Destruction of Time (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 12)

The one where the Time Destructor is activated, and takes its deadly toll...

And so here we are, at the end of a mammoth 12-part epic which ran for three months and was such an exhausting production experience that it led to the resignation of both new producer John Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh, and caused director Douglas Camfield to take a two-year break from Doctor Who. The climactic scenes of Destruction of Time are probably representative of what it was like making the show by this point!

But what a corker of a finale this is, one of the very best episodes of Doctor Who, and it's an immense shame we cannot see it. If we could, I suspect it'd go down as an all time classic. At the start of the episode we have a cracking performance from Kevin Stoney as Mavic Chen begins to unravel, and his megalomania mutates into madness. Stoney sounds unhinged, and takes the character to new heights of melodrama and self-aggrandisement. You can tell his mind's gone when he starts saying "I, Mavic Chen!" all the time.

The Abandoned Planet (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 11)

The one where the Doctor goes completely AWOL...

Mavic Chen proudly proclaims to the Dalek Supreme that the only reason they have the precious taranium core back is because of his "guile and cunning". He's certainly tooting his own trumpet there, but to be honest, the only reason Chen has the core at all is because of the Monk. He was the one who (at least pretended to) bring Steven and Sara to the Daleks as hostages so that the Doctor would have to exchange the core for his friends. Mavic Chen always did strike me as someone who'd steal someone else's thunder, however.

The Abandoned Planet is another of the missing episodes from this three-month epic, which is a crying shame because it features an awful lot of alien delegate action. The only footage we have of them are those wonderfully strange scenes in Day of Armageddon, but they do feature in other episodes too, most of all this one. Episode 11 has bucketloads of Celation, the floaty bobbly skinheaded alien we see in episode 2, here played by a different actor (Terence Woodfield, who'd later appear in human form in The Ark).

Escape Switch (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 10)

The one where the Doctor hands the taranium core back to the Daleks...

Hooray, it's Doctor Who's 100th episode already! And what better way to mark this milestone than with the Doctor facing off against his greatest foes in a showdown in Ancient Egypt? Thankfully, William Hartnell has his health (and mojo) back after a couple of weeks croaking his way through proceedings. The Christmas break must have done him good, but as Escape Switch was recorded on New Year's Eve 1965, I'm guessing the cast enjoyed a few celebratory drinks afterwards!

We start by discovering that the mummified hand emerging from the sarcophagus in last week's cliffhanger actually belongs to the Monk, who's been wrapped up in bandages by a mischievous Doctor and bundled into a coffin! The bandages aren't all that tightly wrapped, to be honest, so it's hard to see why the Monk feels so debilitated by his predicament, but it's a rather amusing resolution all the same. We'll have to wait a little longer for Doctor Who's first mummy, obviously (well, nine years anyway).

Golden Death (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 9)

The one where the Monk allies himself with the Daleks...

Poor old William Hartnell is still suffering from a throaty cold during Golden Death, and although it doesn't seem to dent his enthusiasm or commitment, it does have the unfortunate yet amusing side effect of making him sound quite peculiar at times, especially when he has one of his giggling fits. It demonstrates the brutal schedule the production team were up against back in the 1960s though - there were just three weeks between studio recording and transmission at this point, and this would be reduced to just two weeks after the Christmas break, with episode 10 being recorded just a fortnight before transmission. There was little room for error, and everyday maladies such as the common cold simply had to be endured.

Luckily, Hartnell has fewer lines to say in this episode because he spends much of it silently following the Monk around and listening in to what he's up to. I have to ask myself again, why does the Monk continue to dress as a monk when being a monk serves no practical purpose any longer? It made sense for him to be disguised as a monk in The Time Meddler, but to still dress in habit and sandals on the volcanic planet of Tigus, or in Ancient Egypt, makes no sense. It means he must genuinely have a "thing" for dressing up this way. Kinky!

Volcano (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 8)

The one where an enemy from the Doctor's past takes revenge...

Yay, the Daleks are back! After our brief sojourn into farce for last week's Christmas episode, the New Year's Day episode brings new excitement as the metal meanies find out that their taranium core is faulty. The Daleks, behaving as ruthlessly and efficiently as ever, decide to test the Time Destructor before they put Plan A into action, and it's poor old Trantis who becomes their guinea pig. Luckily for Trantis, the Time Destructor won't work because the Doctor gave them a false taranium core, but that doesn't stop them from exterminating the fang-toothed delegate all the same.

The Daleks really are nasty in this story, and it seems, judging by the conversation between Mavic Chen, Trantis and hissy old Celation, that only the Daleks have broken the barrier of time (other than the Doctor). Celation's people are experimenting with time travel, but only the masters of Skaro have developed time travel technology. We first saw the Daleks' time machine in The Chase, which was apprehended by Ian and Barbara in order to get back to their own time. Here, Skaro HQ sends another time machine to the Dalek Supreme on Kembel so that they can pursue the Doctor's TARDIS and recover the taranium core. The chase is on... again!

The Feast of Steven (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 7)

The one where the Doctor meets Bing Crosby...

Doctor Who's first ever Christmas episode was also its last for 40 years, but for one night only, at 6.35pm on Christmas Day 1965, Doctor Who was a part of the BBC's festive schedule. Viewers had already enjoyed Laurel and Hardy's Way Out West, a gala of free skating and interpretive dance from the Queen's Ice Club in London, Billy Smart's Circus, Disney Time, and the panto Mother Goose, featuring none other than Jon Pertwee! Doctor Who's opposition on ITV was an episode of Thunderbirds.

The episode itself is more like a side-step from the main story, as there are no Daleks and nothing happens which directly relates to the plot of The Daleks' Master Plan. It's more of a festive farce, but one definitely of two halves - the first half being much better than the second. It turns out that the poisonous atmosphere outside is just the everyday pollution of 1960s England (the North, to be precise!), so that was a bit of a cheat.

Coronas of the Sun (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 6)

The one where the Doctor mocks up a fake taranium core...

Coronas of the Sun. What exactly does that mean? Well, it doesn't make much sense to me, either in the context of the episode or as a grammatical statement. Firstly, no suns feature in this episode. I suppose it could be referring to how hot and bright the taranium core is, but that's a bit obscure. Secondly, a sun (or a star) only has one corona, so why pluralise it? It's just nonsense - there's no sun and no corona, so why is the episode called Coronas of the Sun? Argh!

Let's move on... This episode is pretty action-packed, starting off with an assault on the Daleks by the invisible Visians. It's not clear why the Visians decide to attack the Daleks, but at least their timely assault allows the Doctor, Sara and Steven to escape (and by the way, the Doctor finally refers to Sara by name in this episode, despite her not introducing herself!). The narration on the BBC CD soundtrack states that when a Visian is killed, it briefly becomes visible before dying (exactly the same as the people of Spiridon!). Obviously we cannot watch this lost episode so we're unable to see what form they took, but it's believed they were "roughly humanoid". The novelisation of this story also states that the Visians appeared "thin, bony, with two long, clawed arms, feet like birds' claws and a narrow head with a beak". I wonder how they actually appeared in the episode?

Counter Plot (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 5)

The one where the Daleks exterminate some white mice...

What a beautiful set the dissemination chamber is! Raymond Cusick's sleek, simplistic design is unlike anything that has appeared in the series before (except perhaps the TARDIS interior), and brings scale and grandeur to the Earth setting. Just the simple idea of putting a walkway ramp at the entrance to the chamber adds depth, along with the apparently transparent/ glass floor tiles. It's usually Barry Newbery's historical sets which impress the most in this era, but all credit to Cusick for this one (and indeed the episode's other sets too, including Mira).

Before we know what's what, the Doctor, Steven and Sara are being transported through space to another planet, light years away from Earth. There's some award-winning facial contortions on display here, particularly from Hartnell, and the effect of Steven and Sara (but noticeably not the Doctor) trampolining through space is both weird and wonderful. All credit here to director Douglas Camfield - the effect is utterly strange, as it should be, along with Brian Hodgson's surreal sound design.

The Traitors (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 4)

The one where two key characters get killed in the space of 25 minutes...

I've discussed my dislike of the character of Katarina before (and touched upon the poor performance given by Adrienne Hill), but that doesn't mean that the death of the Trojan handmaiden in The Traitors is any less affecting. Viewers had barely been given a chance to get to know Katarina, let alone come to like her, but her early dispatch in episode 4 of The Daleks' Master Plan - only her fifth episode in all - still smarts. At the very least she was a naive innocent thrust into a world she did not ask for or understand, so for her journey to end this suddenly is quite brutal.

It's the first time that a "companion" dies in Doctor Who, and it's treated with due value by writer Terry Nation, director Douglas Camfield and the cast. William Hartnell pulls one of his scorchingly well-delivered emotive speeches out of the hat in honour of Katarina: "I hope she's reached her Place of Perfection. She didn't understand; she couldn't understand. She wanted to save our lives. And perhaps the lives of all the other beings of the Solar System. I hope she's found her Perfection. Oh, how I shall always remember her as one of the Daughters of the Gods. Yes, as one of the Daughters of the Gods..."

Devil's Planet (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 3)

The one where Zephon gets his comeuppance...

Thank goodness for Blue Peter, huh? Thanks to the BBC's flagship children's magazine programme, we have over a minute and a half of footage from Devil's Planet, an episode which is otherwise lost from the archives. Blue Peter transmitted the clip in 1971, but the mastertape has long since gone. This footage is highly representative of Devil's Planet as a whole, in that it's set almost entirely on the stolen Spar ship, and also features a few Daleks.

But Devil's Planet isn't all that exciting, to be honest. After two episodes of fast-paced thrills and spills, revelations and monstrous alliances, this third episode slows the pace right down and is already a case of writer Terry Nation treading water. The Doctor, Bret, Steven and Katarina have stolen Mavic Chen's Spar and are heading for Earth when the Daleks switch on their remote control and bring the Spar down on the penal planet of Desperus.

Day of Armageddon (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 2)

The one where the Doctor dresses up as a self-important seaweed monster...

I find it odd that the Daleks don't seem to recognise the TARDIS as a sign that the Doctor - their sworn enemy - is on Kembel, I must say. But then, maybe they have more important things on their mind, like trying to get all of the galactic delegates to attend their grand meeting. It feels a little odd at first that the Daleks should partake in the politics of diplomacy in order to affect their plans for intergalactic domination, but this is actually the first emergence of the scheming, softly-softly catchy-monkey style of Dalek which David Whitaker would really ramp up in the Troughton era. They scheme in corners and admit that once they have exceeded their usefulness, all of the alien delegates will be eliminated. This is very much a temporary alliance of convenience for the Daleks.

Already they do not trust Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System, and to be honest, who can blame them? He's already betrayed the entire Solar System by joining with the Dalek Alliance, and his bonkers handwriting alone should ring alarm bells. It's an interesting attempt to depict how handwriting might have changed in 2,000 years, but that's just silly!

The Nightmare Begins (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 1)

The one where the Guardian of the Solar System allies with the Daleks...

Welcome back to Terry Nation and his fabulously colourful and melodramatic episode titles! You can rely on Nation to raise expectations by promising things like a sea of death, a screaming jungle, the death of time (and Doctor Who!) or a journey into terror. This week he's basically promising a three-month-long nightmare, which I hope is for the characters and not the viewers!

The nightmare begins almost where Mission to the Unknown left off, with two more Space Security Agents lost and on the run on Kembel, which as you may remember is the "most hostile planet in the universe". Kert Gantry is injured and feels he is slowing his colleague Bret Vyon down, so insists that he leave him behind so that he has a better chance of getting the vital message back to Earth (that the Solar System is to be invaded by seven other galaxies!). Brian Cant makes Gantry a tragic figure, one who's willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, and when he is finally caught by a Dalek, his death is swift and sad. RIP Kert - we barely knew you, but we have much to thank you for.