The Daleks Masterplan
Few stories now seem more "of
their time" than "The Daleks Masterplan", which immediately evokes images
of rolykins, perverse PVC suits for kids and the whole country going Dalek
loopy. Odd, how "The Chase" doesn't quite conjure up that same spirit of
nostalgia.
More interestingly, the story is indicative more than any other of how
good the brilliant bits of Doctor Who we haven't got are in contrast to
the dull existing stories. "The Daleks Masterplan" is never far from the
top of most fans list of favourite Hartnell stories, and it's not hard to
see why. It lives on in the memory like an action-packed, big budget
feature film, a World Distributors Annual come to life. Spar ships! A
menagerie of alien delegates! Brave fighter pilot Marc Cory facing being
turned into a Varga Plant! Even the TARDIS landing at a cricket match and
a Liverpool Police station sounds more thrilling than anything in "The
Chase" or the, by comparison, dull-as-ditchwater "The Daleks". How on
Earth did they afford it?
The myth, however, starts to look a little shaky when we consider that we
actually have two bits of this mystical classic and - guess what! -
they're rubbish! Insipidly directed, unimaginatively designed and devoid
of any of the classic moments we've come to associate with this epic
adventure. Regardless of this, we blindly accept that we have simply drawn
the short straw in the lottery of episode discoveries. We don't get any of
the Kembel jungle in Parts 5 and 10, and from what I can remember, most of
Part 10 features the Doctor wandering around a stock-flats Egypt while
some cut-price extras dressed as natives mill about unconvincingly. In
fact I can't remember anything about Part 5 at all, bar a wander round the
less-than-classic planet Mira and some weird gurning from Hartnell.
Why-oh-why couldn't we have got Sara aging to death, or anything of the
weird and wonderful alien delegates? Or that cricket match? It could just
be that none of it was especially impressive in the first place you know.
If you think hard about how you imagine that cricket match to be in your
head, or while listening to the audio, it's much better than what they
could have afforded to actually film. In my head it's all done on location
for a start, with the camera joining the two amusing commentators far
above the bustling stadium for a gorgeous arial shot of the TARDIS landing
on the green. No way was it done using front axial projection, or in front
of a studio backcloth while a floor hand hurled a cricket ball into shot.
Perhaps we should stop here. There's no point in me, or even you, spoiling
your illusions when none of the buggers are going to come back anyway.
It's a syndrome that stretches back and forth to encompass most other
sixties Who - even the second episode of the much respected "Evil of the
Daleks" isn't talked about that much. Maybe that was an unlucky choice to
come back as well. No, better to believe that there was a conspiracy to
destroy the very best episodes so that they'd stay unfeasibly perfect in
our memories forever. That way there will always be a little bit of Doctor
Who that didn't fail to live up to the magical rumours, or our childhood
expectations. How else do you explain the convenient and tantalising
return of those crystal clear silent clips from "The Nightmare Begins"?
Yes, give me that lovely, filmic cricket match scene, complete with the
Doctor stepping out to the gasps of a huge crowd, over "The Sensorites" or
"The Keys of "Marinus" any day. Existing in the mind, nobody is ever going
to be able to prove that it was anything less than heartstoppingly
perfect.
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