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 best thing about Day of Armageddon is that we finally get to see the alien delegates, and what a fantastically strange bunch they are. It's hard to put a name or location to each one, but the mystery which surrounds their real names and appearances only adds to their charm. There's a razor-toothed cadaver with a Beatles hair do, a white-suited chap with a veiny face, a floaty skinhead with black bobbles, a dark helmeted fellow, and an egghead-shaped creature with a shiny rubber spacesuit. Oh, and then there's Zephon, a cowled seaweed creature from the fifth galaxy with a fabulous sense of grandeur ("They will not start the meeting without me. I feel like waiting here!" he says, sounding for all the world like Tony Blair).

Aren't these aliens glorious though? It's both frustrating and bewitching that the aliens that appear here don't completely match the ones in the Mission to the Unknown publicity pictures. What we know here to be Trantis (the needle-toothed ogre) looks vaguely like the spiky-faced delegate in Mission to the Unknown, but different enough to wonder if they're the same. The egghead-shaped alien is dressed very differently in the two episodes, while the bobbly skinhead (Celation) is absent from Mission to the Unknown altogether. Who's who? Where are they from? Who cares! I suspect that even if we had all 12 episodes of this story, we still wouldn't know for sure, and I like that ambiguity. I'd much rather be able to see Celation float his way into the meeting hall, as if struggling with the gravity on Kembel, than have a definitive answer as to who he and his colleagues are. As for poor old Roy Evans, having to say lines with those sharp teeth in - ouch!

Kevin Stoney gives a deliciously arch performance as Chen. At times the Oriental make-up is too obvious (you can see the gauze over his eyes in one shot), and you do wonder why they couldn't have just employed an East Asian actor to play the part (I can see reliable old Burt Kwouk in the role), but who's to say that in the year 4000, the races of Earth have mixed to such an extent that this hybrid look isn't normal? Stoney plays Chen with a knowingness at all times. You can see that he is playing Zephon (he smarmily points out that there have been two attempts to depose him already), that he does not necessarily trust those he finds himself in allegiance with, and that he is fully aware that the Daleks are too dangerous to mess about. But Chen is also ambitious: he does not see himself as a traitor to the Solar System. He is not happy with just one part of a galaxy, or even just one galaxy. Already the seeds are sewn for Chen to become a much greater player than the Daleks are probably expecting.

What's going on with the good guys though? Well, the Doctor finds Steven and Katarina in the jungle, having left the TARDIS on Bret's advice in order to avoid the Daleks. It doesn't seem a very convincing reason to leave what they must have believed was a safer place, but then that Dalek meeting room set does take up space, so no wonder the production team ditched the TARDIS! Now that the Doctor knows the Daleks are up to something, he is fiercely proactive, even going so far as to reprimand Steven for having the temerity to be injured ("You'd better pull yourself together. We've got some work to do!"). Hardly fair when you realise Steven has an injured arm and leg and is recovering from blood poisoning!

There's a great stand-off between the no-nonsense Bret and the Doctor. In an attempt to clamp down on the squabbling between the TARDIS crew, Bret tells the Doctor: "Sir, will you shut up!", and you can see William Hartnell visibly bristling at Nicholas Courtney's forthright delivery. But Hartnell gives as good as he gets when he replies, clutching his lapels: "If the Daleks are doing something drastic, then we have to stop the Daleks! Now will you shut up, sir? Hmmm?" Fantastic stuff!

The pristine footage of the Daleks torching the jungle of Kembel is gorgeous, giving us the clearest images of 1960s Daleks yet. Plus they have fire-breathing pyro-flames, which just look wonderful! I wonder why they never used their pyro-flames again because they're very effective! Quite what the Daleks aim to achieve with Operation: Inferno escapes me, but it looks good!

The Doctor dresses up as Zephon in order to infiltrate the delegates' meeting and learn their plans, but when the real Master of the Fifth Galaxy escapes his bonds and raises the alarm, all hell breaks loose. What we see is something you could never guess from audio alone, as the Daleks and aliens scatter and scarper to the four winds - Celation leaps/ floats over his desk, while (I think) the egghead alien races past the camera giving an audible squeaking sound. Like everything else to do with these creatures - their look, their voices, their movements, their identities - it's very, very strange. Amazing!

The Doctor steals the taranium core of the Time Destructor, the Dalek Alliance's main weapon in their plan to invade the Solar System. Taranium is, of course, the rarest mineral in the universe, found only on the dead planets of the Solar System. This is a Terry Nation script after all - everything is always the most hostile, the rarest, the most precious etc! The moment where the Doctor tries to escape up the meeting room ramp but is blocked by a shackled, shambling, unmasked Zephon gives me chills. "Stop the creature! Stop the creature!" Zephon howls.

Brrrr. This lot are seriously creepy.

First broadcast: November 20th, 1965

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Those alien delegates... Trantis, Celation, Zephon, Beaus and the rest. Beautiful but sinister!
The Bad: I don't understand why the Daleks torch the jungle. They haven't even had their meeting yet, surely it's dangerous to do so?
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

NEXT TIME: Devil's Planet...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Mission to the Unknown (prelude); The Nightmare Begins (episode 1); Devil's Planet (episode 3); The Traitors (episode 4); Counter Plot (episode 5); Coronas of the Sun (episode 6); The Feast of Steven (episode 7); Volcano (episode 8); Golden Death (episode 9); Escape Switch (episode 10); The Abandoned Planet (episode 11); Destruction of Time (episode 12)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/mission-to-unknown-aka-dalek-cutaway.html

The soundtrack to The Daleks' Master Plan is available on CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-original-television-soundtrack/dp/0563494174