The Daleks Master Plan - Counter Plot

The second of three existing episodes of this story starts off with the death of Bret Vyon. I remember the first time I ever saw this episode on ‘Daleks – The Early Years’ way back in the 1990’s and I thought that the episode was rather good back then. The episode starts on Earth but then moves to Myra where Sara Kingdom has unintentionally joined the Doctor and Steven.  It’s good how the story is moving from one location to the other to give a greater sense of how important the Daleks plan is.

This is the first time that we get to ‘see’ Sara and she is just as cold as she sounded on the CD. The scene where the Doctor, Sara and Steven are being transported across space starts off with a weird look on William Hartnell’s face and it only gets stranger. The sight of Steven and Sara (Hartnell clearly not being fit enough to even get an inch off the ground) is barmy.  I like how there is a small amount of time before we see what has happened to the Doctor, Steven and Sara. After a while on Myra, there is a new more immediate threat and that is in the form of some invisible creatures.

I like the relationship between Chen and Karlton. It’s very much like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Karlton is feeding Chen ideas. Not only is he scary with his scary bald held but he seems to have the ability to create havoc and its at this point that Chen’s failure to observe what is going around him becomes like what is going to lead to his downfall. Karlton clearly has ambitions of his own which makes him a greater threat.

The central performances are all really good. William Hartnell is back on his usual good form. There seems to be glimmers of the old Doctor even though he is clearly ill. Peter Purves seems to be taking the action hero theme that William Russell occupied during his time on the show. Jean Marsh is great as Kingdom. Having enjoyed the character in the Companion Chronicles produced by Big Finish, the revelation that Sara is Bret’s sister. The moment when she announced this to the Doctor and Steven was pitched just right, it was clear that Sara was still trying to get over the news the she had killed her brother.

Even though very little actually happens in the episode, I still found it quite a good one. I don’t know whether its just the relief of watching and episode of Doctor Who as opposed to just listening to it but there is still something very enjoyable about this adventure. Not sure whether it’s the writing or directing or the performances or all of the above, but its still the best story of the third season by a clear mile so far and at least at the end of this episode we had the same number of regulars at the end as we did at the beginning. That’s a plus point.