The Daleks' Master Plan
Previous: The Myth Makers
The Daleks' Master Plan
BRIG! I mean BRIT! I mean...BRET! You know what, can I just call you Pre-Brig?
Hello, Mysterious Happy Bald Men in White Room! And what exactly might you be? Earth control?
"You want to see your hero, Mavic Chen." Ahhhhhh, finally this guy...
Wow. It took them THAT long to notice the lights and even then they dismiss it as nothing.
FOOTAGE! And it looks like this is a serial with ACTUAL surviving clips! (I know we've got at least 3 full episodes out of 12...)
HOSHITADALEK. That was actually quite an impressively frightening way of showing it: have a guy fall and first see it from the ground up.
Trip and drop your only means of contact with your only means of rescue? Is time for Pre-Brig facepalming.
Oh wait, never mind, TARDIS!
"I have my key to get myself in..."
"Key?"
"Yes, this, child. Key. This opens a door from the outside."
I might be jumping to conclusions, but I think I'm beginning to understand why the writers thought Katarina was "too limiting" a companion.
Umm, One, I have a funny feeling that's REALLY not a city.
So, after all this time of hearing that EVERYBODY'S first reaction to the TARDIS interior is "it's bigger on the inside," I barely hear it.
Well, okay, a few people've said it, but not in as many words.
One, stop talking about how he left the key in the door and actually GO BACK INSIDE.
"Oh it's a little invention of mine! I call it the magnetic chair. It has a forcefield strong enough to restrain a herd of elephants."
Aaaaand there we have yet another item to add to the List Of Insanely Useful Things And Abilities That Only Get Used In One Story.
(Okay, so I don't know for sure if the magnetic chair comes back, but considering the show's track record with this kind of stuff...)
Is it just me, or is the recon using the same two pictures of Katarina over and over again?
ONE FOUND MARC'S RECORDING! AT LAST!
Ah, so it WAS a city. But...DALEKS!
Well, at least Bret's enough of a good guy to give Katarina the antidote tablets for Steven.
I'm confused by Mavic Chen's alleged ethnicity. He looks like he's supposed to be black and Asian at the same time. Well, it IS the future.
"Day of Armageddon." Um, but we just had "The Nightmare Begins." Isn't it a little...early for Armageddon?
Mavic Chen has the strangest way of holding his pencil ever. Oh, and also, FULL SURVIVING EPISODE!
Woah. Hello, Creepy Mysterious Hooded Figure.
I wonder if we'll ever get to see this guy's face, but from here he almost looks like a scarecrow.
Katarina! I can finally see you properly! And I have a funny feeling that this is your only complete surviving episode...
DALEKS. WITH. FLAMETHROWERS.
Indicator that Bret is really not the Brig: I don't think I've ever seen Nicholas Courtney look scared before.
And now he's yelling at One to shut up. This calls for Indignant Clasping of the Lapels!
Looks like One got the date of The Dalek Invasion of Earth off by about 7 years. 2157? Umm... #actuallyletsnotbitchaboutcontinuity
I just realized: I'm so used to seeing good-guy talk on this show being between a guy and a girl that seeing 2 guys talking is almost weird.
...must not make Surprise Buttsex joke...
Brave Doctor is going in solo and...for some reason is patting Bret's chest a lot in this scene.
I'm ever so slightly puzzled by the fact that the Daleks call Earthlings "creatures from Earth" instead of...well...Earthlings.
I'll bet somebody's going to notice that One is an impostor now that he's holding his arms folded instead of out to the side.
Mysterious Deadly-Sounding Dalek Weapon is almost completed! This calls for TABLE-BANGING.
Geez, how many rarest/most-valuable/most-precious substances/minerals can the universe HAVE?
Well, it IS the universe, and different times will have different standards of precious and valuable...
Clever One makes off with the taranium, but WILL HE ESCAPE? Somehow I doubt it, but let's see.
Actually, it's less a matter of "will he escape" and more "will he make it to the ship before Bret takes off without him."
The way that white lettering blends in with the dial, it looks like the title is "desert" with a lot of extra letters in the middle.
The Doctor makes it! Aaaaaaand TAKE-OFF!
"THE. IN-TRU-DERS. MUST. BE. CAUGHT. ALIVE." Well this is unexpected. I wonder if they know One has the important core-thing.
Is it just me, or are ALL the delegates other than Mavic Chen speaking with the same inflections as the Daleks?
And now everyone magically has visors on. I have to ask, were the recons made with the aid of Photoshop? Or did it not exist yet?
"It's all so convenient, isn't it?" Yes! We still have magnetic tape players in the future!
And suddenly, FOOTAGE!
And everything stopped again. Why that particular section of the episode survived as opposed to any other part, I have no idea.
"Now listen to me, young man, don't you start to criticize my TARDIS!" That's right. She will get her revenge at Christmas.
I feel like I've made that absurdly obscure DDR reference in a commentary before...
"With you, I know I'm safe."
"I hope so, my dear. I hope so..."
Ho boy... *shifts uncomfortably in chair*
"Katarina, check up on that door and make sure it's secure." Uh oh...
...and it's the cliffhanger. Oh crapmonkeys I know what's coming next...
For some reason, the black-and-white images are giving me a newfound appreciation for Nicholas Courtney's eyebrows.
I'm starting to wonder if that one moving Dalek is actually computer-generated...
Footage. And serious music. Here it comes...
"I hope she's reached her place of perfection."
"Yes, but...not that way..."
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our very first companion death.
"She didn't understand. She COULDN'T understand. She wanted to save our lives and perhaps the lives of all the other beings in the solar system. I hope she's found her perfection. Oh, how I shall always remember her as one of the daughters of the gods."
And then they have her dead body floating out in space. Holy fuck, guys. That's not cool. Really, seriously, what the fuck.
Actually, I just noticed something: every companion death I've seen has been followed by one other emotional punch immediately afterwords.
Katarina had her dead body in space, Adric had silent credits over his broken math badge, and Rory got erased from history and Amy's memory.
I have a feeling if it wasn't for the fact that Katarina barely had a chance to do much, I'd be feeling more of an impact over her death.
But I have to admit, I was definitely feeling tense in the minutes leading up to it.
"I have a friend there who I think will help us." I bet I know who he's talking about...
"There are forty billion people in the solar system!" Really? We've only advanced that much in 2,000 years?
Now that I think about it, this is probably me just having no sense of scale.
"We'll need your men next time. Who's in command?"
"Kingdom."
OH HELLS YEAH.
Sara Kingdom. How awesome to meet you at last. Let's see how well you hold up to all the hype...
And naturally Bret's friend turns out to be in league with Chen. Time for One-shouting.
Hello again SaraOH MY GOD YOU KILLED PRE-BRIG. I MEAN BRET.
Footage! Now we finally get to see you properly.
Considering how bent she is on killing the Doctor and Steven, I'm very much intrigued to know how exactly she becomes a companion.
Awwwww, mice!
Sara has caught the intruders in a strange lab. We will do SCIENCE to them!
Looks like molecular dissemination is bouncy, trippy, loud, and strangely Doctor-less.
"The instruments reassembled successfully, and the mice were alive." Chen recovers from facepalming. And DAMN that man's nails are long.
Ah yes, and here he gets to make his big (over)dramatic Villain Speech.
Something invisible appears to pulling up at Sara's hair. And arms.
Holy crap I was right about the invisible thing. I'm glad this is a surviving episode; I don't think that could've been pulled off in recon.
Wait, sent through the *fourth* dimension? I thought the fourth dimension was time and the *fifth* dimension was space.
"AN. A-LI-EN. DE-VICE. THERE. ARE. SMALL. WHITE. CREA-TURES. IN-SIDE. THEY MAY. BE. HOS-TILE." If mice are killed, I will be sad.
Mice have been exterminated. Sad now.
Isn't something "appearing to be invisible" a bit of an oxymoron? Oh well, Dalek-logic.
Wow. Steven really seems to be breaking through to Sara. Guess she's not quite an iron lady, but still.
Innuendo of the day: "Something...*touched* me."
Yikes. Chen not only has sharp-looking nails, but they look polished too.
Cornered by Daleks in a forest on a strange planet with invisible monsters. Balls.
Good ol' One, stalling for time while he waits for the giant invisible monsters to turn up and go smashy smashy on some Daleks.
"THE. IN-VIS-I-BLE. CREA-TURES. ARE. ATT-ACK-ING. IN. FORCE." #thingsineverthoughtidhearadaleksay
So we see a silhouette of the things and...they kinda look like the Kandyman from The Happiness Patrol.
Well, I must say, the recon team is making excellent use of stock footage from the surviving episodes here.
YAY! More mud-on-the-eyestalk! Why don't they do that in New Who... *remembers Wilf's paintball gun fail from The Stolen Earth*...oh wait...
Successfully sealed-off Daleks! And they've got themselves a ship! Wow, these guys are on a roll today!
Mavic Chen: the only person to INTERRUPT a Dalek REPEATEDLY and get away with it (unless it happened somewhere else that I don't know about)
Return of the Visors From Earlier.
"You know, I'm very much afraid that we're under the Dalek influence!" Remember kids, don't do Dalek drugs. #alliterationFTW
Time to get ready to hand over the fake taranium to the Daleks. Let's see if this works...
IT WORKED! Come on Steven, get in the TARDIS now...
He not only managed to get back in, but the forcefield kept him from being exterminated on the way there. Great day for the good guys!
"The whole atmosphere is entirely poisonous!" And so we lead into Feast of Steven, allegedly one of the crackiest episodes in all of Who...
BACK ON EARTH! And the TARDIS lands at a police station! How appropriate.
Oh yay, distracting and dodging the cops! Good lesson for the kids.
Wait making a complaint the rebels are moving his greenhouse One knows him from the marketplace at Jaffa WHAT
"You mean you're not English?"
"No, gracious, no."
"Scottish?"
"No."
"Are you Welsh, then?"
Ooo, Steven's going to go disguising himself as a policeman now, is he? This'll be interesting.
Wow, even with just the telesnaps you can clearly see the "this guy is CRAZY" written all over that guy's face.
"And just how many people would you expect to come out of one box?" You'd be surprised...
Now Sara's left the TARDIS. Let's hope she doesn't get trigger happy out there.
"What's all this funny accent..."
"Everybody else is doing it!"
I can just hear Ten off in the distance going "No, don't...don't do that."
I'm surprised that Sara would know how to fix the scanner, unless she's somehow familiar with Time Lord technology or something similar.
HOLY SHIT SAWBLADE oh wait a sec, I'll bet this is the infamous movie set...
Indeed it is. Lots of people yelling...
"And the Hunt was on..."
YAY SILENT MOVIE TITLES CARDS AND WHIMSICAL PIANO MUSIC.
Charlie Chaplin. Sweet holy motherjesus, Charlie Chaplin.
So everybody makes a big deal about Sara suddenly...happening, and then she just gets into a box without anyone noticing. What.
Wait who are those people dancing across the screen THIS IS NOT MONTY PYTHON GUYS
One seems to be integrating himself nicely, and Sara finally comes out of the box...
You know, I just realized: there's such an epic amalgamation of accents here that NOBODY sounds American.
"But what happened to Steven?" (asks the silent card)
"Sara! Where've you been?"
"I don't know, but a strange man kept telling me to take my clothes off!"
"The Chase was on..." No, we did that last season.
Disappearing TARDIS: the one sure-fire thing to shut up an entire film crew for just a few seconds.
"I'm Professor Webster!" Wait...is that William Hartnell? *checks Wikipedia* It isn't, but it sure looks like him.
"And they lived happily every after..." ...WHAT.
"Here's a toast, a Happy Christmas to all of us! Incidentally, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!" Oh, the poor Fourth Wall...
Well...I'm really not completely sure what I just watched but...I'm almost disappointed to go back to the Dalek plot after that.
"He looked like an Earth creature."
"But only a disguise."
This makes me wonder if there were ever plans to give Time Lords non-human forms.
Okay, forget my earlier statement about everybody except Mavic Chen talking like Daleks.
"THE. DA-LEKS. DO. NOT. MAKE. MIS-TAKES." Truer words were never spoken. Except they were.
So now I have to wonder how many kids were going around making "the core came from Uranus" jokes after this story aired.
Looks like the TARDIS is about to land at a cricket match. I can only assume this footage is from an actual game and not a recovered clip.
I'm laughing in so much dorky appreciation right now. Those cricket commentators are basically made of solid win.
Holy crap, it's the return of the Dalek time machine from The Chase! I honestly didn't think we'd ever see that again.
WAIT WAS THAT A BLACK-AND-WHITE VERSION OF THE OPENING FOR INFERNO I THINK IT WAS YAY
That rock opened up...IT'S THE MONK. It's really...seriously...the Monk...
Now we come to the obvious question: what's he doing here?
Oh, and also he has sunglasses now.
And everybody is in laugh...either that or we've got some serious echoing going on here. Or both.
One's ring and the sun: collectively double as a TARDIS key.
"YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE LAST OF ME, DOCTOR! YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE LAST OF ME!" In terms of screentime, yes I think we have.
"Now if you ask me, we haven't heard the last of that Monk." Or I could possibly be wrong.
Looks like they're about to land on Earth again. I wonder if this is Britain or America...
Are those wedding bells I hear? No, according to One it could be the Relief of Mafeking.
I admit I've only heard about this event once before, in the Shirley Temple version of A Little Princess. *goes to Wikipedia*
Ah, the Second Boer War. #lookmomilearnedahistorytoday
"Written by Dennis Spooner. From an idea by Terry Nation." The phrase "from an idea by" in credits always seems off-putting for some reason.
O hai Egypt.
Is it weird of me that I see the Doctor in Egypt and I immediately think "ERIMEM?" even though I haven't listened to any of her audios yet?
Ancient Egyptians vs. Daleks. I think I have a pretty good idea of how this is going to work out.
Egyptians: 0. Daleks: A metric crapton.
One has finished TARDIS repairs! This calls for HAT-WEARING.
Mysteriously Materializing Rock? MONK TIME, MOTHERBITCHES.
Oh man, I have the greatest appreciation ever for the Monk's sunglasses. For serious. Wow. Yes.
"Good morning, my son." And then there were Daleks.
Ceiling Doctor is watching you negotiate.
Monk's TARDIS is now motorcycle! And carriage! And covered wagon! And tank! And POLICE BOX!
Now that it seems Sara and Steven are about to escape, I wonder if they're going to mix up the TARDISes in the 5 minutes remaining.
("Sara uses her combat skills to chop a guard in the neck.") Well, what *other* kinds of skills would you use for that?
And then there was a MUMMY. Are you my mumAHKHSFLSHFPLEASENOTTHEFACE
Oh hello Mummy Monk! (Seriously, has anybody else noticed that there's been a slight shift to a more humorous tone in this second half?)
Holy crap. A Dalek just yelled at Chen with its eyestalk in his face and he just SHOVED IT ASIDE. THIS MAN IS THAT HARDCORE.
I'm amazed at how badass One is able to look while making demands and a) wearing that hat and b) WEARING THAT HAT.
Then again, he's One. He is more than capable in the badassery department.
"If you try any more of your funny business, I'll exterminate you myself." As is Steven.
I've just noticed how very different One's voice sounds when he raises it. Can't quite put my finger on it, though...
UNEXPECTED SMALL EGYPTIAN ARMY.
"HELP. HELP." Daleks: 0. Rocks: 1.
Aw crudmonkeys, and if the Daleks had gone after the Monk they could've gone on an awesome wild goose chase.
So I wonder when this whole Mark 4/Type 40 thing got straightened out...
...must not make "Monksicle" joke...
And then there was something resembling a s'plosion!
"I should think there's one or two of those Egyptians around." I would imagine so, although I doubt any of them have a spare time machine.
Mavic Chen is calling shenanigans. And also shooting people.
I find it kind of interesting that Kembel appears to be populated with a CRAPTON of wildlife that we hear constantly but never see.
Ultimately, I guess the not-seeing part shouldn't surprise me at all.
Not sure why Steven's getting so defensive about the impulse compass. I don't think it's anything we've ever seen before.
Now that we're actually getting to see the city, it looks remarkably like Skaro...
You guys are theorizing about whether or not the Daleks have One, but I'll bet it's empty because they're about to test the time disruptor.
Wait a sec, if the delegates are in a detention cell, then how can they respond directly to the loudspeaker system?
No, Chen. Sara did not come back out of loyalty to you. Be quiet and stop thinking you're so special.
The delegates are now free. Now we get to see how long it takes before they realize if this was a horrible mistake or not.
("Sara glares at Chen.") Actually, we can see that just fine in the telesnap.
Chen appears to have gone out with a literal bang. After all that, I'm surprised we got that kind of distanced death scene.
Incidentally, that was also my 7,000th tweet.
Ahhhhh, there he is. I had a feeling he wasn't quite out of the way yet.
ONE MORE EPISODE AND THE EPIC SHALL BE FINISHED.
I think it's safe to say that Mavic Chen has lost all ability to properly comprehend sense.
So my thoughts during my re-watch of Curse of Fatal Death today were wrong: Daleks DO whisper to each other.
"ONCE AGAIN I, MAVIC CHEN, GUARDIAN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, HAVE HELPED THE DALEKS WITH THEIR CONQUEST PLAN!" Dude, no need to yell. We get it.
Chen, clearly you haven't learned that when the Daleks say "WE. O-BEY. NO-ONE." they mean it. You'll have to learn the hard way.
And suddenly, DOCTOR.
Mavic Chen has finally been exterminated. He was a pretty awesome villain but...dayum, 'bout time guys.
Sara goes back to help One, and I have a feeling it might be a fatal mistake.
Oh crap, I was right. She's already started aging...
And it looks like the Doctor is aging too which, considering this is Hartnell we're talking about, is actually quite impressive.
Oh wow, the whole jungle just turned into a desert. And there were enough consecutive telesnaps of Sara falling that it looked like footage.
And now she's dead. Steven, if you don't do something about the time destructor, you could be next.
I'm assuming the time destructor is off now, because I can't hear that sound anymore. Also, One seems to be mostly back to normal.
Oh wait, never mind, it still looks active.
Wait...is it just me, or was that the first time we got to see the Dalek embryos properly?
"Well, now it's all over. Without her help, this could never have been achieved."
And now it really IS all over: the longest serial in Doctor Who history. In a way, I'm glad it's done. That was quite taxing.
RIP Katarina and Sara Kingdom. We barely knew ye, and you could have done so much more.
And while we're at it, RIP Bret Vyon: Pre-Brig.
Next: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve