Devil's Planet - a Review

The interim episode of The Daleks Master Plan already exists in the archives, so we move on to the Doctor's escape from Kembel in Mavic Chen's purloined Spar 7-40 space yacht. Bret is at the controls, with Steven and Katarina also on board.

The Daleks use a device to randomise the ship's controls, causing it to crash land on the planet Desperus - the "Devil's Planet" of the title, as it is a hellish penal colony.

This is the first of the "adventures within the adventure", helping the story span its 12 weeks. Terry Nation had previously given us the quest story The Keys of Marinus, in which the travellers encountered mini-adventures in different locations across the planet in search of the titular keys; and The Chase, which again saw self-contained incidents within the larger narrative of the Dalek pursuit. (Episodes 5 - 10 of this story will end up following the same pattern as The Chase, with a Dalek time machine pursuing the TARDIS).

In this episode, the Doctor is separated from the TARDIS and having to rely on Bret's piloting of the Spar, before the Daleks intervene.

This was more of a mystery, visually, than The Nightmare Begins. We do have a bit of a clue as to the ending of the episode, as the shocking resolution to the cliff-hanger survives thanks to Blue Peter (though it was nice to see more of the ship's interior. I liked that huge round porthole / screen, and there was our old friend, the Morok Freezing Machine prop, as well).

There was also a lengthy clip of the Daleks first attacking the Spar with their randomiser, as its occupants are told by Bret about the planet they are being diverted towards.

The bulk of the instalment takes place on Desperus, and we have always had very little idea about this world. 

One thing I wanted to know was just how different they had managed to make the sets look from those of Kembel (bearing in mind that Mira is also just around the corner). 

There's one photograph of a Screamer I know of, but it's just a black shape at the top of a blurry image, and there are only a handful of images of the hirsute convicts themselves.

I wanted to see how the Screamers were realised, and also if the episode featured any model shots.

Mavic Chen gets to appear in two scenes - the execution of Zephon, and a later one where he first starts letting slip his arrogant attitude towards the Daleks before returning to Earth.

When the Master of the Fifth Galaxy perishes, we see Chen casually leaning nearby, studying a Dalek monitor - not even bothering with what's just happened. 

The Dalek control room contains lots of equipment dating back to their first appearance.

For some reason I felt sure that at least some of the other Planetarians featured this week, witnessing Zephon's demise, but it's another episode in which they don't appear.

Sadly the Screamers turn out to be just wing shapes being flapped about above the actors' heads.

And as for all the spaceship action in this episode, we do get a shot of the Spar in space, but all the other stuff is simply 'noises off'.

Desperus is rendered different from Kembel, being more sparsely forested. 

One nice shot is a landscape view of the planet as seen by the Doctor and Katarina - a painting of mountainous terrain with three small lights superimposed, indicating the torches of the approaching convicts. I noticed they all have a big letter "D" on the back of their overalls, to indicate their destination.

Courtney has less to do this week but I do enjoy his sardonic humour, and it's very much a pity that he couldn't have been retained for more of the story. 

Hartnell is still great to watch, though he does have a little difficulty with his lines in this episode.

"The Daleks will stop at anything to prevent us..." for instance.

There's a little silent character moment for the doomed Katarina, as she is fascinated by the stars on one of the monitors.

The interplay between Steven and the Doctor, and between Steven and Bret, is also nice to observe.

Overall, whilst it's fantastic that these two episodes are safely back, and that we have been able to enjoy them so quickly, you do come away with a disappointment - because you really, really want to watch the rest of the story even more now. At least these episodes come from the start of the story, and can be linked by the already surviving second instalment. For me the first half of The Daleks' Master Plan is by far the superior half. 

Oh, for The Traitors...

The Nightmare Begins - a Review

The Nightmare Begins has the task of setting up a  a 12 part epic, though it has been helped on its way by the prequel episode Mission to the Unknown. That laid the groundwork as to the Dalek plan to invade the Solar System, aided and abetted by an alliance of beings from the Outer Galaxies. (They go by various names, but we'll go with Planetarians).

 

This episode follows on 6 months or so later, bringing the Doctor into events and introducing us to the agent who came looking for Marc Cory - killed in the stand-alone instalment. Bret Vyon is played by Nicholas Courtney, the future Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and so this marks his very first appearance in the series.

We also get to spend some time with short-lived companion Katarina, who only joined the series in the (now lost) previous episode. There's another direct link to that episode as Steven has contracted blood poisoning from a sword wound inflicted during the fall of Troy, and he's seriously injured.

We're back on the densely jungled planet of Kembel, where the Daleks have assembled their invasion force and where their alliance meets.

Having sat out Mission to the Unknown, the Doctor is unaware of what is going on here, and is simply looking for medical help for his companion. We know far more about this place than he does.

The Dalek Master Plan is shown to have expanded to include an enemy working within the Solar System itself - its Guardian, Mavic Chen. 

His appearance is certainly one of the things I was most looking forward to seeing when it was announced that this was one of the two episodes recently recovered from a private collection by Film is Fabulous. Kevin Stoney is superb, and he is responsible for two of the greatest villains in the history of Doctor Who - Chen and Tobias Vaughn.

Despite the absence of telesnaps, we did know a little about what this episode looked like. Three clips survived - the TARDIS materialisation, the landing of the Spar 7-40 at the space-port, and the longer sequence showing the ambush and death of Bret's colleague Kert Gantry. Also, the jungle and some sets for the Dalek city are seen throughout the surviving second episode.

What we have been missing are the TARDIS interior sequences, and the Communications Centre scenes on Earth.

We can now see Chen's introduction, via a couple of incidental characters - Lizan and Roald - watching a news broadcast featuring him. The bald-headed Technix, who featured prominently in publicity images back in 1966, have only been seen very briefly (crewing the Spar).

They're one of the more obscure characters in the series thanks to all those photos - but a lack of actual footage. And no-one talks about them in dialogue. Is it simply policy that these workers have to shave their heads, like part of a uniform, or are they - as I suspect - some sort of genetically engineered drone workers, or clones. (Spin-off literature goes with them being clones in one place, and cyborgs in another). Sadly we still don't know, but at least we now get to see them.

One thing which strikes you even more is how the Earth of the year 4000 resembles a fascist technocracy. We had already seen the literal uniformity of its people - everyone seems to wear tabards - and the jackbooted security forces which police it, but this episode certainly reinforces the image.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see any more of the Planetarians here - they aren't introduced until The Day of Armageddon.

The Daleks themselves don't show up until quite late on in the episode - the ambush on Gantry - and are merely shown waiting to welcome Chen later on. (One thing I didn't know was that the Dalek Supreme doesn't feature in this instalment). 

The episode concentrates instead on Bret and the TARDIS crew.

Despite playing another character of military bearing, Bret is a very different character to the Brigadier, which demonstrates just how good an actor Courtney was.

Things we wouldn't have known about without the visuals include Bret's communicator resembling the ones later used by the Cybermen.

Whilst he and Kert mention Varga Plants, they don't actually feature in the action - but we see a couple of them lurking in the jungle. 

I certainly had no idea that Steven spent the entire episode shirtless and in modern trousers. I had expected him to still be wearing his ancient Greek gear.

One rather shocking image is a lingering shot of the dead Kert's face, eyes wide open and mouth agape.

Something else I wasn't aware of from the soundtrack was the way Roald mouthed the words of Chen's speech, clearly having heard it all before. 

It's these little details which we lose out on by only having the audio.

As well as being a very good episode for Courtney, William Hartnell is at the top of his game here, even though he spends most of the episode talking to himself.

I think you can also see, very clearly, why new companion Katarina simply wasn't sustainable. 

P is for... Pting

Diminutive creatures noted for their insatiable appetite for anything inorganic - especially if it provided them with an energy source. They were reputedly indestructible and could survive in the vacuum of space. One of them once wiped out an entire space fleet. They could be rendered immobile for short periods by staser fire, however, but made for extremely difficult targets.

The Doctor and her companions encountered one when it infiltrated a hospital ship, the Tsuranga, carrying them and a number of patients and staff. The creature began eating its way through the ship's infrastructure, aiming for the anti-matter power core. 

An attempt to lure it into an escape pod failed, so the Doctor was forced to devise an alternative scheme. A detonation device was rigged to attract it and it consumed this instead, before being ejected from the vessel through an airlock.

On exploding, the Pting merely absorbed the resulting energy and survived to float away through space.

The Doctor later encountered another member of the species, which she nicknamed "Tiny", on a penal asteroid run by the Judoon.

Appearances: The Tsuranga Conundrum (2018), The Timeless Children (2020), Revolution of the Daleks (2021)

• Though the episode was written by Chris Chibnall, the Pting was actually the creation of writer Tim Price. He had been a member of the writers room for Series 11 but had been unsuccessful in getting a story commissioned. Chibnall liked the alien he had devised, however, and Price agreed he could use it.

P is for... Psi

Psi was one of the people recruited by the Doctor to help rob the Bank of Karabraxos - notorious for its high levels of security. None of the thieves knew that the Doctor was behind this heist - even him, as they had all willingly handled a Memory Worm which wiped their recent memories. This was so that they couldn't reveal anything if captured. The bank employed a creature known as the Teller which could psychically sense guilt.

Each of the gang was promised a reward - something which the bank held in its vaults. Psi had undergone a technological upgrade which allowed him to interface directly with any computerised systems. In doing so, his longer term memories had been removed and stored on a chip, and getting this would be his reward. 

They were also given a suicide device - a ripper - to use in the event that the Teller caught them and destroyed their brains seeking their guilt. After helping to breach the security systems, Psi sacrificed himself by downloading data about various notorious criminals into his mind, which drew the Teller away from the Doctor and Clara. This then allowed them to reach their goal - actually the rescue of the Teller's mate.

It later transpired that the ripper was really a teleport, which took them to the safety of the TARDIS. Psi gained his memory chip, which allowed him to recall his family.

Played by: Jonathan Bailey. Appearances: Time Heist (2014).

• Pretty much everywhere these days, he started off as a child actor with the RSC and also played Gavroche in Les Miserables in the West End. His first significant TV role was as the corruptible local journalist in Chris Chibnall's Broadchurch.
• Period drama Bridgerton really put him on the map, before he moved to the big screen with Wicked and its sequel, and the male lead role in Jurassic World Rebirth.
• He hasn't given up the theatre. I saw him in the title role of Richard II at the Bridge Theatre in London in 2025.
• In 2024 he set up an LGBTQ+ charity - The Shameless Fund.
• Voted sexiest man alive in 2025.

P is for... Programmers

Two of the staff who helped to operate the Game Station - the space station in orbit above Earth formerly known as Satellite Five. They were employees of the Bad Wolf Corporation, responsible for ensuring that the station continually broadcast hundreds of game shows to the inhabitants of the planet below.

Programmer Davitch Pavale noticed irregular activity in one of the Big Brother games, and alerted his female colleague who had noted similar activity in a Weakest Link she was monitoring. This involved a pair of new contestants who were not taking the deadly games seriously. The Doctor and Rose had been abducted and transported into the games - the Doctor into the Big Brother house and Rose into a Weakest Link contest. The situation worsened when the Doctor broke out of his game, taking another contestant, Lynda, with him. When they alerted the Controller, through whom all output from the Game Station was broadcast, she instructed them to take no hostile action.

The Doctor, Lynda and Captain Jack Harkness - who had ended up on What Not To Wear - were captured by security guards but soon escaped and began making their way towards the control room.

Despite the fact that they appeared to be armed, the Controller once again refused to take action against them. 

This was because she was under the control of the Daleks, who had been responsible for bringing the Doctor and his companions here.

The Doctor warned them of an imminent Dalek attack, and the Programmers joined Jack in helping to defend the Station. Both were killed when their weapons proved ineffective against the invaders.

Davitch had carried a torch for his colleague, only letting her know of this before they perished.

Played by: Jo Stone-Fewings (Davitch Pavale), Nisha Nyar. Appearances: Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (2005).

• It would probably be cause for controversy these days but the Female Programmer doesn't merit a name.
• Nisha Nyar has featured on many Big Finish audios.
• She previously played (uncredited) a Kang in Paradise Towers. 
• Jo Stone-Fewings is primarily a theatre actor, having appeared in over a dozen Shakespeare productions, many with the RSC.
• He had previously worked on a Russell T Davies drama - Mine All Mine - in 2003.

P is for... Pritchard

Richard Pritchard was a representative of Vector Petroleum, who controlled a mining complex known as The Drum in the Highlands of Scotland. He was Vice President of Subaquatic Resources, for The Drum was located deep beneath a man-made lake in a flooded valley.

As senior company staff member on the team, he took charge when commander Moran was killed in a freak accident. A capsule of unknown origins had been found on the floor of the lake and brought on board. Its engines fired unexpectedly and Moran was killed. Pritchard was interested mainly in how this apparently alien technology could be exploited by the company. He was especially interested in a missing power cell, which the Doctor had drawn the crew's attention to. 

Despite the appearance of ghostly figures which had begun to haunt the complex - including spectres of Moran and a figure dressed like a funeral director - Pritchard decided to don diving gear and go outside alone to find the power cell. Moran's ghost turned up and killed him, trapping and drowning him in the airlock before he could suit up.

Pritchard then joined the ranks of the ghosts. All were lured into a Faraday Cage where they were trapped by the Doctor, and this was then fired into space where the ghosts - really psychic transmitters - would dissipate over time.

Played by: Steven Robertson. Appearances: Under The Lake / Before The Flood (2015)

• Robertson is best known for his regular role in crime drama Shetland. He was born and raised on the Shetland Islands. 
• He also appeared in supernatural drama Being Human. This was in its fifth series, when he played civil servant Dominic Rook whose government department dealt with supernatural phenomena.

The Nightmare Begins Early...

Originally said to be arriving on the BBC iPlayer on Saturday 4th April, it has been announced that the two recently recovered episodes will be available from 6am on Friday 3rd. I'll be posting my thoughts on the Saturday, as I won't get a chance to watch them until Friday evening.