I realize that *technically* this is
part of “The Daleks’ Masterplan”. *Technically* I could have skipped right over
this and gone right to “The Myth Makers”. But, dear reader, that would be
wrong. When I set out on this little re-watch adventure, I wanted to do the
stories in order. When I first started watching Doctor Who, my local PBS
station would show them in order, but like so many others, it was Tom Baker,
maybe some Davison, then some Pertwee, back to Tom Baker, ad infinitum. Then when they finally got to the black and
white stories they showed them in broadcast order, of course omitting any
missing or partially missing stories. To my mind, I’ve seen the stories in
order but it was literally decades ago. It was also with big gaping holes where
the lost stories would be. Because of that, I wanted this re-watch to be as
complete as possible. When I came to “Mission to the Unknown” (or “Dalek
Cutaway” if you’re nasty) I considered watching it as a whole with “Masterplan”
but, the pedantic part of my fannishness (oh like YOU don’t have a bit of it
too!) wouldn’t let me. Broadcast order
prevailed and this one came before “The Myth Makers,” so I watched it first.
Result? Allow me to continue…
As a teaser episode, it actually works
quite well. There is no sign of the
Doctor, the TARDIS, or anything the least bit familiar until we get a look at
the Daleks towards the end of the episode. There are some unlikable space
travelers, crash landed on a planet where one of them is slowly mutating. Yes I
said unlikable. Even the nominal hero of the episode, Marc Cory is kind of a
jerk. To be fair he’s a little less so when he reveals his true identity as a
spy for the Space Security Agency. Then he kills the infected Lowery as he had
already killed the earlier infected crewman. So, still kind of a hard chap to
warm up to.
Terry Nation is writing pure Terry
Nation here, even (especially?) with the absence of the TARDIS crew. I don’t
expect Carl Sagan level science here, but the willy-nilly use of “galaxy” here
is aggravatingly “Buck Rogers-y”. When the Daleks and their co-conspirators
talk of “the Solar System”, meaning Earth’s, it is kind of grating. I’m pretty
sure there is more than one solar system in our galaxy, let alone in all the
other galaxies represented here. Nation can plot a story (OK, he can plot and
re-use a plot) but his science is atrocious.
Visually, even with a reconstruction,
the delegates are fascinating to watch. Like the Daleks, I wonder how much of
their look was Nation’s description, and how much was the designer having
fun. I lean more towards the latter.
Visually, great. Audibly? Well, according to my notes, “when the delegates all
agree, they sound like Gumbies from Monty Python”. I’ll leave that at that.
“Mission to the Unknown” is a teaser,
and that’s all I can say about it. It
will be interesting for me to see how well it relates in two stories time when
I reach “The Daleks’ Masterplan”. But before that happens, it’s time to rejoin
the TARDIS and head to Ancient Greece…
NEXT
EPISODE: The Myth Makers
"Mission to the Unknown" novelization cover, courtesy The TARDIS Data Core at tardis.wikia.com
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