Tuesday 21st October 2014
What Tuesday!?? What's going on!? My whole world has been turned upside down! Surely that day must be a mistake?!? Nope sadly we all had quite busy weekends coming up so to save there being TOO much of a gap we decided, as a first, to meet up on a Tuesday. Another first was that we got to meet up around Shaun's for the first time - so many firsts indeed! Well two.
Anyhow, no time to waste! Last time we had started the 12 part epic "The Daleks' Master Plan" epic and need to continue with Part 3 - "Devil's Planet"! This again was a re-con though did seem to have a few existing clips - which was always good for helping the story flow better.
Photo 1: Leigh, Jason, Mark (with the sign), Jim (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover) and Shaun (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Shaun's house.
Last time Space Agent Bret Vyon had been about to take off in Mavic Chen's ship (which they had stolen) with Katarina and Steven - leaving behind the Doctor! Thankfully the old boy made it in time and in possession of the Dalek's taranium core! However they are soon pursued by The Daleks and are forced to crash land on a Prison planet (Desperus) - a planet where convicts are simply left, without any guards or means of escape! Thankfully the ship only has minor damage and they are soon able to fix it - not before some of the local convicts spot them and try to break in the ship to escape from the planet. As the Doctor and gang try to take off a prisoner (Kirksen), who has stowed aboard, holds Katarina at knifepoint demanding that the ship goes to Kembel. This ends that particular episode...
Photo 2: Jason, MJ, Mark (with the sign), Jim (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover) and Shaun (holding the upside down Lost In Time DVD cover)
around Shaun's house.
Photo 3: Starting to look tired!
Leigh, Jason, Mark (with the sign), Jim (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover) and Shaun (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Shaun's house.
Photo 4: Jim (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover) and Shaun (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Shaun's house.
Photo 5: Jason, Michael and Mark (holding the sign) around Shaun's house.
around Shaun's house.
So onto the next episode ("The Traitors") and things don't start off well for our new companion! Her and Kirksen get knocked into the airlock and Katarina opens the airlock, blowing herself and Kirksen into space! Now you see why I didn't bother doing a new photoshopped photo of the group showing Katarina! I guess they found it a pain that they were stuck with her from the previous story and decided to kill her off! The death count in this one is starting to escalate! Steven thinks Kataraina must have opened the airlock accidentally, but the Doctor
thinks it was deliberate in order to allow the Doctor and his companions
to return to Earth and warn of the coming invasion. So Bret takes them back to Earth and Central City where he has a friend (Daxtar) that can help. However Chen also arrives on Earth telling the Security there that Bret is a traitor and he should be killed. He assigns Sara Kingdom, the toughest security agent they have, to do the killing and get the taranium back.
The traitor in this episode actually turns out to be Bret's friend (Daxtar) and so Bret kills him... and then ends up being killed himself by Sara Kingdom who has caught up with them! So ends another fun episode!
The traitor in this episode actually turns out to be Bret's friend (Daxtar) and so Bret kills him... and then ends up being killed himself by Sara Kingdom who has caught up with them! So ends another fun episode!
Leigh, Jason, Mark (with the sign), Jim (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover) and Shaun (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Shaun's house.
After a bit of a break we come
to our one REAL episode of the lot: "Counter Plot". Here we see the
Doctor, Steven and Sara (still after them both) rushing into a room (in
which a teleportation experiment is happening) and they all (and some
white mice) get transported to the distant planet Mira! Here the budget gets blown on invisible aliens (whom the Doctor describes as Visians)...! Soon the Daleks also arrive on the planet - killing the mice (Boo!) and then killing off some of the Visians!
Meanwhile Chen is revealing his true plans to a very camp, bald fellow (with an amazing voice!) called Karlton. Karlton agrees to help Chen to take over the Universe - starting with the Galaxy!
Back on Mira the Daleks find the Doctor and gang and surround them - for the Doctor to announce "The Daleks have won"...
Meanwhile Chen is revealing his true plans to a very camp, bald fellow (with an amazing voice!) called Karlton. Karlton agrees to help Chen to take over the Universe - starting with the Galaxy!
Back on Mira the Daleks find the Doctor and gang and surround them - for the Doctor to announce "The Daleks have won"...
So
comes episode 6 "Coronas Of The Sun"! The Doctor and co escape the
Daleks after the invisible aliens go bat-shit crazy and start attacking
the Daleks! This let the Doctor and co steal the Dalek's ship (throwing
mud in the eye of the one Dalek guard - thus impairing it's vision!).
On the stolen ship the Doctor then proceeds to make a fake taranium core
and then suggests to the Daleks and Chen (who are hot on their heels)
that they will give them this (fake) core at their TARDIS - if they are
allowed to go free. The Daleks don't like this idea but Chen over-rides
them and agrees. So at the TARDIS the Doctor and Sara go inside the
ship whilst Steven hands over the core. Immediately the Daleks shoot
him - only to find that the Doctor has erected a force field over the
TARDIS! And so the all escape but end up on a planet with, what seems
like a very poisonous atmosphere...
And so we come to the last episode of the night "The Feast Of Steven".
Now all 60's episodes that exist no longer have their original
videotapes - these were all wiped and re-used a long time ago. However
before they were wiped a lot of episodes were recorded onto film to be
sold overseas and it is these film copies which form the basis of all
episodes we have today. Sadly the Dalek's Master Plan was never sold
abroad - Australia did have viewing prints sent but they found it too
violent and scary to broadcast! So film copies were made of all Master
Plan episodes....
..except one episode! "The Feast Of Stephen" was broadcast on Christmas Day and the producers felt that a lot of people might miss it because of this - so they made a special caper that didn't have much to do with the main Master Plan narrative. It was this episode that a film copy was never made and so it was never even tried to be sold over-seas. This makes it the one episode which is most likely never to be found!This probably isn't a bad thing as it really is the most bizarre piece of throwaway Who produced! Still it probably alleviated the many deaths we'd previously seen! Anyhow we find out the pollution the Doctor detected is actually a polluted area of 1960s England and they've landed outside a police station. Here a group of policemen are quite suspicious of the sudden appearance of a Police Phone Box! Anyhow The Doctor and Sarah nearly end up arrested whilst Steven dresses up and pretends to be a policeman!
Anyhow he Steven gets them away and then the TARDIS pops up on a Hollywood film set - where the crew meet famous stars (Charlie Chaplin and Bing Crosby (not the real ones - just actors pretending!)), interrupt filming and end up on a Lawrence Of Arabia type film set!
When they finally get away the film director is WOWED by the effect of the TARDIS disappearing! The show finishes with the Doctor getting them all champagne as it's Christmas Day (why it's Christmas Day on a ship that can land anywhere and any time is beyond me!), toasting Steven and Sara.....and then turning to the camera and toasting us all at home!! HE BROKE THE FOURTH WALL!!
With that episode done I felt we had done enough and we decided to catch up on the other five episodes next time.
So what did Shaun think? Shaun:
"Very good. It will come as a surprise to no one that I love the darker stuff, and this was pretty brutal in places. The death of several key characters, the new companion Katarina, shortly after Bret's death at the hands of his sister Kingdom (who got the far more epic name in the family!) was pretty jarring. In a good way.
There genuinely seems a lot at stake in this one, and killing characters we are coming to know and expect to be around for a while is giving the entire arc a sense of danger that Doctor Who to date doesn't really have.
It's much better than an assistant just leaving for some guy they just met at any rate.
Mavic Chen, and the actor playing him, are really holding a lot of intrigue throughout and giving us a human, down to Earth (sorry, pun attack) 'evil' to root against.... And for...
The Daleks are charismatic as always, and are holding the arc up as usual.
The Doctor on the back-foot is quite compelling. He seems to be making on the spot decisions with the fate of the Solar System in the balance and is noticeably more serious than in other story-lines.
Also, the inclusion of the various political machinations is very interesting and something I didn't expect, at least not in any depth. We have the uneasy alliance, The Daleks planning to betray everyone eventually, of course, by Chen's ambitions are highlighted well, and it's nice to see that other factions are also planning the others' downfall (although we get little POV stuff from them).
It's also nice that, on a limited budget, we've seen several new worlds, technologies and species. I was not surprised to see Terry Nation's name on the credits for this. I think he's our best bet in these early days.
I am wondering how much darker this will get by the end. And look forward to Chen's horrible fate, of course. Greatly looking forward to the conclusion (and no more Xmas episodes!!!)."
Wow lots of stuff there Shaun - but what makes you think Mavic Chen will have a horrible fate?.....
Jim also had stuff to say: "Bloodbath! Never expected so many 'good' characters to kick the bucket. I get why Australia thought it was too violent. Certainly by 60s family TV standards.
I'm enjoying the power-struggles between the Daleks and Chen, and between Chen and cool-voiced-chap. It's moving along at a good pace, the writers aren't trying to fit too much in too soon. The prison planet (read Australia) seemed a bit extraneous but apart from that - great."
So that's all for now. As ever, until next time I shall return, yes, I shall return....
MJ 22-10-14
..except one episode! "The Feast Of Stephen" was broadcast on Christmas Day and the producers felt that a lot of people might miss it because of this - so they made a special caper that didn't have much to do with the main Master Plan narrative. It was this episode that a film copy was never made and so it was never even tried to be sold over-seas. This makes it the one episode which is most likely never to be found!This probably isn't a bad thing as it really is the most bizarre piece of throwaway Who produced! Still it probably alleviated the many deaths we'd previously seen! Anyhow we find out the pollution the Doctor detected is actually a polluted area of 1960s England and they've landed outside a police station. Here a group of policemen are quite suspicious of the sudden appearance of a Police Phone Box! Anyhow The Doctor and Sarah nearly end up arrested whilst Steven dresses up and pretends to be a policeman!
Anyhow he Steven gets them away and then the TARDIS pops up on a Hollywood film set - where the crew meet famous stars (Charlie Chaplin and Bing Crosby (not the real ones - just actors pretending!)), interrupt filming and end up on a Lawrence Of Arabia type film set!
When they finally get away the film director is WOWED by the effect of the TARDIS disappearing! The show finishes with the Doctor getting them all champagne as it's Christmas Day (why it's Christmas Day on a ship that can land anywhere and any time is beyond me!), toasting Steven and Sara.....and then turning to the camera and toasting us all at home!! HE BROKE THE FOURTH WALL!!
With that episode done I felt we had done enough and we decided to catch up on the other five episodes next time.
So what did Shaun think? Shaun:
"Very good. It will come as a surprise to no one that I love the darker stuff, and this was pretty brutal in places. The death of several key characters, the new companion Katarina, shortly after Bret's death at the hands of his sister Kingdom (who got the far more epic name in the family!) was pretty jarring. In a good way.
There genuinely seems a lot at stake in this one, and killing characters we are coming to know and expect to be around for a while is giving the entire arc a sense of danger that Doctor Who to date doesn't really have.
It's much better than an assistant just leaving for some guy they just met at any rate.
Mavic Chen, and the actor playing him, are really holding a lot of intrigue throughout and giving us a human, down to Earth (sorry, pun attack) 'evil' to root against.... And for...
The Daleks are charismatic as always, and are holding the arc up as usual.
The Doctor on the back-foot is quite compelling. He seems to be making on the spot decisions with the fate of the Solar System in the balance and is noticeably more serious than in other story-lines.
Also, the inclusion of the various political machinations is very interesting and something I didn't expect, at least not in any depth. We have the uneasy alliance, The Daleks planning to betray everyone eventually, of course, by Chen's ambitions are highlighted well, and it's nice to see that other factions are also planning the others' downfall (although we get little POV stuff from them).
It's also nice that, on a limited budget, we've seen several new worlds, technologies and species. I was not surprised to see Terry Nation's name on the credits for this. I think he's our best bet in these early days.
I am wondering how much darker this will get by the end. And look forward to Chen's horrible fate, of course. Greatly looking forward to the conclusion (and no more Xmas episodes!!!)."
Wow lots of stuff there Shaun - but what makes you think Mavic Chen will have a horrible fate?.....
Jim also had stuff to say: "Bloodbath! Never expected so many 'good' characters to kick the bucket. I get why Australia thought it was too violent. Certainly by 60s family TV standards.
I'm enjoying the power-struggles between the Daleks and Chen, and between Chen and cool-voiced-chap. It's moving along at a good pace, the writers aren't trying to fit too much in too soon. The prison planet (read Australia) seemed a bit extraneous but apart from that - great."
So that's all for now. As ever, until next time I shall return, yes, I shall return....
MJ 22-10-14
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