101 The Daleks' Master Plan Part 11: The Abandoned Planet

EPISODE: The Daleks' Master Plan Part 11: The Abandoned Planet
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 101
STORY NUMBER: 021
TRANSMITTED: 22 January 1966
WRITER: Dennis Spooner, from an idea by Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Donald Tosh
PRODUCER: John Wiles
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Collection: (1965-1966) No. 2

The directional unit has burned out, but the rest of the Tardis is fine. However it was enough to get them to Kembel. Steven & Sara become separated from the Doctor in the Jungle. In an argument in the council Gearon is slain by Mavic Chen (So that's Mavic Chen, Celation, Beaus & Malpha left: Gearon, Trantis and Zephon have been slain) but the Dalek Supreme has left sealing the members in the council chamber until Daleks arrive to imprison them. Steven & Sara find the Dalek's city initially deserted, but find and free the council members. The council leave in their ships but Mavic Chen's explodes on take off. Steven & Sara hunt for the Doctor and narrowly avoid a Dalek which they follow to their base inside a mountain where they are captured by a very much alive Chen who has faked his death and taken into the depths of the mountain base.....

Back to Kembel for the dissolving of the council. This episode feels a bit odd: very little Hartnell, I'm not sure why, did he have a week off? He does appear briefly at the beginning, a bit like that episode of Marco Polo he's in for 20 seconds..... and a lot of fuss about the Daleks switching to a new James Bond villain inside a mountain base. It almost feels like it's treading water and filling in time before the final confrontation. There again watching it might provoke a different reaction: listening to Episode 2 and watching it is a completely different experience.

We've made our final journey of this series and are finally back on Kembel. It's worth looking at all the location's we've covered in the last 11 episodes:

1-2 Kembel
3 Desperus
4-5 4000ad Earth
5-6 Mira
6 Kembel
7 60s Earth - Christmas at the Police Station
7 20s Earth - Silent Movie
8 60s Earth - Cricket Match
8 Tigus
8 London New Year 1966
9 & 10 Ancient Egypt
11 & 12 Kembel

That's a lot of travelling and most of that's without the Tardis!

If we had this episode we'd be a lot surer which alien delegate is which. We now know who Zephon is for sure from Episode 2. He dies in episode 3. So the other delegate that appears in 2 but not here must be Trantis. Everyone's reasonably confident that the Michelin man alike is Malpha so it's a matter of sorting out who Celation, Gearon & Beaus are from the remainder.