. I don’t know the odds of any more returning. This story has always been listed among the most eagerly sought by fans, along with Marco Polo and The Myth Makers.

I won’t read all this as it contains spoilers :)

I definitely saw Mission to the Unknown as a child in England, but I can’t remember how much of The Daleks’ Master Plan I saw before we left the UK.

I know it was never shown in Australia.

Where did you see these newly discovered ones? I assume they’re accessible online somewhere.

VPN and BBC iPlayer. I believe there’s no way to see them in Australia by not-sneak means.

Funnily enough, Americans can see them on Youtube.

Ta. I’ll look it into it later.