The Daleks Master Plan - Devil's Planet

The third episode sees me return to the CD’s. The story moves off Kembel and continues its gradual pace. The thing about this entire episode is that even though some scenes do have a sense of urgency about them it doesn’t really feel like at the end of the episode that they haven’t really moved that far in terms of the plot. At the end of the previous episode the Doctor had stolen the teranium core and escaped and this episode is about try to get it back. Basically that’s what the entire story is about really.

Something that is quite noticeable is the errors that William Hartnell is making. He seems to be making a lot of mistakes which is a shame really. He is quite ill at this stage and is close to leaving the show (probably a year) but the errors which were quite humorous to begin seems to be less so as its become clear that he’s ill.

As mentioned earlier, Earth is in danger and the Doctor, Bret, Steven and Katarina know that they need to get back to Earth to warn them. Things rarely go well in Doctor Who and shortly after they start their journey they arrive on Desperaous which is a pirate planet. Meanwhile, Chen is sent by the Daleks to go after them. It’s still not obvious to Chen that he is not in control.

It’s something that I’ve commented on before but its worth mentioning and its that despite his fluffs, William Hartnell is putting in a good run of performances which is even more impressive when you consider the Myth Makers. Nicholas Courtney and Peter Purves are both in good form in this episode and the less said about Adrienne Hill the better but she does contribute to a fantastic cliffhanger because her scream isn’t the normal scream as its quite horrific. It’s the best thing that she’s contributed really.

Zephon meets his end in this episode which is a shame because he has been a good character and someone that has been a problem for Chen and the Daleks. It becomes clear that once he got knocked out that his time on the show was somewhat running out.

This isn’t the best episode of the story so far but I cant say that its terrible. It serves its purpose and moves the story on plot wise as well as geographically wise. The characters (minus Katarina) all work well and the story does move along at a good pace but sadly as is the case with the audio episodes it lacks something and it would be great if it existed on video.