Sunday 1 October 2023

Episode 86: Mission to the Unknown


NB: This episode no longer exists in the archives, nor is there a full set of telesnaps. Representative images are therefore used to illustrate it.

Synopsis:
On the remote planet Kembel, a man staggers blindly through a dense jungle, obsessively muttering to himself that he must kill...
In a clearing nearby two astronauts are working to repair their spacecraft, freighter XM2, which has crash-landed here. The pilot is Gordon Lowery but he is under instruction to obey the orders of his colleague Marc Cory at all times. The man in the jungle is their navigator, Jeff Garvey.
Garvey arrives at the clearing and begins to sneak up on Lowery, determined to kill him, but he is spotted by Cory who shoots him dead. The pilot is appalled, but Cory pulls back the dead man's sleeve to reveal a thick black spine embedded in the flesh. They go inside the ship to talk, but after they have gone Garvey begins to twitch back to life. More spines sprout from his skin, along with dense white filaments.
In the ship, Cory reveals that he is a member of the Space Security Service, licenced to commandeer anything, or anyone, at any time. He tells Lowery that a freighter captain recently spotted a strange vessel in this region of space, which is believed to be a Dalek ship. The Daleks have been building a power base far from Earth's galaxy, but it is feared that they may have turned their attention towards it once again. On a hunch, Cory has come to Kembel as he suspects it would make an ideal base of operations. His superiors are unaware that he is here. Garvey had become infected by a Varga Plant, which confirms the Daleks' presence as these creatures are unique to Skaro where they are created in Dalek laboratories. An emergency beacon will be set up, in case they cannot repair the ship. This will be launched into space to alert a passing ship.
On leaving the freighter, they are attacked by Garvey, now almost completely transformed into a cactus-like Varga Plant. They destroy him, but other Vargas are closing in, pulling themselves along by their roots.
Nearby lies a huge complex with a landing area. A massive spaceship flies overhead, which the Earthmen recognise as hailing from the Outer Galaxies. It lands at the complex, which is the Dalek base. The Black Dalek Supreme is aware of the crashed freighter and has sent patrols out to find it.
One of these locates the camp and Lowery and Cory hurry into the jungle as the Daleks completely destroy their ship. Luckily Cory has brought the beacon and its launcher.
They set off to find some shelter. Pushing his way through the vegetation, Lowery feels a sharp sting and is horrified to see a familiar black spine sticking out of his hand. He declines to tell Cory, who has gone on ahead and found the base, where he overhears the Dalek plan.
The Daleks have built an alliance of members of the Outer Galaxies. The last to arrive is Malpha, who joins Trantis, Celation, Beaus, Sentreal and Gearon.
Together they intend to launch an all-out attack on the planets of the Solar System - beginning with Earth.
Cory returns to find Lowery transforming into a Varga Plant and is forced to kill him.
He records a warning but before he can launch it into space he is discovered by a Dalek patrol. He is exterminated, the recording left unnoticed beside his corpse.
In the base, the Daleks and their alien allies continue their preparations for the destruction of the Earth...
Next episode: The Temple of Secrets


Data:
Written by: Terry Nation
Recorded: Friday 6th August 1965 - Television Centre Studio TC4
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 9th October 1965
Ratings: 8.3 million / AI 54
Designer: Richard Hunt / Raymond P Cusick
Director: Derek Martinus
Guest cast: Edward de Souza (Marc Cory), Jeremy Young (Gordon Lowery), Barry Jackson (Jeff Garvey), Robert Cartland (Malpha), Peter Hawkins & David Graham (Dalek voices), Robert Jewell, Kevin Manser, John Scott Martin, Gerald Taylor (Dalek operators), Ronald Rich, Pat Gorman, Sam Mansary, Johnny Clayton, Len Russell (Planetarians)


Critique:
Mission to the Unknown is the only Doctor Who story in which neither the Doctor nor his companions appear in any way. William Hartnell did receive an on-screen credit as the Doctor, but this was simply a convention of the time. (And O'Brien and Purves got a credit in Radio Times for the same reason - see below).
It marks the final production by Verity Lambert, and she concentrated all her efforts into it whilst her successor John Wiles took charge of Galaxy 4. After producing the pilot episode of new soap The Newcomers, she would go on to produce Adam Adamant Lives!, after the BBC failed to secure the rights to Sexton Blake.

The story owes its existence to the decision to reduce Planet of Giants from four episodes down to three. 
By 1965 the pattern of the series had been established as four-part stories in general with a six-part Dalek story every six months, so two per season. The on-going success of the Daleks had been noted by the upper echelons of the BBC, and Huw Weldon, controller of television programmes, was keen to see more of them. He had noted how big a fan his mother-in-law was, whom he regarded as a typical viewer. For its third season, Lambert and Dennis Spooner were encouraged to combine the two planned six-part Dalek stories to form one massive 12 week adventure.
With the production team owed an episode due to the re-editing of Planet of Giants, it was decided to use this as a stand-alone prequel to this Dalek epic, to be recorded as part of the Galaxy 4 production block at the conclusion of the second season, under the same director. It would be made after the regular cast had departed on their summer break, so would not feature the Doctor, TARDIS or companions.

Terry Nation had hoped to develop his creations further with a TV series of their own, divorced from Doctor Who. This would feature new characters to fight them - futuristic secret agents, belonging to an organisation which would be featuring in the 12-part story. "Spy-Fi" was a big thing at this time, thanks to the James Bond movies, which had reached Goldfinger at this stage, and TV series such as The Man From Uncle which debuted in September 1964. It's no coincidence that Marc Cory introduces himself to Lowery as having a "licence to kill".

It says a lot about Doctor Who fans that a story which actually has its title on screen should still have arguments about what it is called. On paper the episode was often referred to as serial D/C - standing for "Dalek Cutaway". This was a production term, however, as in the action cutting away from the main narrative of the Doctor and his companions for a week. It was never intended for a story title.
Rather than give it the production code "U", it was allocated "T/A" since it was produced as though it were the fifth instalment of serial "T".

The alien assembly goes under different names. Officially they were known as the Planetarians, but fans often refer to them simply as the Dalek Alliance. The first issue of the magazine World of Horror featured a photograph of Malpha, claiming he was a member of UGH (United Galactic Headquarters). I always assumed this was a bit of nonsense by the magazine editors, but it transpires that some BBC paperwork - a press release - did actually use this term for them. This also claimed that each delegate would be seen behind a lectern displaying their name - but photographs show this was never the case.
Theoretically, we can work out which delegate is which by a process of elimination, knowing the identity of some of the actors. Malpha is the only speaking alien, which is why Robert Cartland gets a proper credit. He's the bald, white suited one with the mottled skin, fourth from left in the second image above.
Apart from the face tendrils, Trantis is similar in both stories, so we can work out that he is the short alien second from left, played by Johnny Clayton.
Richard Rich we know from other roles to be very tall, so he's the alien with the thick balaclava-like headgear third from left. This is Celation.
Sam Mansary is black, so he's the one in the helmet with the breathing tube - Beaus - far left.
The alien with the egg-shaped helmet and cloth-face is Len Russell, playing Gearon, second from right.
This leaves the ubiquitous Pat Gorman as Sentreal, who is the tall black Christmas tree shaped being far right.
Oddly, the final spaceship to arrive on Kembel is said to belong to Gearon, yet it is Malpha who is the last delegate to turn up in the Dalek council chamber. It may be that he travelled as a passenger in the Gearon spaceship, as we'll later learn that the delegates are trying to keep their movements secret from others.
Whilst Malpha appears to the character's name, it may well be that the titles derive from their planet or galaxy of origin, as we will see that few of them are identical in the subsequent story. Even Malpha, who has changed the least, will be played by another actor.

Three Varga Plants were constructed - armless costumes covered in cotton wool and with black spines. They were operated by Tony Starn, Roy Reeves and Leslie Weeks.
This is the second story in a row from Nation to feature mobile hostile plant forms, after the Fungoids seen in The Chase. This was something he would return to later in his "greatest hits" story Planet of the Daleks.
In the draft script "Varga" was the name of the jungle planet. It then became "Kemble" - a name previously used by Spooner in an episode of Fireball XL5 ("Space Vacation").
Seven aliens were to have been represented - the last being Zephon, whose name appears in the rehearsal script but was then omitted. The aliens were all supposed to be humanoid, but with different uniforms. Nation didn't want them to look "silly", so not sure what he might have thought of the Christmas tree-shaped Sentreal.

Because he would be involved with the subsequent 12-parter, and due to his obvious Dalek experience, designer Ray Cusick joined Richard Hunt as co-designer. Hunt designed the jungle, whilst Cusick concentrated on the freighter and beacon launcher, as well as the Dalek base interiors as some elements of these sets were to be reused.
Some jungle scenes featuring Garvey's mutation were filmed at Ealing on 25th June. 
Rehearsals commenced on Monday 2nd August. 
Jeremy Young was concurrently rehearsing a production of Macbeth to be staged at the Edinburgh Festival. He was looking forward to working with Hartnell again (see Trivia), and so was disappointed to learn he would not be appearing.
In studio, four Daleks featured - one painted black to portray the Supreme.
Recording began with the scenes of Garvey that would be edited into the close of The Exploding Planet.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see this episode for what it was - a lead-in / prequel to The Daleks' Master Plan, produced outwith the contracts for the regular cast thanks to a decision taken a whole year previously to re-edit another story.
Viewers at the time, however, would have been very surprised to see the end credits roll without the TARDIS having arrived - especially when they tuned in the following week to find an entirely unrelated story commencing. 
It would have been very confusing, with the audience having no idea when, or even if, the Dalek plotline would be picked up again. They have been left with a dark and doom-laden story in which the heroes have been killed, the Daleks and their allies victorious. The usual emotional relief valve of the Doctor arriving to save the day hasn't materialised.
Sadly, it is highly unlikely that we will ever get to see any of this, as the episode was never sold abroad. ABC in Australia did consider taking it, but rejected it as too horrific for its audience.
An order to wipe Mission to the Unknown came in 1969, though it is believed that the BBC still retained a film copy as late as 1974, after which it was destroyed - with no hope of a copy turning up anywhere else.

Trivia
  • Despite the presence of the Daleks for the first time this season, and the recent Peter Cushing movie, the ratings fall by almost 1.5 million on last week's episode, though the appreciation figure remains in the mid 50's. One of the factors behind the lower than expected ratings was the arrival of Irwin Allen's Lost in Space in various ITV regions.
  • This is one of only two episodes of the classic era which act as complete stories in their own right, the other being The Five Doctors.
  • Edward de Souza starred in a couple of Hammer Horror films - Phantom of the Opera (with Michael Gough and Patrick Troughton) and Kiss of the Vampire. He also featured in the final episodes of Sapphire and Steel, and appeared with Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me.
  • Jeremy Young is another returnee to the programme, having played the villainous Kal in An Unearthly Child.
  • Already booked for this episode, Robert Cartland had replaced Anthony Paul to voice the Rills in Galaxy 4.
  • Ronald Rich had played Gunnar the Giant in The Time Meddler.
  • Johnny Clayton would return to the programme as one of the elderly Thinktank scientists in Shada, and later as one of the Lazars in Terminus. His biggest claim to fame was playing the deceased neighbour (Reg Cox) in the opening scene of EastEnders' first ever episode.
  • Mission to the Unknown has never been released on any media on its own (apart from as a giveaway CD with a UK newspaper). The novelisation and soundtrack of The Daleks' Master Plan simply use it as their opening section. Because of this, there won't be an "Art of..." post on this occasion.
  • Radio Times, as usual, covered the new story with a feature article, which included two photographs highlighting the Planetarians:
  • The wonderful Oliver Arkinstall-Jones has produced three retro cinema-style posters for this episode, two for the original BBC version and one for the UCLan reconstruction. He has a range of products (posters, T-shirts, fridge magnets etc.) based on his images available for sale on Redbubble: Oliver Arkinstall-Jones Shop | Redbubble
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