Synopsis:
In the TARDIS, the Doctor is gravely concerned about Steven's deteriorating health. His wound is infected and he has blood poisoning. The ship materialises in a clearing surrounded by jungle foliage.
Nearby, two men are hiding amidst the dense vegetation. Both are agents of Earth's Space Security Service. Kert Gantry has been injured, and urges colleague Bret Vyon to leave him behind and save himself. They have come to this planet - Kembel - in search of their colleague Marc Cory, who disappeared some months ago. Bret is trying to contact his headquarters on Earth, but there is no response.
At his command centre's communications room, a pair of technicians - Roald and Lizan - are distracted by a speech by the charismatic Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, who is about to embark on a short holiday. They fail to see Bret's signal, which cuts off as he is forced to move away from his comrade. An enemy patrol is approaching.
After Bret has moved away, the Dalek patrol finds Kert and exterminates him.
The Doctor leaves Katarina to look after Steven whilst he goes outside to explore, hoping to find medical assistance.
Bret observes his departure. After examining the strange blue box, he sets off after the Doctor.
He has just spotted a large city beyond the jungle when he is accosted by Bret who demands the key to his ship.
Steven has regained consciousness and is learning from Katarina the events just before they left Troy and came to this new location.
Bret lets himself into the TARDIS, and Steven is too weak to challenge him. When he demands that she show him how to operate the ship, Katarina informs him that only the Doctor knows how.
Steven finds the strength to knock him out.
The Doctor spots a spaceship landing at the city as he returns to the TARDIS.
The complex belongs to the Daleks, who are led by the Black Dalek. They welcome the new arrival - Mavic Chen.
Bret wakes to find himself trapped by the Doctor in a chair which employs an electromagnetic field. The Doctor goes back outside to inspect the city, hoping to find medical help there. However, he sees only Daleks and hurries back to the ship. On his way he discovers the skeletal remains of a man, beside which is a tape recording. He pockets this.
Bret learns of Steven's wound and tells Katarina to take some tablets from his belt pouch which will cure the infection.
Returning to the clearing, the Doctor is horrified to see a pair of Daleks blocking his path to the TARDIS...
Next episode: Day of Armageddon
Written by: Terry Nation
Recorded: Friday 22nd October 1965 - Television Centre Studio TC3
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 13th November 1965
Ratings: 9.1 million / AI 54
Designer: Raymond P Cusick
Director: Douglas Camfield
Guest cast: Nicholas Courtney (Bret Vyon), Brian Cant (Kert Gantry), Kevin Stoney (Mavic Chen), Philip Anthony (Roald), Pamela Greer (Lizan), Michael Guest (Interviewer)
Critique:
Mission to the Unknown had come about due to the production team being owed an episode, following the decision to edit Planet of Giants from four parts down to three. Made at the end of Season 2 after the regular cast had already departed on their summer break, it had been decided that the episode would be used to act as a prequel to a planned twelve-part story to be made in Season 3.
It had been an idea by Verity Lambert and Dennis Spooner that the series would regularise its story lengths. Lambert had always wanted only four-parters, which she and David Whitaker had felt to be an ideal length. However, the costs of twelve "first nights" per year, with new costumes and sets, would have been prohibitive - so stories had to be longer.
During the second year it had finally been decided that "ordinary" stories should be four weeks in duration, with the popular Dalek stories getting six episodes. Spread out, viewers would get two Dalek stories per season, roughly six months apart.
The BBC's controller of programmes Huw Weldon regarded his mother-in-law as a typical viewer. What she liked, the average audience would also like - and she loved the Daleks. He therefore asked for more of them - a view backed by the director of television Kenneth Adam.
Even though both knew that they would be leaving the series, Lambert and Spooner considered this and decided to meld the two intended Dalek stories of the season together - creating a 12-part epic that would bestride the festive season. This was to be a Dalek Christmas after all, with dozens of products available in the shops for fans, coming soon after a Dalek cinema feature. Whitaker was even planning a Dalek stage play for December 1965.
The actual production of this epic was to fall to their successors - John Wiles and Donald Tosh - and neither of them were happy about this. They had their own plans for the series, and they did not feature a giant Dalek story taking up much of their first season in charge. Wiles would later describe it as being like a massive rock in midstream, impossible to avoid running aground on. He actually threatened to resign over it at the time, but was talked out of doing so by Tosh.
Problems were compounded by Terry Nation's relative lack of availability. He was concentrating his efforts on establishing himself in the US, having been heavily involved in the ITC-style adventure series which he saw as a passport to American work. It had already been decided that he would share writing duties on such a lengthy serial with someone else - and the obvious candidate was the ex-story editor who had commissioned the serial, who knew the series, and had been collaborating with Nation on his series The Baron in the interim.
In interviews later, they claimed that they competed with each other - suggesting that they wrote alternate episodes and left difficult cliff-hangers for each to try and resolve. This is not the case, however. Nation wrote only the first half of the story, with Spooner tackling the second half. It was only with the middle, festive, episodes that their competitive story applied.
The Daleks' Master Plan might have two credited writers, but the reality is that it ought to have had four.
The director chosen to helm this epic was Douglas Camfield, who had brought The Crusade and The Time Meddler to the screen, proving he could tackle drama and action equally effectively. He had also worked on Planet of Giants, demonstrating a handling of technically complex episodes.
On joining the production he was frustrated to discover a lack of scripts.
(Thoughts had been given to having two directors, but Wiles decided on just Camfield for consistency's sake).
As Donald Tosh told it, he was harassing Nation to deliver his work. He was eventually promised that it would be dropped off the following morning. Nation turned up at his door with a relatively flimsy envelope which he handed over, before jumping in his car and heading off for the airport to fly Stateside.
On opening the envelope, Tosh was disheartened to find only a small amount of actual script, along with rough episode breakdowns and notes on characters and spaceships. The writer was happy for some changes to be made as production advanced, but insisted on some elements being unalterable.
In the end, Tosh had to contribute to the scripts of the Nation episodes himself - and in this he was joined by Camfield. Whilst the general structure of each instalment might be Nation's, much of the dialogue and certain scenes came from the story editor and director.
Due to the length of the story, two weeks of filming were allocated.
Brian Cant filmed Kert's death at Ealing on Thursday 30th September, along with the TARDIS materialisation - which is why these scenes are amongst those still preserved in the archives, along with some city / model shots. Cant was an old friend of Camfield's.
Cast as Bret Vyon was Nicholas Courtney, whom Camfield had almost used as King Richard in The Crusade. He had employed him in other productions since.
The city / landing stage model was some 24 feet square. There were delays when some of the spaceship models - built by Shawcraft - did not work, and a remount was necessary. Camfield would have a number of problems with model shots over the fortnight.
The poor quality of the script was noted in rehearsals, and Camfield made some changes as they went along.
Now that O'Brien had left, William Hartnell came to rely more and more on Peter Purves. He would socialise with him and his wife during the week. Purves was keen to learn from the older actor.
On the afternoon of recording, publicity photographs included those of Hartnell posing with the bald-headed Technix, who were seen working in the communications centre.
Three Varga costumes were used in studio.
The Daleks were once again operated by Kevin Manser, Gerald Taylor, Robert Jewell and John Scott Martin, with voices provided by Peter Hawkins and David Graham. The latter recorded their contributions on the Wednesday prior to recording.
Taylor operated the Black Dalek Supreme, and Manser had been replaced by Jack Pitt for the Ealing filming.
Trivia:
- The ratings start well thanks to the Daleks, rising by almost a million and with a 6 point increase in the appreciation figure.
- This episode ran to only 22' 55" duration, and Wiles had to report the reasons to his superiors. These were stated as an inability to accurately time some VFX shots, and Camfield's reluctance to add padding scenes / dialogue.
- The series moves away from Riverside Studios and back to Television Centre for this serial. All but two episodes will be recorded in TC3.
- The model shots of the Dalek city, with assorted spaceships, was filmed at Ealing over Friday 1st and Monday 4th October.
- Mavic Chen's spaceship is called the Spar 7-40. The name was a contraction of "space car".
- Before settling on "Mavic Chen" the character was called Banhoong. Once Nation settled on Chen, he insisted that this be one of the unalterable aspects of his work.
- Nicholas Courtney's character was originally to be named Brett Walton.
- Gantry was Kurt rather than Kert.
- Kembel was still called Varga in the first draft.
- When the Doctor found the recording there was to have been a Varga Plant beside the body - all that remained of Lowery from Mission to the Unknown.
- This episode's cliff-hanger was originally to have been the reveal of 'Banhoong' as a traitor. Another draft had the Doctor see a Dalek emerge from the TARDIS.
- Space Security was originally to be based in New Washington on Earth, but Tosh foresaw a more unified Earth in the far future, where old place names would have been discarded.
- Before settling on 4000 AD, Nation had envisaged his story taking place in the year One Million.
- Brian Cant, best known for classic children's TV programming, will return to the series as the Dulcian Tensa in The Dominators. His son Richard played Kathy's grandson in Blink.
- Michael Guest, playing the interviewer, had previously played minor roles in Marco Polo and The Crusade, both stories Camfield had worked on.
- Two short trailers (of 18" and 37" duration) were cut to advertise this opening instalment.
- Reaction from viewers of Junior Points of View on 19th November was mainly about the overuse of Daleks and a wish to see new monsters.
- Radio Times had regional variations for their introduction to the new story. One version, headed "Dr. Who and the Daleks", saw a half page article with an image of Hartnell from later in the story, accompanied by one of the cinema Daleks. Elsewhere, readers had a smaller piece simply headed "Dr. Who", with a montage image of Hartnell superimposed over Daleks from The Chase, accompanied by a photo of Katarina tending the injured Steven. The accompanying text was the same.
- Ray Cusick claimed that over the years he gave away all the spaceship models for children to play with. It is known that the Spar 7-40 still exists, however. A photograph was featured in Marcus Hearn's The Vault book, published in 2013:
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