STORY PLACEMENT THIS PRODUCTION MAY TAKE PLACE SOME TIME PRIOR TO THE EVENTS OF THE DOCTOR WHO TV STORY "THE DALEKS'
MASTER PLAN." WRITTEN BY TERRY NATION
ADAPTED FOR AUDIO BY NICHOLAS BRIGGS & JOHN DORNEY
DIRECTED BY LISA BOWERMAN
RECOMMENDED PURCHASE BIG FINISH 'THE LOST STORIES #2.2: THE SECOND DOCTOR BOX SET' (ISBN 1-84435- 453-5) RELEASED IN DECEMBER 2010.
BLURB When the crew of Explorer Base One is attacked by the Daleks, SS Agents Sara Kingdom, Mark Seven and Jason Corey are sent to investigate.
They discover a plan that threatens the future of the entire galaxy… |
DECEMBER 2010 (70-MINUTE EPISODE)
as bread and butter, fish and chips, chip and pin. If you’re taking the time to read this review, you no doubt know better – the Doctor’s many fracases with his nemeses represent only a petite percentage of his adventures in time and space, and the Skarosian pepper pots have not only carried whole stage plays and comic strips by themselves, but their very own audio spin-off series too, Dalek Empire. This mass misconception was so nearly put paid to in 1967 when, following their “final end” in David Whitaker’s lauded Doctor Who serial The Evil of the Daleks, the Daleks were all set to explode Stateside in their very own television series, setting them apart from their Time Lord nemesis once and for all. It never came off, sadly, and no-one quite seems to know why, but now, at last, we are finally able to get a taste for what the Dalek television series might have been like, with Nicholas Briggs and John Dorney’s audio adaptation of its aborted pilot episode, The Destroyers.
Taking its lead from Briggs’ adaptation of the theatrical piece The Curse of the Daleks, The Destroyers sees Jean Marsh’s narration fill in the gaps between dialogue with the original stage directions, which have been refined by Briggs and Dorney. I applaud this approach as, first and foremost, the directions are so beautifully written that it would have been a crime to lose them. At times, such as when Nation is describing a Dalek death ray burning a negative image onto any observing human’s retina, the purportedly functional text is right up there with the finest prose. Furthermore, for me - and no doubt for the rest of those not fortunate enough to have seen the largely-lost Daleks’ Master Plan when it aired - the format of the production evokes that I inevitably associate with 1965/66’s epic marathon. As that serial’s nine (ten if you count Mission to the Unknown) missing episodes are ill-fated enough not to be survived even by telesnaps, the blend of live action audio drama and linking recitation calls to mind the BBC Radio Collection release narrated by Peter Purves. This goes a long way towards setting the scene for the series as, of all the Dalek serials broadcast in the 1960s, The Daleks’ Master Plan is that with which The Destroyers has the most in common.
Indeed, those familiar with Mission to the Unknown especially will have a very good idea of what to expect here. Without the Doctor and his companions to accommodate, Nation’s script instead focuses on a group of human space security agents and their android ally, Mark Seven, who have discovered a plot that threatens the future of all eight galaxies. Many of the strongest elements from The Daleks’ Master Plan are recycled here in some shape or form (be they grand plots to attack Earth’s solar system or tiny tales of siblings being torn apart) and then married up with Nation’s standard store of carnivorous plants and the like.
Regrettably though, the cast of characters that populate this piece seem to lack the charisma of their contemporary counterparts in Doctor Who. Sara’s brother whom she murdered, Bret Vyon, is replaced with the altogether more mundane – and altogether more alive - David Kingdom, and as a result Sara is devoid of her defining remorse. “Sculpted” android Mark Seven is a more appealing character on paper, particularly when we consider that the audience automatically sides with this wholly mechanical man against creatures of metal and flesh, but when it comes down to it there’s still nothing particularly engaging about him. The rump of the ensemble are even less remarkable still, and even the eponymous Daleks, resplendent in their brightly-coloured liveries ready for a Star Trek-spoiled audience, aren’t at their best here – they just rehearse the highlights of their Who villainy in a different programme.
Fortunately, Big Finish’s production is so very elegant that the few chinks in The Destroyers’ armour can be passed over by the listener. To say that they were constrained by the script, Jean Marsh, Chris Porter, Alex Mallinson and particularly Alan Cox’s performances inject the proceedings with real intensity and un-Who like solemnity, particularly as the episode draws towards its ominous ending. What really sells it though is the sound design of Jamie Robertson, which delectably fuses a suitably swirly 60s-style score with cutting-edge, brutal Dalek resonance.
On the whole, the Big Finish adaptation of this lost treasure is slick, stylish and (the dearth of Yankee accents aside) authentic, and as such is going to appeal to any listener who has a penchant for Dalek ephemera. The story itself and the characters that it houses leave much to be desired, however, but then again even modern pilots usually struggle to hit the ground running, and most of them don’t have to make the daunting leap across the pond.
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Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2011
E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. |
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This story could be set some time prior to the events of Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks’ Master Plan, making it the earliest appearance of Sara Kingdom to date. It could be argued, however (particularly as the Space Security Agents don’t seem to be aware of the Dalek invasion of Earth in the 2150s, some eight or nine centuries in their past, and Bret Vyon’s role has been usurped by David Kingdom without any elucidation) that The Destroyers was never intended to be compatible with events previously depicted in Doctor Who.
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