The Daleks' Master Plan is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The twelve episodes (the most of any Doctor Who serial, excluding the four 1986 stories that were together called The Trial of a Time Lord) were aired from 13 November 1965 to 29 January 1966. This serial marks the final appearance of Adrienne Hill as companion Katarina, the only appearance of Jean Marsh as Sara Kingdom and the first ever death of a companion. It was the only Doctor Who story never to be screened in Australia, which was due to censorship problems. The episode marks the first appearance of Nicholas Courtney in Doctor Who, here playing space security agent Bret Vyon.

Plot

Synopsis

Some six months after the events of "Mission to the Unknown", the TARDIS arrives on the planet Kembel, and the Doctor leaves the TARDIS to try and find medical aid for the wounded Steven, leaving him with the Trojan servant girl Katarina.

Meanwhile, two Space Agents, Bret Vyon and the injured Kert Gantry, are also on the planet trying to find out what happened to their agent, Marc Cory. Eventually Gantry tells Vyon to go on without him, as he will slow Vyon down. Seconds after Vyon leaves, a Dalek finds Gantry and kills him. Vyon then spots the Doctor leaving the TARDIS, and takes the key from him at gunpoint before knocking him out. Eventually finding the TARDIS, Vyon demands that the occupants take him off the planet, but Katarina barely understands what's going on, much less how to work the ship. Steven then briefly recovers and knocks Vyon out after seeing him threaten Katarina. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and finds that Vyon left the key in the door. The Doctor freely enters the TARDIS and places knocked out Vyon in a restraining chair then goes back outside.

On Earth, Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, announces to the people that he will be going on a break. However, in reality he is joining the alliance that has been formed by the Daleks, and arrives on the planet Kembel soon afterwards.

Seeing Chen's spaceship (termed a "spar") arrive, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, only to find it surrounded by Daleks.

Katarina had released Vyon, who cured Steven with some field medicine (two white tablets that he has in jacket pocket), and they meet up with the Doctor soon after, just as the Daleks set fire to the jungle in order to drive out any further intruders. While the alliance prepares for a meeting of its leaders, Chen and another leader, Zephon, watch the jungle burn. Chen goes to the meeting, but Zephon refuses to go with him, saying that he will go when he feels like it. The Doctor and his companions infiltrate the city, and spot Zephon going to the meeting. They knock Zephon out, tie him up, dress the Doctor up in Zephon's large cloak and send him to the meeting while the other three break into Chen's spar.

Arriving at the meeting, the other leaders express irritation at the lateness of "Zephon." The meeting begins, and the Dalek Supreme reports that their ultimate weapon, the Time Destructor, is now complete. Chen reveals that he has procured a sample of the extremely rare element taranium (it takes 50 Earth years to produce tiny amount of it), a vital part to operate the Time Destructor. Meanwhile, the real Zephon has managed to untie himself and sounds the alarm. In the resulting confusion, the Doctor steals the taranium and flees. However, Vyon hears the alarm and prepares to take off in the spar without him.

The Doctor manages to get to Chen's spar just in time for take-off. The Daleks blame Zephon for the situation, saying that his tardiness caused the Doctor and companions to find him, but Zephon defends his actions and accuses Chen of arranging to have the taranium stolen back. Chen says that Zephon's accusation is nonsensical and the Daleks agree, concluding that Zephon is the one who's responsible. Zephon tells the Daleks that two of the other leaders will also leave if he does, only to have the leaders in question to swear allegiance to the Daleks. Finally, Zephon announces that he is leaving the alliance. He does not get the chance — a Dalek kills him as he goes to leave.

On course for Earth, the Doctor reveals that he found a tape while he was in the jungle. The group plays it back, and it turns out to be from Agent Cory, whose brief statements confirm what they already know. As they near the prison planet Desperus — where convicts are simply left, without having any guards or means of escape — the Daleks use a randomiser to disable the controls of the spar. The spar crashes down towards the planet below, causing minor damage to the ship upon landing. Realising that the impact should have totally destroyed the spar, the four conclude that the Daleks want them alive and quickly begin repairing the ship. Upon seeing the landing, a group of prisoners attempts to get on-board, but the Doctor electrifies the ship entrance and the prisoners are knocked unconscious. A Dalek ship arrives, but misjudges it's landing and suffers a crippling crash. The spar manages to take off again, and Katarina goes to check the airlock but finds a convict who managed to get onboard just before take-off, the other prisoners having discharged the electricity in the ship's entrance.

The convict, Kirksen, holds Katarina at knifepoint and threatens to kill her unless the travellers take him to the nearest planet — Kembel. The group eventually decides to comply, but their decision soon proves irrelevant as Katarina activates the airlock, blowing her and Kirksen into space. Stunned, Steven suggests that she must have done it accidentally, but the Doctor thinks that it was deliberate.

Upon seeing the events, the Daleks remotely destroy the pursuit ship for their failure to land properly, but seem satisfied that the delay caused by the crash will allow Chen enough time to get to Earth and have the trio arrested when they arrive.

Arriving on Earth, the three evade detection, and go to see Vyon's old friend, Daxtar. Daxtar initially seems co-operative, but the Doctor realises he's allied with Chen when he mentions the taranium before anyone else does. Vyon quickly kills Daxtar, much to the Doctor's annoyance, but there's little time to dwell on this as Chen's security agents, led by Sara Kingdom, arrive. Vyon allows the Doctor and Steven to get away by throwing himself at Kingdom, but she overpowers and kills him. She orders Borkar, her colleague, to "shoot on sight" at the intruders.

Sara Kingdom chases the Doctor and Steven to a laboratory, where they are all accidentally caught up in a molecular dissemination experiment and are transported to the planet Mira.

Chen pretends that he planned this accident, and tells the Daleks where to find the Doctor and Steven. On Mira, Kingdom (who turns out to be Vyon's sister) is forced to join forces with the Doctor and Steven as they are attacked by savage invisible creatures. The Doctor and Steven manage to convince Sara of Chen and the Daleks' true intentions, just as a Dalek ship arrives. The Daleks fend off an attack from the invisible creatures, and demand that the three surrender. The Doctor reluctantly announces that "the Daleks have won."

Fortunately for the Doctor and his companions, more invisible creatures attack, allowing the three to escape and steal the Dalek ship. They try to return to Earth, but the Daleks take control of the ship remotely then use a magnetic beam to draw it to Kembel. Realising that they don't have much time, the Doctor decides to build a fake taranium core, which he can give to the Daleks while keeping the real one. Steven then gets the idea to charge up the fake core with gravitic energy, but in the process encloses himself in a forcefield and is left barely conscious.

Upon landing, the three negotiate with Chen (who has since returned to Kembel) to be allowed to conduct the handover of the (fake) taranium core at the TARDIS. The Daleks refuse, but Chen persuades the Daleks that they don't have anything to lose, thinking that the Doctor will be unable to stop them after the core has been handed over. The Doctor and Sara return to the TARDIS, while Steven hands over the core. The Daleks try to kill him, but the forcefield manages to protect him, though it is exhausted in the process.

After leaving Kembel, the TARDIS lands, but the Doctor warns that "the atmosphere outside is entirely poisonous."

The group has actually landed in 1960s England, outside a police station. They get themselves arrested, but later manage to escape. The TARDIS next lands on the set of a silent film, causing many problems for the film crew (such as the Doctor being mistaken for a cultural advisor and the lead actress nearly quitting because she thinks the director wants to replace her with Sara) before escaping. Upon their escape, they have a toast to Christmas, and the Doctor wishes a happy Christmas to the viewers.

Meanwhile, back on Kembel, the fake taranium core is fitted to the Time Destructor, which is then tested on another representative, Trantis, who has proven useless to the Daleks. However, there is no effect and the fake core quickly exhausts itself, leaving Trantis totally unharmed. The Daleks accuse Chen of lying about the taranium, when Chen realises that it was the Doctor that switched the cores. The Daleks send a request to Skaro for a time machine, in order to pursue the Doctor. Trantis is then killed by a Dalek.

The TARDIS briefly lands back on Earth during a cricket match, then on a volcanic planet. The three travelers have been followed by the Meddling Monk, who damages the TARDIS's door lock, then mockingly informs the Doctor and companions that they are stranded on the planet for the rest of their lives. Not to be deterred, the Doctor performs makeshift repairs to the lock, and gets back inside the TARDIS. The Monk is surprised by this, but follows the Doctor to his next destination.

Meanwhile, the Daleks' time machine has arrived on Kembel. The task force leaves in it and the rest of the Daleks join the Supreme in a victory chant.

The Doctor and his companions and the Monk arrive in ancient Egypt, along with Mavic Chen and the Daleks, who begin their search for the taranium.

Realising that the Monk and someone else has arrived, Steven and Sara go to find out who it is while the Doctor repairs the lock, but are arrested as looters by the guards of the nearby pyramid and accused of being in league with the Daleks, who have killed a number of other guards. While the two make their escape the Monk tries to find the Doctor, but is instead found by Chen who offers him an ultimatum — help them find the taranium or the Daleks will kill him. Unsurprisingly, the Monk accepts.

The Doctor sees the Monk and follows him back to the TARDIS, where he attacks him before leaving. Soon, Steven and Sara return, looking for the Doctor, but instead see a bandage-wrapped hand reaching out from a large box

It is the Monk, wrapped up by the Doctor. Steven and Sara take him to go and find the Doctor. However, they don't get far before being caught by the Daleks and Chen, who demands the taranium. In desperation, the Monk suggests using Steven and Sara as hostages. Chen accepts this, and tells the Daleks that the Doctor will not allow the two to be killed.

As the Doctor breaks into the Monk's TARDIS and steals something, Chen announces over a loudspeaker that unless he hands over the taranium, Sara and Steven will be killed. The Doctor is dismayed, but has little choice but to comply. When he hands over the core, the Daleks try to kill them and the Monk but they all escape, helped by an attack by the Egyptian guards. While the guards disable some of the Daleks, most of them escape and return to their time machine with Chen.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor admits that he did not have time to build another fake, and had to hand over the real taranium. But he's stolen the Monk's directional controller — evidenced when the Monk lands on an ice planet and realises that without having any control over the direction of his TARDIS he now has little chance of ever catching the Doctor.

The Doctor fits the control and takes off, but the console room is engulfed in a flash of white light.

The directional control has burnt itself out almost instantly (due to the Monk's TARDIS being a later model than the Doctor's), but it is enough to get them back to Kembel. The three leave the TARDIS, but Sara and Steven lose the Doctor in the jungle and proceed to the city alone. Upon arrival they find the Dalek city deserted, and the alliance leaders imprisoned. They agree to turn on the Daleks, and in exchange are released from the prison cell. They take off in their ships — apart from Chen, who is apparently killed when his spar explodes just after take-off.

Searching the jungle, they find the entrance to a second, underground city, which the Daleks are now using. As they prepare to enter, Chen returns, having faked his death, and takes the two prisoner. He leads them into the underground city.

They go through the underground city and Chen leads them into the control room in grandiose fashion. Thinking that he was still imprisoned in the first city, the Dalek leader announces that their alliance is over. Chen refuses to accept this, and proclaims himself the leader of the alliance. He tries to kill the Dalek leader, but his blast simply diffuses off the Dalek's shield. The Dalek orders Chen taken outside and killed, causing Chen to flee boasting that he is immortal. He's quickly proven wrong when a Dalek patrol corners him and guns him down.

Taking advantage of the distraction, the Doctor enters the control room and activates the Time Destructor. The Daleks return, but are powerless to do anything due to the danger of the Doctor increasing the Destructor's power. He orders Sara and Steven back to the TARDIS, but Sara refuses to go. The two flee with the Time Destructor through the jungle, which rapidly begins to deteriorate and die. The Daleks pursue them, but seem immune to the effects. The Doctor and Sara reach the TARDIS but have been aged massively by the Destructor. The two collapse and Sara disintegrates. Steven rushes outside and tries to deactivate the Destructor, but cannot do anything. As he begins to rapidly age, he tries to help the Doctor, but is ordered to get back into the TARDIS. Fortunately, when trying to deactivate the destructor he managed to reverse it, thus causing the two to revert to approximately their previous ages. The pursuing Daleks try to destroy the Destructor with their weapons but instead cause it to run uncontrollably fast, destroying the Daleks and reducing the planet to a lifeless, barely habitable wasteland.

The Doctor and Steven emerge from the TARDIS some time later, the Destructor having burnt itself out. "What a terrible waste..." mutters the Doctor, referring to the death and destruction that has taken place.

Continuity

• For the dating of this serial, see the Chronology. The Doctor also makes reference to a Dalek invasion of Earth in the year 2157, though the dating is inconsistent with that of the serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
• The death of Katarina, played by Adrienne Hill, marked the first time a companion of the Doctor had been killed. Hill appeared in a mere five episodes in two serials before her on-screen death. Sara Kingdom (Jean Marsh) also died in this serial.
• The presence of the Meddling Monk (Peter Butterworth) in the serial makes him the first recurring Doctor Who villain, apart from the Daleks.
• It is left unclear whether "spar" refers to the classification of Chen's ship, the manufacturer, or something else entirely. The Television Companion capitilises the word, suggesting a make or model. This interpretation is reinforced by a line of dialogue from Episode One referring to a type of spacecraft called a "Spar 740", reminiscent of car models such as the Saab 900 or the Mazda 626. Peel's novelisation, meanwhile, capitalises and italicises the word, as well as referring to it as "a Spar". Notes included with the CD release indicate that it was meant to be a contraction of "SPace cAR," and was a suggestion of script editor Donald Tosh.
• When the Doctor and his friends steal a Dalek scout ship, the Doctor says he is getting used to Dalek technology.
• A younger version of Mavic Chen appears as a minor character in the Virgin New Adventures novel Legacy by Gary Russell.
• Chen notes that the people of the planet Tisar and the entity The Embodiment Gris have both tried to depose Zephon recently. The indigenous population of Mira are the Visians (who are invisible and, according to the Doctor, eight feet tall and extremely vicious).
• The Doctor would be prematurely aged again first in The Leisure Hive by a Tachyon Regeneration Generator and later by the Master in "The Sound Of Drums/Last of the Time Lords."
• During "The Feast of Steven", the Doctor encounters a man claiming to be a pre-stardom Bing Crosby.
• This particular story is one of the first serials to show the Doctor landing in a contemporary Earth setting. Previously, the serial An Unearthly Child started on Earth whilst the serial Planet of Giants showed a miniaturised TARDIS crew. The first story solely based on a contemporary Earth setting would be The War Machines.
• This is the first story in which the TARDIS returns to a planet other than Earth. The TARDIS lands on Kembal in "The Nightmare Begins" and again in "The Abandoned Planet".

The Christmas episode

Until the 2008 BBC Proms episode "Music of the Spheres", "The Feast of Steven" (episode 7) was the only time the series directly addressed the audience, thereby breaking the fourth wall. There were several indirect addresses to the audience in later episodes. In The Caves of Androzani, the character Morgus makes private comments in a theatrical aside to the camera having misunderstood director Graeme Harper's instructions; in Enlightenment, Captain Wrack (Lynda Baron) gives the final line of Episode 3 directly to camera; Colin Baker delivers one of his first lines as the Doctor directly to the camera; Sylvester McCoy delivers a line directly to the camera in the third part of Remembrance of the Daleks; and in The Shakespeare Code, the character Lillith makes a speech deliberately styled in the format of a soliloquy to the camera. In "Journey's End", Martha Jones seemingly grins to the camera as she tends to the TARDIS console, however it could be argued that is a POV angle of the Doctor, and therefore she is grinning at the Doctor.

Tosh and producer John Wiles would later claim that the scene where the Doctor and his companions celebrate Christmas was not originally in the script, and that either the scene was hastily written by director Douglas Camfield when the episode ran short or that Hartnell made an unscripted ad lib. However, it appears on Camfield's camera script and it was indeed common practice at the time for BBC shows to have a direct address to camera for a Christmas episode, whilst editing would have allowed for the removal of the line if necessary.

Production

The series' soon-to-be regular composer, Dudley Simpson, did not work on this serial owing to a serious dispute with director Douglas Camfield. Some time after the production of the serial The Crusade, the two had a small falling out. On the next serial that Camfield directed (The Time Meddler), Camfield elected to use percussion music, feeling that it lent to the story's atmosphere. However, Simpson interpreted this as a snub by Camfield, causing the dispute to escalate. By the time this serial had entered production, relations between the two had grown so bad that Camfield refused to even consider Simpson, instead hiring Tristram Cary. The dispute was still unresolved at the time of Camfield's death in 1984.

Script

According to the credits, the serial was written by Terry Nation (episodes 1–5 & 7) and Dennis Spooner (episodes 6, 8–12), with the credit "From an idea by Terry Nation" on Spooner's episodes. Script editor Donald Tosh claimed in an interview that the work done by Nation on the serial amounted to less than 20 pages of work, and that he wrote most of Nation's episodes. However, Doctor Who historian David Brunt has disputed this, saying that Nation submitted over 30 pages of script for each of his episodes (apart from "The Feast of Steven") and that Tosh only polished the dialogue and/or cut scenes out for time or budget reasons. Fan myth has it that Terry Nation could not write all twelve episodes as he had just become involved with the production of the ITC series The Baron.

Another controversy involves the title of the serial. Perhaps because of the multiple authors and/or typists, virtually every conceivable variant of the title The Daleks' Master Plan was used in contemporary documents, though this version is on a plurality of camera scripts and is the most grammatically correct form. During production the story was referred to as Twelve Part Dalek Story on some documents.

Some of the ideas Nation introduced in this serial may seem familiar to fans of British science fiction. This is because Nation, never one to forget a good idea, would later reuse ideas in different settings. Cygnus Alpha, a prison planet, introduced in Blake's 7, is similar to Desperus in that all prisoners are sent there with a life sentence and are left to fend for themselves, without guards or prison cells. In his Third Doctor serial, Planet of the Daleks (1973), he would create an intelligent, native life form that could turn itself invisible, not unlike the Visians from episodes 5 and 6 of The Daleks' Master Plan.

The original intention was that the police station scenes of the Christmas episode would feature a crossover with the characters and location of the BBC's popular police drama Z-Cars. However, the Z-Cars production team vetoed the idea, although the Liverpool-area location of the police station survived in the transmitted episode. John Peel's novelisation of the serial references this plan by using the cast names of the Z-Cars actors for the police characters' names.

According to the liner notes for the CD release, the fictional mineral taranium was originally called "vitaranium", but was shortened during production because of concerns about William Hartnell's ability to pronounce it. Also, it was felt that "vitaranium" sounded too much like "vitamin".

Casting

• Nicholas Courtney, who played Bret Vyon in the first four episodes of this series would play Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in numerous episodes alongside every Doctor from the original series save the First Doctor and the Sixth Doctor. Courtney has also reprised the Brigadier for several audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions, including alongside the Sixth Doctor in The Spectre of Lanyon Moor and the Eighth Doctor in Minuet in Hell.
• Kevin Stoney, who plays Mavic Chen, would return as Tobias Vaughn, another villain working with an alien force — the Cybermen — against the Earth, in the Second Doctor serial The Invasion (1968). Nicholas Courtney and Clifford Earl also appeared in that serial. Additionally, Stoney also played Tyrum in the Fourth Doctor serial Revenge of the Cybermen in 1975, in 2004 he provided a DVD Commentary for the recently returned episode 'Day of Armageddon', he died in early 2008.
• The lead actress of the film seen in "The Feast of Steven" was played by Sheila Dunn, who was Douglas Camfield's fiancée at the time the episode was in production. The two would marry just before the serial completed production. Camfield would later cast in a minor voice role in The Invasion and a major screen role in Inferno.
• Reg Pritchard, who appears in "The Feast of Steven" as "Man in Mackintosh" had previously played Ben Daheer in The Crusade, and the Doctor seemingly mistakes him for this character. Several other actors, most notably Jean Marsh, also appeared in both stories.
• The alien delegates at the Daleks' conference on Kemble differ from those seen in Mission to the Unknown, and as that episode is lost, there is some confusion over which is which. Those that do reappear here had all been recast (see Ronald Rich), while some are new to Master Plan and some seen in Mission are missing – this only came to light when Day of Armageddon was returned to the BBC archives.
• Sara Kingdom is played by Jean Marsh, who had previously played Princess Joanna in The Crusade (and later played Morgaine in the Seventh Doctor story Battlefield). She was also once married to Third Doctor actor, Jon Pertwee.
• A six month gap was said to have taken place in the centre of this story, as stated in the novelisation, which allowed for further tales with Sara Kingdom and the Doctor. The first was a 2003 short story entitled The Little Drummer Boy from the Big Finish book Short Trips: Companions. In 2008, Jean Marsh returned to the role to tell new audio stories for Big Finish, starting with Home Truths.

Missing episodes

Currently, only episodes 2, 5, and 10 are known to exist. All 12 episodes were recorded on and transmitted from magnetic videotape. Subsequently, BBC Enterprises had 16mm film telerecordings made for potential overseas sales. However, the Christmas episode "The Feast of Steven" was excluded from this and the story offered for sale was an 11-part version. The original videotapes of Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 are listed among the first Doctor Who episodes ever ordered to be wiped, on 17 August 1967. At this point, "The Feast of Steven" became the first episode of Doctor Who to be seemingly lost forever.

BBC Enterprises retained their film copies, although the story was never purchased by any overseas broadcasters, until at least 1972. A set of viewing prints was sent to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but the story was declined (as it was judged to be A (adults only) on the basis of its overall storyline, rather than cutable scenes) and the fate of these prints is unknown. At some point in the next four years, the BBC's film copies were junked.

A film copy of "The Traitors" wound up in the BBC Film Library, although the reasons for this are unclear as that library had no formal mandate to retain such material. In 1973, the episode was loaned to the Blue Peter production office for a feature on Doctor Who and never returned. Its ultimate fate remains unknown.

By 1976, the entire story was considered to be lost. However, Episodes 5 ("Counter Plot") and 10 ("Escape Switch") were returned in 1983 after being discovered in a trunk inside a Mormon church in Clapham, South London. Episode 2 ("Day of Armageddon") was returned to the BBC in early 2004 by Francis Watson, a former BBC engineer.

Since this was one of only two Hartnell stories that were never screened outside of the UK (the other being "Mission to the Unknown"), the recovery of the missing episodes from overseas sources remains unlikely. For more information, see Doctor Who missing episodes.

Various clips from Episodes 1, 3, and 4 also survive:

• "The Nightmare Begins" - In late 1991, a mute copy of the prefilmed inserts for the story was discovered in a film can in the BBC archive. In 1998, these inserts were combined with the off-air soundtracks. A colourized version of this footage, made by Stuart Humphryes and James Russell, was included as part of The Dalek Tapes, a featurette on the Genesis of the Daleks DVD.
• "Devil's Planet" - A clip of around 90 seconds was screened in a 1971 edition of Blue Peter (then co-presented by Peter Purves, who played the Doctor's companion Steven Taylor).
• "The Traitors" - A 1973 edition of Blue Peter featured another item on Doctor Who and included a clip of the scene leading up to Katarina's ejection from the airlock.

• In addition, prior to the recovery of the episode itself, the prefilmed inserts for "Day of Armageddon", including the raw soundtrack, were retained by the BBC Film Library and never junked. In 1991, the archive copy was discovered to be missing, but it was recovered in 1993. In 1998, these inserts were combined with the off-air soundtracks to reproduce the scenes as transmitted.

Episode 2 was also distributed free at selected retailers in April 2006, in exchange for a voucher from The Sun tabloid newspaper.

On Stage

The serial was adapted as a charity stage production in October 2007 by Interalia Theatre in Portsmouth, UK, as a finale to their highly successful run of previous Doctor Who stage shows. It was adapted and directed by Nick Scovell and produced by Rob Thrush. Scovell starred as the Doctor, as in the company's previous productions. Nicholas Briggs guest starred as the voice of the Daleks and also, briefly, as the Doctor following a regeneration scene at the play's end. It played to a sell-out house over the course of its five-night run.

Commercial releases

Episodes 5 and 10 were released on VHS on the tape Daleks - The Early Years in July 1992, which also included the silent pre-filmed inserts which had been then-recently recovered (see above). In November 2004, all three surviving episodes were released on Region 2 DVD, in the three-disc Lost in Time box set, along with all extant clips from the story.

Soundtracks of all the episodes survive due to several fans recording the original transmissions. In 2001, the entire story (together with Mission to the Unknown) was released on CD, combining the best quality sections from the various collections.

The music from this serial was released as part of Doctor Who: Devils' Planets - The Music of Tristram Cary in 2003.

In print

The Australian Doctor Who fanzine Zerinza had published a novelisation of the story in 1980, as issue #14/15/16 (thereafter reprinted a few times), but was not novelised by Target Books for almost ten more years, when it finally appeared in two volumes. The first, Mission to the Unknown, consisted of an adaptation of Mission to the Unknown and Episodes 1-6 of Master Plan. The second, The Mutation of Time, adapted Episodes 7-12. Both were written by John Peel and were published in September and October 1989, respectively.

Peel had intended to write the novelisation as a single, long book, but at the time Target Books had a page limit maximum which required splitting the manuscript into two parts. Peel's next two novelisations (based upon the Second Doctor stories The Evil of the Daleks and The Power of the Daleks) would be published after Virgin Books had taken over the publishing of the Target line, and page limits were lifted.

Peel made one major change to the televised storyline by placing a six-month gap between the first and second volumes; he later stated that this was to enable future writers to develop original storylines involving the character of Sara Kingdom.

References

External links

• Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! An interview with Andrew Martin, Steve Roberts & Richard Molesworth regarding the surprise finds of 2003/2004, including "Day of Armageddon".
• Doctor Who Locations - The Daleks' Master Plan

Reviews

Target novelisation

• On Target — Mission to the Unknown
• On Target — The Mutation of Time

Audio Adaptation