Synopsis:
Having just gunned down Bret Vyon, fellow agent Sara Kingdom orders her colleagues to kill his two accomplices...
The Doctor and Steven come across a chamber devoid of staff, which has an electronic device sitting at its centre. This includes a glass casing containing some white mice. As they investigate it, Sara enters the chamber and demands that they hand over the Core.
They are all unaware that their presence has been noted too late by scientists Froyn and Rhynmal, working in a nearby control room. They are using the chamber to conduct a matter transmission experiment. The object with the mice is to be transported across space to the far distant planet of Mira.
The experiment has already been triggered when their presence in the room is noted, and is too late to stop.
As the chamber seems to dissolve around them, the Doctor, Steven and Sara suddenly find themselves hurtling across the cosmos...
Karlton arrives and is furious with the two scientists. They explain about their experiment, stating that the choice of Mira was deliberate as travelling the great distance was one of their goals.
A signal comes through, indicating that the transmitter on the device is working. The mice have arrived safely, so Sara and the fugitives are probably alive too.
She, the Doctor and Steven have been deposited in the middle of an alien swamp. Before regaining consciousness, a curious invisible being examines the agent.
On Earth, Mavic Chen panics over what the Daleks will do when they learn he has failed to recapture the Core. Karlton reassures him, suggesting that he tell the Supreme that he sent the fugitives to Mira deliberately. Too much attention was being drawn to them at home, and Mira is close to Kembel - so they were sent there, with no means of escape, so that the Daleks could pick them up.
On Mira, the Doctor, Steven and Sara meet up. The young man has taken Sara's weapon. As they discuss what has happened, the agent admits that Bret Vyon had been her brother.
Initially insistent that she has done her duty, she begins to suspect that the Doctor may be telling her the truth about Chen.
The Doctor knows where they are by the presence of the Visians - Mira's invisible inhabitants. They are giant savage creatures, with clawed feet.
The Supreme despatches a pursuit ship to capture them. On landing, the Daleks locate the device sent from Earth and destroy it when they see that it is transmitting. They then come under attack by the Visians.
Chen advises Karlton to assemble a force on the planet Venus, whilst he will return to Kembel - determined to be at the heart of things when the Core is retrieved.
The Doctor, Steven and Sara have sought shelter in a small cave. Looking out, they find themselves surrounded by the Dalek group.
The Doctor announces that the Daleks have finally defeated them...
Next episode: Coronas of the Sun
Data:
Written by: Terry Nation
Recorded: Friday 19th November 1965 - Television Centre Studio TC4
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 11th December 1965
Ratings: 9.9 million / AI 53
Designer: Raymond P Cusick
Director: Douglas Camfield
Additional cast: Bill Meilen (Froyn), John Herrington (Rhynmal)
Critique:
Counter Plot is the second of the three surviving episodes from The Daleks' Master Plan.
After being seen briefly in the previous instalment, this is Sara Kingdom's first full episode, and is the one wherein she begins to transition to companion status.
This only comes after she has admitted that her devotion to duty has led her to gun down her own brother. This leads to an obvious problem, in that it is difficult to see why she would be turned to the Doctor's cause so quickly. She simply accepts what he and Steven are telling her, even before the Daleks turn up to confirm it.
The episode allows us to see Maurice Browning's Karlton. He clearly sees himself as an Eminence Gris, the real power behind Chen - and we see how he is the most level-headed of the pair. Whilst Chen panics, he coolly works out a way to not only solve their problem, but turn it to their advantage.
It's a great pity that the character is completely forgotten about in the second half of the story. In all probability he will have taken control of the Solar System after Chen's demise. His "Second... next to you" clearly indicated his ambitions.
The visit to Mira was in Nation's very first draft, when he described it as the "Planet of Mists". This fogbound planet was to have savage invisible natives.
It had originally been intended as one of the locations visited by the TARDIS in The Chase, when it was called the planet Stygian.
For its cliff-hanger, the Doctor and his companions were supposed to be lured into stealing what they think to be an empty Dalek spaceship - only for it to be a trap. The vessel has been programmed to take them straight to Varga (as Kembel was then named).
A later draft called the Visians "Visilens", described as "the invisible spirits of evil". (They were also "Visions" at one point).
During production on The Baron, Nation and Dennis Spooner had co-written an episode entitled There's Someone Close Behind You, and this prompted the working title for this episode - "There's Something Just Behind You".
Nation left the matter transmission effects to the director, but suggested it looking as though they were slammed back against a wall. They should look to be in pain but unable to speak.
He described Mira as resembling the Florida Everglades, and specified that it should never be apparent whether it is day or night on the planet. It should just be dark and gloomy all the time.
A white mud, unique to Mira, was used by Steven to attack the Visians (presumably to make them visible). Nation also gave a description of the creatures for when they came to be seen - tentacled beings similar to upright Mire Beasts. The creatures also spoke in early versions.
Scientists Froyn and Rhynmal were originally named Frayn and Bosworth.
There were problems at Ealing on the day of filming Mira sequences - Wednesday 29th September. One of the Dalek props arrived late, and one of the Visian footprint effects failed to work (retained in the finished episode).
Some shots of the jungles were realised with model work.
During the rehearsal period, Sydney Newman phoned John Wiles to congratulate him on the opening episode of the serial.
A problem arose, however, as William Hartnell fell ill at the beginning of the week. The scripts for the next two episodes were amended to reduce the Doctor's role.
Barry Learoyd, head of the design department, raised a concern with Wiles that his people were not being given sufficient notice of scenic needs each week. This was in part due to the issues which Donald Tosh and Douglas Camfield were experiencing with the lack of workable scripts from Nation. They were having to (re)write much themselves.
Production this week moved to another studio at Television Centre (Studio 4).
For the initial shots of the matter transmission process, Hartnell, Marsh and Purves had to stand and gurn and grimace for close-ups, which were then treated by whitening them out with a video effect.
Footage from Ealing of Marsh and Purves, bouncing in slow motion on a trampoline, showed them being transported through space.
Hartnell would never have agreed to doing this, and wouldn't have been asked anyway, as he was very much playing up his age and ill health at this time.
The Mira set had dry ice supplied to show the low mist. Jean Marsh had thin wire laid under her loose-lying hair which when moved indicated the Visian examining her.
Clumps of bushes were moved using a similar technique with cotton twine tied around them.
When the Daleks exterminate the Visians they are not seen to become visible in this episode, though they will be in the next.
The closing scene of the Doctor and companions in the cave entrance was recorded a second time at the end of the night, on film this time so that it could be played in as the reprise at the start of the following episode.
Counter Plot was cleared for wiping in August 1967. However, in July 1983 a 16mm film copy was recovered from the basement of a Mormon church in Wandsworth, South London, along with a copy of Escape Switch.
- The ratings continue to see-saw, with a half million increase and a two point rise in the appreciation figure.
- This episode was the subject of a BBC audience research report, wherein 201 respondents gave their feedback. Adults found it "bland" though children had enjoyed it.
- Counter-Plot was to have been the title of the sixth episode.
- The bald-headed Technix were originally called Technocrats, and were described as Karlton's 'Special Force'.
- We have to ask why Froyn and Rhynmal are working so far away from the transmission chamber, with no window to observe their experiment, or even a camera. They have also allowed the door to be left unlocked, so anyone can wander in - which is exactly what happens. It's an odd way to conduct such an important scientific experiment.
- John Herrington will return to the programme as the ill-fated engineer Jim Holden in Colony in Space.
- Bill Meilen worked right up until his death in 2006, latterly providing videogame voices - including Don Corleone in The Godfather. In 2004 he featured in the Battlestar Galactica reboot series.
- Had Nicholas Courtney won the role of King Richard in The Crusade, this would have been the second story in which he and Jean Marsh played siblings.
- Radio Times once again gave the serial an illustrated episode synopsis:
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