The Master Plan Find

The finding of the two missing episodes was announced by the Film is Fabulous team. They were in the collection of someone who has recently died, and who is said to have mostly collected transport material - dealing with trains and canals. His family wished the collection catalogued and preserved. Some films were water damaged, but the collector seems to have looked after The Nightmare Begins and Devil's Planet.

How they came into his possession, no-one knows.

We already have the second episode of The Daleks' Master Plan, so these now give us the whole first quarter of the story.

As well as having more Daleks material, and more of William Hartnell's performance as the original Doctor, these episodes are significant for being among the very few to feature companion Katarina, as played by Adrienne Hill. She joins Peter Purves as Steven. The Nightmare Begins also provides us with the very first appearance by Nicholas Courtney in the series, as he plays space security agent Bret Vyon throughout.

We can also look forward to more of Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen, and the alien Planetarians.

Devil's Planet, meanwhile, introduces the criminal inhabitants of Desperus, including Kirksen.

If you're familiar with the soundtrack then there'll be a lot of sequences to look forward to actually seeing, be they the Doctor's magnetic chair in action, the Dalek spaceport or the execution of Zephon.

What will the Screamers look like, if they are seen at all, and are there any spaceship model shots other than at the spaceport?

With five episodes now in the archive, it would be nice to see this story animated for completion and released, as Season 3 is likely to be the last to be added to The Collection due to the amount of missing material and absence of telesnaps.

More Master Plan!

It's been announced this morning that two more episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan have been found, and will be released on the BBC iPlayer at Easter. The episodes are the first and third of the adventure - The Nightmare Begins and Devil's Planet. 

This brings the missing episodes total down to 95.

What's Wrong With... Silver Nemesis

When you've only got four stories to produce in a season, you would think that the producer and script editor could at least make them different...

The first thing that strikes you about Silver Nemesis is its similarity to the season 25 opener, Remembrance of the Daleks. 

Once again we have the Doctor revisiting something he did a long time ago - though we never got to see it - which is going to have an impact on the present. It's the Earth which will be affected once again. The threat revolves around some ancient Gallifreyan device which can be used as a super-weapon, which the Doctor was somehow able to take away with him when he left the planet with Susan.

The Doctor basically tricks the villains into using said device, so that it destroys them instead.

By screening the Dalek story first, this looks like a weak imitation.

Remembrance of the Daleks featured the junkyard at 76 Totters Lane and Coal Hill School and other references to An Unearthly Child - yet Silver Nemesis is supposed to be the anniversary story?

There's cameo appearances by a number of people associated with the show - actors, writers and directors, including Nicholas Courtney - but they all appear in group shots with their backs to us, so what was the point? If you hadn't read about this somewhere, you'd never know they were there - just a bunch of extras.

The story really isn't very good, and certainly isn't well regarded - so why give it to someone who had never written for the show before and was relatively new to the business anyway?

As for the plot, we're told that the Doctor sent the Nemesis statue into space to stop it falling into the hands of Lady Peinforte in 1638 - though she clearly must have possessed it at some point for her to have fashioned the living metal into a likeness of herself. Did the Doctor deliberately put it into an orbit which meant it passed the Earth every quarter century?

As each orbit results in some major upheaval on Earth, then isn't the Doctor responsible for centuries of death and destruction? If launching it into space was just to get it out of Peinforte's hands, then why not simply move it somewhere else afterwards - like parking it on the dark side of the Moon or in orbit around Pluto? Why leave it going round the Earth for 350 years?

And why have it land in 1988? It can't have been in a decaying orbit as its passing was too regular. It must have been programmed to come back in November 1988 - but the question is why.

How could the Doctor have known that Lady Peinforte would be able to time travel to her home in that year, or that the Cybermen were going to turn up looking for the statue? Or that a bunch of mercenaries led by an old Nazi war criminal would come looking for it. Is it all just coincidence? A very big one if it is.

If it's been going round and round for 350 years, why did the Cybermen not simply hijack it in space?

And one everyone knows - the mathematician employed by Lady Peinforte couldn't possibly have known that the calendar was going to be amended, losing 11 days on the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Great Britain in 1752. His calculations ought to be out.

Do we know if major upheavals actually occurred every 25 years between 1663 - its first pass - and 1963 - it's last pass? JFK was assassinated in '63, but the world was much closer to disaster two years before that with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

If the statue only reaches critical mass when complete, you also have to ask why the Doctor didn't do anything sooner about the bow and the arrow.

There's mention of Roundheads being about when the Doctor first launched the statue into space, and it's the Doctor who says this early in Episode 2. But the Roundheads weren't founded until 1641. (It refers to their haircuts, not their helmets, and was initially a term of abuse).

When the Doctor first visits Lady Peinforte's home with Ace he states that it has been months since he was last there - so it has to already be 1639. But all the dialogue, and even captions, state it's 1638.

Another timing issue is the speed with which De Flores and his mercenaries manage to get from South America to Windsor - managing it in a matter of hours when they've only just worked out the date and location of the landing.

And did they book into their hotel and hire the van dressed like that?

It's looking unseasonably warm for late November in England, and an awful lot seems to happen in broad daylight, which would only be about 8 hours maximum at that time of year.

As for the Cybermen - they are at their weakest here (until their heads start exploding due to the power of Love). Their spaceship manages to land and move around without the military swarming the area - considering they're next door to Heathrow Airport and Windsor Castle, and the Queen in is residence.

(Talking of which, the Doctor and Ace manage to get extremely close to the monarch before security bother doing anything about it).

The Cybermen are actually scared just to be in the vicinity of gold now, and are easily despatched by gold coins fired from a catapult - despite having armoured bodies.

Why do the Cybermen bother capturing De Flores and Karl - why not just shoot them? De Flores is given the earmuff-like devices, presumably to mentally condition him, yet they don't appear to have any effect on him.

The silvered coating on the new helmets of the Cybermen oxidised and turned a golden colour, rather defeating the whole "silver" theme of the story.

The Cybermen falling from the gantry are all too obviously dummies.

Another big problem for me is that there are far too many incidental characters in what is only a three part story - and yet it still feels padded. The skinheads are utterly pointless and add nothing to the story, as does Dorothea Remington. Dolores Gray was only cast in this so that JNT could have a big Broadway / West End star in the show for publicity value - even though she wasn't terribly well known to the general public. The peak of her career was in the 1950's. Her scenes with Lady Peinforte are at least funny.

P is for... Pritchard, Mrs

Stern, cold-hearted housekeeper of Gabriel Chase, a gloomy mansion in Perivale. The Doctor and Ace visited here in 1883 when it was in the possession of a man named Josiah Samuel Smith. Pritchard only assumed her role at night, after the day staff had left - unwilling to remain there after dark. Smith lived in the house with his ward Gwendoline, a guest named Redvers Fenn-Cooper, and a butler named Nimrod - identified by the Doctor as a Neanderthal. Fenn-Cooper had been an adventurer who had explored Africa, but now appeared to be mentally unstable.

Mrs Pritchard treated him cruelly and disliked Nimrod, but was kinder towards Gwendoline. She resented Ace's influence over the girl.

Hidden beneath the house was a spaceship belonging to an entity known as Light, which was hibernating after conducting a survey of life throughout the galaxy. It had been contact with Light's energies which had deranged Fenn-Cooper. Nimrod had been a specimen collected by it during its survey. Locked up in the ship was another creature called Control. She and Smith had been agents of Light. One would interact with the environment, allowed to be influenced by it, whilst the other remained behind as an experimental control subject.

Smith had assumed the role of an English gentleman but he sought even greater status - by having Fenn-Cooper assassinate Queen Victoria. 

It transpired that the housekeeper was actually Lady Margaret Pritchard, wife of the house's owner Sir George, and Gwendoline's mother. Smith had killed Sir George and hypnotised his wife and daughter. They recalled their true identity and were reunited, just before Light turned them both to stone to prevent them evolving. 

Played by: Sylvia Syms. Appearances: Ghost Light (1989)

• Syms was a huge star of British cinema throughout the 1950's and '60's, appearing in such classics as Ice Cold In Alex (1958) and Victim (1961). She guested in many TV series in the 1960's including The Saint (multiple times in different roles), The Baron, Danger Man, Paul Temple and The Strange Report. Latterly (she died in 2023) she was a regular in EastEnders.
• William Hartnell played her father in the drama The World Ten Times Over (1963).

P is for... Prisoner Zero

In its natural form, a huge snake-like creature with jagged fangs, it had the ability to shape-shift and take on the appearance of other beings with whom it had formed a psychic link. It derived its name from its captivity by the Atraxi in their maximum security jail. The explosion of the Doctor's TARDIS caused a crack to appear randomly across the universe, and one of these occurred in its cell - linking it to the bedroom on Earth of a girl named Amelia Pond, who lived in the village of Leadworth with her aunt. The Doctor met her there in 1996 as a child when the TARDIS crash-landed in her garden just after he had regenerated.

Prisoner Zero escaped through the crack and lived undetected in Amelia's home for 12 years, concealing itself in a bedroom whose door it hid behind a perception filter.

It was discovered by the Doctor and an adult Amelia - now Amy - in 2008. It had caused several inhabitants of the village to fall into comatose states, using their likenesses to move around unnoticed. When the Doctor opened the crack in the bedroom wall, it alerted the Atraxi to Prisoner Zero's location. They lay siege to the Earth, threatening to destroy it if their captive was not handed over. Prisoner Zero knew that this would mean certain execution.

The creature could not only assume the form of an individual but multiple beings - even of different species. The effort to maintain the illusion was great and it often revealed itself through the appearance of its fangs or by speaking through the wrong body - such as when it impersonated a man and his dog, and a mother with two children.

The Doctor eventually lured the creature to the local hospital, where Amy's fiancé Rory worked as a nurse. Here, the Atraxi recaptured it before they could destroy the Earth. Before it was taken away, it cryptically warned the Doctor to beware "the Silence"...

Voiced by: William Wilde. Played by: Olivia Colman, Edin and Merin Monteath, Marcello Magni.

Appearances: The Eleventh Hour (2010).

• William Wilde had previously played a Draconian captain in Frontier in Space (credited as Bill Wilde).
• Now one of Britain's most popular actors, Colman would go on to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Queen Anne in The Favourite. 
• She would also play Queen Elizabeth II, in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown.
• She first came to prominence in a number of comedic roles, in Peep Show, Green Wing and the film Hot Fuzz.
• A breakout role was opposite David Tennant in Chris Chibnall's Broadchurch.
• She appears, as herself, in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, made for the 50th Anniversary.
• Marcello Magni was the voice of Pingu the Penguin in the CBBC series.

P is for... Primords

When human beings came into physical contact with a strange green slime, released from deep within the Earth's crust, a genetic mutation took place. They reverted to a primordial state - hirsute and savage. With some individuals, the process took time. First the skin would begin to turn green and they would experience a crippling ringing sound in their heads. They would crave increasing levels of heat. 

The Doctor and UNIT encountered these creatures at a drilling project - nicknamed "Inferno" - in central England. Professor Stahlman believed that a gas found only deep underground could be exploited as a new source of cheap energy and he refused to heed scientific advice in his pursuit of it. A technician named Slocum was the first to be infected by the slime, and he became homicidal. Anyone attacked who survived became infected and would begin to mutate. It took multiple bullet wounds to kill a Primord, though they were susceptible to cold temperatures.

Stahlman recklessly handled some of the slime and became infected as well, though he was able to keep the mutation in check for a time due to his obsessive nature.

As the animalistic behaviour took over and they mutated fully, victims felt compelled to make others like themselves as well as kill - deliberately exposing them to the slime. This fate befell the Sergeant Benton from an alternative Earth. Here, the professor's project was much more advanced and the Doctor encountered several fully mutated Primords.

They perished along with the planet - destroyed by the natural forces unleashed by the drilling.

The Doctor was able to return to the normal universe where only one person fully mutated - Professor Stahlman. Stunned by CO2 fire extinguishers, he was shot dead by the Brigadier.

Played by: Olaf Pooley (Stahlman), Walter Randall (Slocum), Derek Ware (Private Wyatt), Ian Fairbairn (Bromley), Dave Carter, Pat Gorman, Walter Henry, Philip Ryan, Peter Thompson. 

Appearances: Inferno (1970)

• The Primords are never named on screen. The name was given to them by producer Barry Letts - derived from "primordial".
• The script suggested ape-like creatures - a devolved version of humanity - but director Douglas Camfield opted to make them more like werewolves.
• Olaf Pooley was resistant to wearing the full Primord make-up.
• Walter Randall was one of Camfield's stock repertory of actors. After playing the priest Tonila in The Aztecs he was El Akir in The Crusade, and then Egyptian warrior Hyksos in The Daleks' Master Plan. He was also an IE guard in The Invasion, and finally one of the human overseers in Planet of the Spiders.
• Ian Fairbairn was another of the Camfield rep company - appearing in The Invasion as Gregory and The Seeds of Doom as Dr Chester. He had earlier played Questa in The Macra Terror.
• Dave Carter was, like Pat Gorman, a regular extra / monster performer in the series. He had already played the Old Silurian in Season 7, as well as a plague-infected ambulance driver in the same story.

P is for... Primitives

The somewhat derogatory name given to the inhabitants of the planet Uxarieus by a group of colonists from 25th Century Earth. Initially hostile to the newcomers, they co-existed uneasily by bartering with each other. Sometimes the Primitives would abduct a colonist and they would have to be ransomed back by providing food. 

They painted their bodies using dyes made from rocks and roots and armed themselves with spears and knives. Their city lay close to the colony, but was in ruins. Most dwelt in a nearby underground complex ruled by a diminutive priestly caste which worshipped a powerful weapon. The Primitives were the devolved survivors of a once great technological civilisation, but now they used pieces of their ancient technology to adorn their bodies.

One Primitive assisted the colony's chief engineer, Jim Holden, who discovered that they had telepathic abilities. Despite this, the Doctor was at one point able to distract one of them with a disappearing coin trick.

A man named Norton turned up one day, claiming to be a survivor of another colony. He said that the Primitives had killed most of his people, who had also come under attack by giant lizards. He murdered Holden and his Primitive assistant before sabotaging the colony's power supply - making it look like the Primitive had attacked Jim first. This was because Norton was really an agent for IMC - the Interplanetary Mining Corporation - which wanted to exploit the planet's rich mineral resources and was prepared to kill to get them.

Found tied up in the ruined city by IMC guards, the Doctor's companion Jo Grant was kidnapped by the Primitives and taken to the underground complex - to be sacrificed to the weapon and its Guardian. The Doctor went to fetch her back.

Later, he was forced to return with the Master who wanted control over the weapon. The Guardian elected to sacrifice itself rather than see the device used for evil. The Doctor tried to save the Primitives and the priests, but without the Guardian to guide them they wandered aimlessly through the complex, and were destroyed when the weapon exploded. Some may have survived on the surface.

Played by: Pat Gorman, Derek Chafer, Les Clark, John McGrath, Stewart Anderson, Emmett Hennessy, Walter Turner, Mike Stephens. Appearances: Colony in Space (1971).

• The actors playing the Primitives are clearly wearing thin body suits, but they are supposed to be naked save for a loincloth. 
• Gorman, who appeared in the series regularly as an extra / monster performer (from The Dalek Invasion of Earth in 1964 to Attack of the Cybermen in 1985) played a colonist and an IMC guard as well as a Primitive in this story.
• A number of stuntmen also portrayed Primitives for action sequences, including Terry Walsh, Alf Joint and Dinny Powell.