The Daleks' Master Plan

The Daleks' Master Plan is the mostly missing fourth serial of the third season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in twelve weekly parts from 13 November 1965 to 29 January 1966. This twelve-part serial is the longest with a single director and production code (The Trial of a Time Lord was longer but was made in three production blocks, with separate codes, and with four separate story lines each with their own authors and working titles). This serial marks the final appearance of Adrienne Hill as companion Katarina, and the only appearance of Jean Marsh as Sara Kingdom. Katarina and Sara Kingdom both die during the serial, marking the first two companion deaths in the show. Episode 1, "The Nightmare Begins", marks the first appearance of Nicholas Courtney in Doctor Who, here playing space security agent Bret Vyon. It was the second Doctor Who story never to be screened in Australia; the Australian Broadcasting Corporation judged the story to be unsuitable for children. Only three of the twelve episodes (two, five and ten) are held in the BBC archives; nine remain missing. Plot Some six months after the events of "Mission to the Unknown", the TARDIS arrives on the planet Kembel, and the First Doctor leaves the TARDIS to try to find medical aid for the wounded Steven, leaving him with the Trojan servant girl Katarina. Meanwhile, a Space Agent, Bret Vyon is also on the planet trying to find out what happened to Agent Marc Cory. The two parties cross paths and agree to work together, whereupon they discover that the Daleks have put together a grand alliance with various galactic powers to conquer humanity by use of a Time Destructor, a weapon with the potential to destroy all life on a planet by accelerating the flow of time. The traitorous Guardian of the Solar System, Mavic Chen, has provided the weapon's power core, made up of the rare element taranium. The Doctor infiltrates a meeting of the Daleks' alliance and steals the taranium core, before he, his companions, and Vyon escape by stealing Chen's ship, termed a Spar.