The Daleks Master Plan - Golden Death

We're getting to the business end of the story. The episode starts off with a trip to ancient Egypt and a bit of a argument between Mavic Chen and the Daleks. The Doctor seems to be quite concerned with getting the lock mended after what the Monk did. First thing that is noticeable is that William Hartnell seems to be suffering from a croaky throat. This is a big continuity problem but I suppose in terms of storytelling its not the biggest problem ever.

Chen decides that instead of trying to get the real core himself, he gets the Monk to do it for him. Can't see why he does this apart from justify having Peter Butterworth back for another episode. It was at this point that I started to find myself wondering why we are even in ancient Egypt anyway. Then it dawned on me that very little was happening. The Daleks have very little impact in this episode which considering its their master plan is very surprising. Its almost as if Dennis Spooner didn't know what to do with the Daleks. It does seem like an awfully long time since the big hall with all the allies and the Daleks but its still impressive that despite their somewhat limited involvement in recent episodes, that the story is still moving along quite well. Even if the current location doesn't actually achieve anything to the story.

Peter Purves is very good in this episode and his greatness is something that hasn't been commented upon very much in these reviews. He has managed to take the action hero role that William Russell had done so well and made something different from the role. Jean Marsh seems to have fallen into that role of being a background companion. It's seems like its a short term thing but its a shame considering how good the character had been up until this point. William Hartnell seems to be ok form but doesn't have the same energy that he has had in the previous episode which is a shame. hopefully it's just the croaky voice that's doing this and he will be back on finer form next time.

It's one of the weakest episodes so far but only because the story hasn't really advanced in the past 25 minutes. The next episode is the final episode that currently exists on DVD and we can forget about this lack of excitement that I have had to endure.