The Daleks' Master Plan Part 9/12: Golden Death

So the TARDIS has started bouncing through time and everyone's having a lot of fun. I don't really know what their goal is, exactly; Sara wants to go back to Kembel and blow everything up, but, like... they can't control where the TARDIS goes. So.

The DALEKS, however, they've got time travel down, so they're sending off a time machine (with Mavic Chen in it) to follow the TARDIS around the time-space continuum. The first place the TARDIS stops is Egypt next to some pyramids. The lock on the TARDIS door is still a bit dodgy, so the Doctor wants to fix that before they do anything else. Steven is put on lookout duty so he can keep an eye out for the Monk's TARDIS following them (so the Monk can control his? Just nick that one, Doctor, surely. Or, if it's not the TARDIS that is the problem, learn how to DRIVE IT).

And lo and behold, after five minutes on the lookout, Steven sees something! We lucky viewers are fully aware that the thing Steven is looking at isn't a meddlin' Monk, but is in fact a Dalek ship, but obviously adorably slow Steven takes a few minutes to reach the same conclusions.

STEVEN:  Well, it didn't work this time, did it?
SARA:  What hasn't?
STEVEN:  The Monk's TARDIS. It usually blends in with it's surroundings like the Doctor's should.
SARA:  Maybe the Monk didn't bother this time.
STEVEN: Also the Monk seems to be dressed as a Dalek, I wonder what that's about? Do you reckon there's a costume party? It is Halloween.

Steven and Sara, once they figure out this little logic puzzle, rush to go tell the Doctor about their new visitors. But alas! Before they can do that they are brutally attacked by some Egyptian locals. Sara, bless her, tries really hard to take them down, but she's knocked out before she can start shooting everything.

But then the locals see Mavic Chen and the Daleks and assume that they're all part of the same group of intruders. They go to attack them, and the Daleks obviously waste no time in killing them all. There's a good bit of dialogue that actually makes me appreciate the Daleks as an enemy for once:

DALEK 1:  Did we sustain damage?
DALEK 2:  No. It was only inhabitants of this time and planet.
DALEK 3:  Unimportant.
DALEK 2:  Exterminate them on sight.

Oooh. Chilling. Meanwhile, the Monk finally shows up. The Doctor sees his TARDIS land (in the shape of a big pyramid brick, cos it has a chameleon circuit that actually works), and realises that the ship that he heard land a while ago must have been DALEKS! Oh no! Shit! Curses! Gosh and golly!

But instead of doing anything about this, the Doctor just casually follows the Monk - who has emerged from his TARDIS in the middle of ancient Egypt wearing MIRRORED SUNGLASSES I shit you not.

The shades aren't giving the Monk a lot of luck, though; he runs into Mavic Chen and the Daleks pretty quickly. The Daleks are all ready to exterminate the crap out of him, but Mavic Chen stops them. Pretty coincidental to have three time machines all landing in the same spot, Mavic Chen says, so chances are you know the dude we're after, amirite? The Monk is all, 'Well, 'know' is a pretty strong word,' but Mavic Chen charges him with becoming BFFs with the Doctor and tricking him out of the Taranium anyway. The Monk eyes the Daleks a little before agreeing that he can definitely do that, yeah.

The Monk then goes back to his TARDIS to grab an energy tracker so he can find the Doctor and his homebros, and then when he leaves again, the Doctor (who has been watching him the whole time) creeps right on in to the Monk's TARDIS, switches the outside to look like a 1960's police telephone box, then breaks off the chameleon circuit and wanders right back outside.

Meanwhile, Steven and Sara are tied up in some dusty room somewhere. Sara, because she's freakin' awesome, has found a bit of broken pottery to cut through their rope, and then shouts out to bring the guards into the room. The guards come in and she promptly dusts them off no problem. Steven is reminded of the sexy Drahvins and crosses his legs to avoid tenting.

The local Egyptians have moved the Doctor's TARDIS into a tomb, and the Monk (and the Doctor, who is following him) finds it with his little energy tracker device thing. The Doctor comes out from behind the doorway and is all, 'Oh, cool, my TARDIS! Thanks for leading me to it, bro!' The Monk laughs weakly and says that, you know, these things can actually change what they look like to fit with their surroundings and if you want, Doctor, we can both go inside your TARDIS and I can show you how to do that. The Doctor laughs in his face and says he saw the Monk with the Daleks. The Monk tries to play it cool.

MONK:  Do you know, I knew there was something I had to tell you. I've come here to warn you about the Daleks. I played them along their own game for quite a time but they don't like you, you know. They don't like you at all.
DOCTOR:  Why didn't you?
MONK:  What?
DOCTOR:  Warn me.
MONK:  Oh... well. You were talking at the time. I didn't want to interrupt.
DOCTOR: Well, shit, I'm convinced.

Instead of giving the Monk a nice little tour of the TARDIS, the Doctor instead... well, he goes a little mental, I dunno what to tell you. He starts brandishing his walking stick at the Monk and laughing manically. It's a little concerning for everyone involved, and the scene cuts away before you find out what he's up to. The Monk looks shit scared, though.

We're then back with Sara and Steven, who are kicking around the tomb entrance looking for the Doctor and the TARDIS. They find the TARDIS and figure, hey, the Doctor must be around here somewhere, so they start shouting his name, when all of a sudden the tomb lid opens and a bandaged hand emerges from inside. WHAT COULD THIS MEAN?

Clearly the BBC knew that I'd be watching this episode on Halloween. Good work on the time travel, there, Beeb.

Moosh

The Daleks' Master Plan Part 8/12: Volcano

There is no way I can sum up what happened last episode in one handy little introductory paragraph. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure all you need to know is that Steven, Sara and the Doctor are in the TARDIS, drinking heavily. Although maybe the drinking isn't too important. I imagine the Dalek stuff is still happening, but there was pretty much no mention of it last episode, so maybe not! Maybe we don't still have FIVE EPISODES of this serial left to go! (But I am not too hopeful of that.)

All right so we are straight back into serious business Dalek action! I get the impression that this is the BBC's way of reminding us that, while absolutely mental things are allowed to happen at Christmas, this show is still British, and must be taken seriously at all other times.

The Daleks are finally getting round to testing the lump of fake Taranium that Steven gave them a couple episodes ago, back when he was a zombie. Mavic Chen (GUARDIAN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM) is having a chat with two other Galaxy Representatives, Celation and Trantis. Celation and Trantis are a little pissy because it was residents of Earth that nicked off with the Taranium in the first place, and Mavic Chen gets all defensive and tells them that only two of them were humans! And they were under the influence of an evil creature from another galaxy! Celation and Trantis scoff and say, well, he looked human enough, and Mavic Chen tells them that the Daleks know of him, he's some kind of time and space traveller. So that's the first indication we've had that the Daleks know who the Doctor is and that's kind of cool.

The Daleks interrupt them and are all like, "Yo dudes we're gonna need a person to fire the Time Destructor at to make sure that it's working," and then select Trantis as the lucky recipient of that honour. So they bung him into a room and fire this thing at him and Trantis flinches away from it and Mavic Chen and Celation laugh at him.

MAVIC CHEN: So, that's what's supposed to happen. A kind of abject insanity.
CELATION: I do not know, though I always thought Trantis was a little unstable anyway.
TRANTIS: THIS WAS NOT IN THE 'TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE' CONTRACT THAT I SIGNED. I WANT TO SEE A LAWYER.

The Time Destructor obviously doesn't work and everyone immediately glares accusingly at Mavic Chen, who shits himself only a little bit and blames the time travellers! And the Daleks! And it definitely wasn't his fault, guys, really! The Daleks consider this and instead of killing him, make him wait there while they get a time machine sent to Kembel (the planet their HQ is on) from Skaro (the Dalek home planet), and they kill Trantis instead. Trantis is displeased by how his life has turned out.

Inside the TARDIS, there's a scanner showing that something is following them, though they don't know what. Sara immediately says that they have to go back to Kembel to BLOW ALL THE DALEK SHIPS UP just in case it's them, the Doctor tells her to calm her murderous urges and instead starts bouncing through time. They land briefly in the middle of an England-v-Australia cricket game on Earth (is there any other kind of cricket game on Earth?), which none of them understand at all, and then dematerialise and show up again on a planet called Tigus, where there are volcanoes erupting everywhere, and at which point the dot showing that someone was following them disappears.

SARA: It's stopped.
STEVEN: What does that mean, Doctor? Have we shaken it off?
DOCTOR: No, my boy, we haven't shaken them off. Whoever it was following us has landed, they've landed out there.
SARA: Cool! Then we can kill them, right? Just a little bit of death? I haven't murdered anything for like three episodes, I'm boooooored.

And it turns out the thing that was following them wasn't the Daleks at all, it was the Monk! The Time Lord from the end of series 2 that the Doctor trapped in 1066! THAT'S REALLY COOL. What's not so cool, apart from the magma going mental over the surface of the planet, is that despite the fact that (a) the surface of Tigus is MADE OF VOLCANOES and (b) they know someone who was chasing them has landed on the planet, the Doctor, Sara and Steven LEAVE THE TARDIS and go to check out the environment.

While the three idiots are off being idiotic, the Monk sneaks over to the TARDIS and does something to the lock.

After that's done, he goes to find the Doctor and his companions to have a little showdown and to laugh at how now THEY'RE the trapped ones so see how they like THAT.

The Monk clears off and the gang go back to the TARDIS to see what's what and they find themselves locked out. Steven and the Doctor get into yet ANOTHER little fight as Steven tries to pick the lock and it doesn't work, then the Doctor holds his ring to the lock and it glows and then everything's fine again? Steven asks what just happened, exactly, and as the Doctor is wise and full of knowledge, he kindly shares his wisdom with the young inquiring minds that he's travelling with.

STEVEN: How did you break that lock?
THE DOCTOR: Oh, that's all very simple, dear boy. You see, the sun in that particular galaxy has very unusual powers. I merely reflected its powers through that ring. The combined forces of that sun together with the stone in that ring was sufficient enough to correct the Monk's interference.
STEVEN: Yes, but what properties does it have?
THE DOCTOR: Now, I don't want to discuss this any more. About turn, and do as you're told. Go along.

Smooth, Doc, well done.

The TARDIS takes off again and lands on New Year's Day, 1966, (the Doctor, Steven and Sara all don't know what New Year's Day is) but back on Kembel, the Daleks now know where the TARDIS is and are preparing to follow it! There's a cool bit where the countdown to midnight on Earth matches the countdown to the Dalek ship taking off and then it is READY AND BEGINS THE PURSUIT.

Aaaand end credits! The title of the next episode is 'Golden Death', which Sara should be a fan of, and hopefully this is going to be the last stretch of this serial before it ends. (The Daleks' Master Plan is the longest serial of Doctor Who, don't worry, we'll never have to do this again.) Excited to see how this GRIPPING EPIC concludes.

Moosh

The Daleks' Master Plan Part 7/12: The Feast of Steven

The Doctor, Steven and Sara Kingdom have flown away in the TARDIS after giving the Daleks a fake hunk of Taranium for their machine of death and destruction. They have no idea where they are because the scanner is broken - the only thing they know is that the atmosphere outside the TARDIS is poisonous. "So dematerialise and go somewhere else!" you may be thinking. No, I know, that would make sense. But the first Doctor is kind of dumb, so they're all just gonna stay there for a while.

But we are not hanging out with them right now, we're in a police yard with three police dudes. The script mentions the fact that they're Liverpudlian several times, but in reality their accents are barely even Generic Northern. Don't worry, BBC, I know enough southerners to understand that you guys can't tell us apart. I don't blame you. (Racists.)

The Scouse Bobbies are singing and - wait, seriously? They're singing Good King Wenceslas. Okay. Well. That's the title of the episode out of the way with, isn't it. And it's a Christmas special! How nice. (I just looked it up - it was actually a Christmas episode! Aired December 25th, 1965. Our last 1965 episode too oh gosh all kinds of cool things are happening today.)

All three of Scouse Bobbies are taken by surprise when they see a shiny new police box sitting in the yard (and it warms me a little to remember that police boxes were just an ordinary thing in England back when this aired); Scouse Sergeant sets his two Scouse minions to watch it just in case it... does something, and he goes off to... fetch someone? I dunno, he didn't really explain himself.

Back inside the TARDIS, the Doctor and Steven are arguing again because the Doctor wants to go outside to fix the scanner despite the TERRIBLE AIRBORNE POISON.

STEVEN: And just why, if it isn't safe for us, is it safe for you?
DOCTOR: Will neither of you understand?
SARA: For heaven's sake, let's go and fix the scanner!
DOCTOR: No! Where you come from, in both places, the air is pure. Outside there is the worst kind of pollution I've met in years!
VIEWER: ... I think I see where this is going. That IS racist. Kinda.

So the Doctor leaves the TARDIS and runs right into Scouse Bobby 1. He nods and says, "Good evening," and goes right back inside the TARDIS again; Scouse Bobby 1 automatically replies with a "Good evening," before he realises that a person has just emerged from the empty police box he was supposed to be guarding. He makes a noise of surprise and his friend comes over to ask what the deal is. Also I dunno whether this is legitimately funny or if I'm just enjoying the accents, but I laughed so much at this exchange:

SCOUSE BOBBY 2: What's up?
SCOUSE BOBBY 1: See that?
SCOUSE BOBBY 2: See what?
SCOUSE BOBBY 1: That then!
SCOUSE BOBBY 2: What when?
SCOUSE BOBBY 1: That door!
SCOUSE BOBBY 2: That door?
SCOUSE BOBBY 1: It opened!
SCOUSE BOBBY 2: Did it?
SCOUSE BOBBY 1: There's a bloke in there.
SCOUSE BOBBY 2: Oh, aye?

They sound like they're trying to be the Chuckle Brothers omg (and I realise how inaccessible this entire post is going to be to anyone who is not from a place in England anywhere north of Birmingham and I am sorry for that but let me enjoy my cultural heritage please and thank you).

Back inside the TARDIS, there's another good moment! The Doctor has told Steven and Sara that he saw some police, and Sara doesn't understand. The Doctor spells the word out for her, and she's all, "Oh cool! We're on your planet!" because they don't have policemen on Earth in the 41st century and it says the word 'POLICE' on the outside of the TARDIS. That's really adorable.

So the Doctor says he's going to go back outside to distract the northerners and Steven and Sara should wait a while then go out and fix the scanner. Steven reminds him that he said they shouldn't leave the TARDIS because of the atmosphere, and the Doctor is all like, "WELL I GUESS I SHOULD GO BACK OUTSIDE NOW LOL," and leaves. And then is immediately arrested by the Scouse Bobbies.

Man, I wonder if this episode had a different writer to the ones before it in the serial, because it keeps making me laugh, whereas I've been pretty unimpressed with the rest of The Daleks' Master Plan; this is almost definitely not relevant to the plot at all, but when the Doctor is escorted into the station, there's a dude at the desk talking to Scouse Sergeant.

DUDE: I've got a complaint.
SCOUSE SERGEANT: Well, the doctor's is just round the corner.
DUDE: No, no, no, no...I mean, I want to make a complaint. They keep moving me 'ouse.

So there's a fun but irrelevant moment for you. It's nice that I'm recording all the important bits so I can summarise the plot quickly and concisely.

Scouse Bobby 2 takes the Doctor into a room for questioning, and the Doctor just is not taking things seriously, telling the Scouse Bobby that he's a "citizen of the Universe and a gentleman" when he's asked whereabouts he's from.

Someone else who is not taking things seriously is Steven, as he just crept out of the TARDIS, stole a police uniform, and is now talking to the Scouse Sergeant in a legitimate Liverpudlian accent oh my GOD, STEVEN.

Steven manages to convince all the Scouse Bobbies (still speaking in his new and wonderful accent) that the Doctor is a crazy man that his division of policemen are used to. Because it's Christmas, the Scouse Bobbies are inclined to be more lenient towards crazy people trying to live inside police boxes, so they let Steven and the Doctor go. But then in the yard they all walk into Sara, who is messing with the outside of the TARDIS trying to fix the scanner. There's a bit of a kerfuffle, which ends in Sara getting frustrated and just elbowing a bunch of policemen in the stomach because she's fantastic, and the Doctor, Steven and Sara rush into the TARDIS and take off before the Scouse Bobbies can do anything.

The TARDIS lands again, still on Earth, and the gang take a quick look on the scanner to see where they're at. The console room is suddenly filled with the sounds of a woman screaming and a man laughing evilly so they rush outside to see what's going on. There's an American guy with a moustache (can never trust a man with a moustache) who's enthusing about how now nobody will ever find out about his plan! The woman is tied to a conveyor and is moving steadily towards a circular saw and screaming her head off. Understandable, given the circumstances.

Obviously Steven, Sara and the Doctor rush straight in to help the woman and then some OTHER guy yells, "Cut!" It was a scene from a movie the whole time! Crazy. The actors go absolutely bonkers that their scene was ruined and some security people start chasing after Sara, Steven and the Doctor. Because the BBC were going mental for this episode, it then turns into a silent movie kind of deal?

And then Charlie Chaplain is there and oh god, you drank way too much sherry this episode, BBC.

All three of them get split up; Steven, still wearing his Scouse Bobby uniform, is mistaken for an actor, as is Sara, who is on a completely different set. And then the Doctor is mistaken for a professor of Arabian customs to help out at the set that Sara is hiding in a trunk from and gosh, this is definitely a little different from the Dalek action we have seen so far this serial.

But, to be fair, the Doctor is actually being really good this episode. I'm liking him!

DIRECTOR DUDE: This is a rich Sheik's tent.
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, and who's this?
DIRECTOR DUDE: She's an Arabian princess.
DOCTOR: Nonsense! You put some more clothes on, child. Go along.

The Doctor then stumbles into the trunk that Sara's hiding in and asks what it is; Sara climbs out of it and the director dude is all, "Dude you should be in the harem scene right now what are you doing this trunk," and then the Doctor and Sara run away.

Steven, as it turns out, was just hanging around in the wardrobe department and they run into him pretty quickly. The three of them stumble back into the set they first arrived in (the girl playing the chick tied to the conveyor goes mad when she sees them again) and then the security dudes chase them AGAIN and there's jaunty piano music accompanying all this, obviously, and the Doctor bumps into a clown and has a little chat with him and Steven and Sara run through the scene with the Sheik and the harem and the clown is complaining about Charlie Chaplin and this is a DALEK EPISODE, guys, I just thought I'd remind everyone of that.

Steven and Sara eventually reappear and the Doctor scoots them all into the TARDIS and they dematerialise, leaving all the movie guys trying to figure out what kind of special effect was used to make that happen.

Oh my GOD and then - okay, no, listen - then inside the TARDIS, the Doctor breaks out the booze and is all, "Well, it's Christmas!" and Sara and Steven do not complain and help themselves to the alcohol and THEN the Doctor TURNS TO THE CAMERA and says, "And a happy Christmas to all of you at home!"

HE TURNS TO THE CAMERA.

AND TELLS THE VIEWERS TO HAVE A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

DOCTOR WHO, OH MY GOD.

Also, here's a cool thing that I found out today: there's a graphic novel based around Eleven and Amy where they land in a forest of Varga plants and mention Bret and Sara. It's finding out stuff like this that made me want to watch Classic Who in the first place. VERY COOL.

But also he spoke to the CAMERA. I bet you TEN ENGLISH POUNDS that that wasn't scripted and it was just Hartnell being his weird unprofessional self.

Moosh

The Daleks' Master Plan Part 6/12: Coronas of the Sun

Sooo right now we're on Planet Mira with Steven, the Doctor, Sara Kingdom and Daleks, who have just surrounded the Doctor and co. Bret is dead because Sara shot him and also it turns out Sara is Bret's SISTER and who even saw that coming because I did not. Also, the Daleks are still after this crazy powerful hunk of the element Taranium that the Doctor stole from them, and they're planning to take over the universe, or something. The Guardian of the Solar System, Mavic Chen, and his creepy henchman Karlton are working with the Daleks but no one from Earth knows about it and I think we're pretty much all caught up so let's get watching some Who.

The Daleks demand that the Doctor hand over the Taranium. The Doctor tries really, really hard to talk his way out of it, but One just does not have the charm that other incarnations do.

DALEK: You will hand over the Taranium.
DOCTOR: If I do, you gotta promise not to shoot us, man.
DALEK: ... nah, we'll probably shoot you either way, actually. Give us the Taranium.
DOCTOR: Aha, see! You don't want to shoot us because we have the Taranium and something might happen! How about we solve this little problem by--
DALEK: Yo, Dalek homies, everyone get in a line so we can exterminate this idiot.
DOCTOR: You look... pretty today? :D?

The Daleks all duly get into their favoured killing positions, but before their plungers and egg whisks can see any action, the invisible inhabitants of the planet start attacking them. The Daleks turn around and set about killing everything in... well, not everything in sight, but. They kill all the creatures, anyway. By the time that's over, though, the Doctor, Sara and Steven have sneaked away from the massacre, as you probably would in that situation, so good call there.

Except they sneak away to the Dalek spaceship, and the Doctor strolls right on over to the Dalek standing guard and tells him that they're giving themselves up. Probably recognising that he should really work on his skills of talking his way out of shit situations, the Doctor tries valiantly to engage the Dalek in conversation (at one point, he calls the Dalek "my tin friend", which is fantastic), while Steven oh-so-casually moves behind the Dalek and plants a mud pie right onto its eyestalk.

With the Guard Dalek thus incapacitated, the three of them head right on into the Dalek ship and lock the door and then TAKE OFF to head towards lands unknown.

The Daleks aren't best pleased about this new development, and the Dalek Supreme has a bit of a pop at Mavic Chen.

DALEK SUPREME: Mavic Chen, you have failed in your task.
MAVIC CHEN: Failed?! Is this my greeting? I agree that my mission was to return to Earth and recover the Taranium. This I have not done.
DALEK SUPREME: Failure will not be tolerated!
MAVIC CHEN: But I did notify you of the fugitives' whereabouts. The planet Mira.
DALEK SUPREME: You make your incompetence sound like an achievement.
MAVIC CHEN: Yeah, well, you have a stupid face.

On the Dalek spaceship, the Doctor is working on making a replica of the Taranium core to fool the Daleks. He gets it looking pretty perf, except the original core is glowy, and the new one is not. He and Sara mull this over for a while, and Steven eventually suggests using G-force to make the glow happen. Sara smirks and mocks Steven's primitive 23rd century technology.

BUT THEN the Daleks whack a magnetisation beam their way and the Doctor and Sara are distracted trying to stop themselves being pulled back to Kembel, where this whole mess started. Steven lets them get on with it and mumbles that G-force worked perfectly well in the 2200's, and decides to give it a bash anyway. Poor baby should stick to standing around looking pretty, cos he knocks himself out with the power surge. But it makes the fake Taranium all glowy, so it's not all bad! Gold star to Steven!

Meanwhile, Dalek HQ is pretty excited that they're getting back their hunk of Taranium and also three shiny new people to exterminate! Mavic Chen, who is kicking around on Kembel, dunno when that happened now I think about it, suggests that maybe they should all be shipped back to Earth for a trial! ... like, why? I don't understand the benefit of that, Chen, baby. Unless you are a good egg after all, which I DOUBT. The Daleks obviously dismiss that as a terrible idea and carry roping the ship in with the intention of grabbing the Taranium and killing everything.

On the ship, Steven has regained consciousness but is still really out of it. Also, he is surrounded by this forcefield of the G-force that he exploded all over himself. The Doctor sees this and comes up with a plan - when they land on Kembel, he urges Zombie Steven to walk in front.

Still really trying to be good at talking, the Doctor bats his eyelashes at the Daleks and says that he'll give them the Taranium (the fake one, which is in Zombie Steven's hand) but only in front of his ship. Hurrah, the TARDIS! He hasn't forgotten about it! The Daleks are reluctant, but eventually agree to it out of pure desire to shut the Doctor up because he is not good at this.

So the whole happy gang head over to the TARDIS and Sara and the Doctor skip right on inside, leaving Steven out in the jungle with the Daleks. Over the speaker, the Doctor instructs Zombie Steven to hand over the Taranium, which he does, before plodding slowly over to the ship. After a quick check to make sure the Taranium is as glowy as it should be (it is), the Dalek Supreme happily tells the Daleks to shoot Steven before he makes it back inside. But alas! Steven has a forcefield! So the beams of death just bounce right off him! He makes it inside and closes the door while the Daleks are looking at their egg whisks in confusion, and the TARDIS dematerialises the hell outta there.

The attempted murder has snapped Steven out of his daze, and inside the TARDIS he's all normal again. The Doctor allows him a few moments of peace before they get into a huge argument about the G-force thing; at one point, though, the Doctor absently says, "Now, where's the real Taranium?" which REALLY makes me hope that they've botched the handover because that would be brilliant.

However, because the world is not perfect, that doesn't seem to be the case; the crazy cliffhanger the episode ends on is just that wherever the TARDIS is now (because they still can't control where it goes), the atmosphere outside is poisonous. Not as shocking as I was hoping, but it'll do, I guess.

On the other hand,  the next episode is called The Feast of Steven, so I guess you can't have everything.

Moosh

The Daleks' Master Plan Part 5/12: Counter Plot

So in the previous episode, Blond Beard and Katarina got sucked out into space, Bret's friend Daxtar turned out to be (potentially) working for Mavic Chen (maybe) and got shot for his troubles, and Looks A Bit Like Vicki Sara Kingdom shot Bret while the Doctor and Steven ran away. A nice, fluffy, light-hearted episode where not much happened, then.

The Doctor and Steven - still running from the crazy lady with the gun - don't know that Bret has been wounded in action. They stumble on this weird room with a machine with mice inside it? The Doctor suggests that it's some kind of transmitter, and I dunno if it's just the novelty of seeing him actually move (this, along with episode 2 of this serial, have been the only surviving full episodes of season 3 so far), but apparently another of the room's powers is making Steven look a lot more attractive than usual. Not that he's ever unattractive, but. Is good.

In another science room elsewhere, two science dudes are doing some science. Their names are Froyn and Rhynmal and fucking hell, who cares about these stupid weird names. Calling them Frank and Raymond.

Frank and Raymond are in the middle of a "highly complicated experiment" when Borkar, the dude Sara Kingdom sent to look for Steven and the Doctor, bursts in and demands to know if they've seen anything weird. The science dudes politely tell him to piss off, and resume their work.

While Borkar is checking out various laboratories, Doesn't Mess About Sara Kingdom stalks right into the room where Steven and the Doctor are hanging out and makes it clear that she wants the Taranium back off them. Unfortunately, before she can finish brandishing her gun, the room goes mental. It apparently makes them enjoy themselves a little too much, which is all very well and good, but the Doctor's face looks like this:

Certainly not complaining about Sara Kingdom's, though.

OH, COOL. So the weird room that the Doctor and Steven (and now Sara) are in just so happens to be the site of the experiment that Frank and Raymond are doing and they all just got DISSEMINATED, which means they're being beamed light years across space to some random planet far far away.

After some really high-tech footage of the dissemination (lol nope), the Doctor and Steven wake up on Mira, another jungley planet. They try to wake up Sara, and succeed eventually, and also the viewer gets a cheeky insight to the fact that the inhabitants of Mira are invisible; the only sign of them moving around are these claw-like footprints.

Mavic Chen and his creepy head of security, Karlton, have another wankfest of a meeting where they talk about how cool they are, and they plan to tell the Daleks that shipping the fugitives and the buttload of Taranium to Mira was DEFINITELY ON PURPOSE. The Daleks (who are still kicking around, being mediocre as always) send a ship out to Mira to see what's what.

Don't Take No Shit From Nobody Sara Kingdom is trying to get the lowdown from the Doctor, who as usual is bullshitting his way through an explanation.

SARA: But how did we get here?
DOCTOR: Cellular dissemination.
SARA: Cellular what?
DOCTOR: To put it in... lay language, cellular dissemination means our bodies were broken up by some process or other, shot through into the fourth dimension and at a given point, reassembled again on this planet.
STEVEN: I don't know what at least half of those words mean.

The Doctor wanders off on his own to try and figure out where the hell they are, and Steven and Sara have a fight over the fact that Sara shot Bret (so I guess he's actually really dead, which sucks). Steven is really working the sexy dominant thing and Sara is giving as good as she gets and hot DAMN. Unfortunately, the Doctor reappears just before they start tearing each other's clothes off but THEN Sara reveals that Bret was in fact HER BROTHER and I genuinely just gasped aloud omg.

But also the Daleks have landed on the planet! They find the little box of mice and it scares them, so they blow it up. And then they find the Doctor, Sara and Steven and tell them they're surrounded. The Doctor, putting on a brave face for his worried companions, immediately tells them that the Daleks have won. Thanks, Doc, it's a real comfort to have you around.

Probably gonna be a bit of a gap between this post and the next one because I don't have internet right now (nobody noticed I skipped a post this week, right?) but I promise that I will not forget you, Classic Doctor Who. You're actually a lot better than the most recent series has been, so I remain loyal to you.

Fuck Reboot Who season 7, though, am I right?

Moosh