The Daleks' Master Plan

According to the credits, the serial was written by Terry Nation (episodes 1–5 & 7) and Dennis Spooner (episodes 6 & 8–12), with the credit "From an idea by Terry Nation" on Spooner's episodes. Script editor Donald Tosh claimed in an interview that the work done by Nation on the serial amounted to less than 20 pages of work, and that he wrote most of Nation's episodes. However, Doctor Who historian David Brunt has disputed this, saying that Nation submitted over 30 pages of script for each of his episodes (apart from "The Feast of Steven") and that Tosh only polished the dialogue and/or cut scenes out for time or budget reasons.

Another controversy involves the title of the serial. Perhaps because of the multiple authors and/or typists, virtually every conceivable variant of the title The Daleks' Master Plan was used in contemporary documents, though this version is on a plurality of camera scripts. During production the story was referred to as Twelve Part Dalek Story on some documents.

The original intention was that the police station scenes of the Christmas episode would feature a crossover with the characters and location of the BBC's popular police drama Z-Cars. However, the Z-Cars production team vetoed the idea, although the Liverpool-area location of the police station survived in the transmitted episode.[1] John Peel's novelisation of the serial references this plan by using the cast names of the Z-Cars actors for the police characters' names.

According to the liner notes for the CD release the fictional mineral taranium was originally called "vitaranium", but was shortened during production because of concerns about William Hartnell's ability to pronounce it. Also, it was felt that "vitaranium" sounded too much like "vitamin".

Tosh and producer John Wiles later claimed that the scene where the Doctor and his companions celebrate Christmas was not originally in the script, and that either the scene was hastily written by director Douglas Camfield when the episode ran short or that Hartnell made an unscripted ad lib. However, it appears on Camfield's camera script, and it was common practice at the time for BBC shows to have a direct address to camera for a Christmas episode; editing would have allowed for the removal of the line if necessary.[2]

Katarina, an inhabitant of ancient Troy, was conceived as a permanent companion and thus introduced at the end of the previous serial, The Myth Makers. However, the plans for the character were quickly re-evaluated by the writers and Wiles, who realised the writing challenges that came with such an unworldly character. As it was impractical to remove the character from upcoming scripts at short notice it was decided to write out Katarina by killing her early in The Daleks' Master Plan, making her the first companion in the series to die. Katarina's death was the first scene Adrienne Hill filmed for the series.[3]

Jean Marsh had previously played Princess Joanna in The Crusade (and later played Morgaine in Battlefield). She had also been married to future Third Doctor actor Jon Pertwee.[4] The character of Sara was created to fulfil the function of companion in Katarina's absence, with no intention for her to continue in the series beyond The Daleks' Master Plan.[5]

Kevin Stoney returned as Tobias Vaughn, another villain working with an alien force – the Cybermen — against the Earth, in the Second Doctor serial The Invasion (1968). Additionally, Stoney also played Tyrum in the Fourth Doctor serial Revenge of the Cybermen (1975).

The lead actress of the film seen in "The Feast of Steven" was played by Sheila Dunn, who was Douglas Camfield's fiancée at the time the episode was in production. The two married just before the serial completed production. Camfield later cast her in a minor voice role in The Invasion and a major screen role in Inferno.

The alien delegates at the Daleks' conference on Kembel differ from those seen in "Mission to the Unknown", and as that episode is lost, there is some confusion over which is which. Those that reappear here had all been recast (see Ronald Rich), while some are new to Master Plan and some seen in "Mission" are missing – this only came to light when "Day of Armageddon" was returned to the BBC archives.

Reg Pritchard, who appears in "The Feast of Steven" as "Man in Mackintosh" had previously played Ben Daheer in The Crusade (1965), and the Doctor seemingly mistakes him for this character. Brian Cant later played Chairman Tensa in The Dominators (1968).[6] Royston Tickner later played Robbins in The Sea Devils (1972).[7]

Nicholas Courtney returned in the 1967 serial The Web of Fear as series regular Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and then went on to appear regularly as the Brigadier over the years until The Sarah Jane Adventures episode, Enemy of the Bane.

^† Episode is missing

Currently, only episodes 2, 5, and 10 are known as extant.[10] All 12 episodes were recorded on and transmitted from videotape. Subsequently, BBC Enterprises had 16mm film telerecordings made for potential overseas sales. However, Episode 7 ("The Feast of Steven"), the Christmas episode, was excluded from this and the story offered for sale was an 11-part version. The original videotapes of Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 are listed among the first Doctor Who episodes ever ordered to be wiped, on 17 August 1967. At this point, "The Feast of Steven" became the first episode of Doctor Who to be seemingly lost forever. Episodes 3, 6, 10, 11 & 12 were wiped on 31 January 1969.

BBC Enterprises retained their film copies, although the story was never purchased by any overseas broadcasters, until at least 1972. A set of viewing prints was sent to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but the story was declined (as it was judged to be A (suitable for adults) on the basis of its overall storyline, rather than cuttable scenes) and the fate of these prints is unknown. At some point in the next four years, the BBC's film copies were junked.

A film copy of Episode 4 ("The Traitors") wound up in the BBC Film Library, although the reasons for this are unclear, as that library had no formal mandate to retain such material. In 1973, the episode was loaned to the Blue Peter production office for a feature on Doctor Who and never returned. Its ultimate fate remains unknown. By 1976, the entire story was considered to be lost. However, Episodes 5 ("Counter Plot") and 10 ("Escape Switch") were returned in 1983 from the basement of a Latter-day Saint church. The circumstances of how they got there remain unclear. Episode 2 ("Day of Armageddon") was returned to the BBC in early 2004 by Francis Watson, a former BBC engineer. Given that this is one of only two Hartnell stories that were never screened outside of the UK (the other being "Mission to the Unknown"), the recovery of the missing episodes from overseas sources remains unlikely.

Various clips from Episodes 1, 3, and 4 also survive:

• Episode 1 ("The Nightmare Begins") – In late 1991, a mute copy of the pre-filmed inserts for the story was discovered in a film can in the BBC archive. In 1998, these inserts were combined with the off-air soundtracks. A colourised version of this footage, made by Stuart Humphryes (AKA YouTube's Babelcolour) and James Russell was included as part of "The Dalek Tapes", a featurette on the Genesis of the Daleks DVD.
• Episode 3 ("Devil's Planet") – A clip of around 90 seconds was screened in a 1971 edition of Blue Peter (then co-presented by Peter Purves, who played the Doctor's companion Steven Taylor). Purves, in introducing the clip, erroneously identifies the serial by the title Devil's Planet, when it was only this individual episode.
• Episode 4 ("The Traitors") – A 1973 edition of Blue Peter featured another item on Doctor Who and included a clip of the scene leading up to Katarina's ejection from the airlock.
• In addition, prior to the recovery of the episode itself, the prefilmed inserts for Episode 2 ("Day of Armageddon"), including the raw soundtrack, were retained by the BBC Film Library and never junked. In 1991, the archive copy was discovered to be missing, but it was recovered in 1993. In 1998, these inserts were combined with the off-air soundtracks to reproduce the scenes as transmitted.

"The Feast of Steven" is the only episode to have existing home photographs, captured by Robert Jewell, who played Bing Crosby in the episode. The only surviving photographs that exist for the other missing episodes are production stills. Since there are so few of them for the individual episodes, clips and screenshots from the surviving episodes - mainly focusing on the Daleks - are often used in fan-made reconstructions.

The Mutation of Time

Author	John Peel
Cover artist	Alister Pearson
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	142
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	19 October 1989
ISBN	0-426-20344-5

The Australian Doctor Who fanzine Zerinza had published a novelisation of the story in 1980, as issue #14/15/16 (thereafter reprinted a few times), but was not novelised by Target Books for almost ten more years, when it finally appeared in two volumes. The first, Mission to the Unknown, consisted of an adaptation of "Mission to the Unknown" and Episodes 1–6 of Master Plan. The second, The Mutation of Time, adapted Episodes 7–12. Both were written by John Peel at the request of Terry Nation[11] and were published in September and October 1989, respectively.

Peel had intended to write the novelisation as a single, long book, but at the time Target Books had a page-limit maximum that required splitting the manuscript into two parts.

Peel made one major change to the televised storyline by placing a six-month gap between the first and second volumes; he later stated that this was to enable future writers to develop original storylines involving the character of Sara Kingdom. Other minor changes include a brief resolution to events in Ancient Egypt and forty-first century Earth.

In May 2010 unabridged readings of both volumes by Peter Purves and Jean Marsh, with Dalek voices supplied by Nicholas Briggs, were released by BBC Audiobooks. The titles were slightly modified to Daleks – Mission to the Unknown and Daleks – The Mutation of Time.

Episodes 5 and 10 were released on VHS on the tape Daleks – The Early Years in July 1992, which also included the silent pre-filmed inserts, which had been then-recently recovered (see above). In November 2004, all three surviving episodes were released on Region 2 DVD, in the three-disc Lost in Time box set, along with all extant clips from the story.

Soundtracks of all the episodes survive due to several fans recording the original transmissions. In 2001, the entire story (together with Mission to the Unknown) was released on CD with additional narration by Peter Purves, combining the best quality sections from various fan recordings and surviving master copies of the original music and sound effects.[12] On 15 February 2019, in a new range called "Vinyl Who", the BBC released this story through Demon Music Group (again alongside Mission to the Unknown and with Peter Purves's narration) as a 7 x Heavyweight LP vinyl in both translucent blue and "Splatter Vinyl" editions.[13] In January 2019, it was announced that another collection of high quality audio recordings, dubbed "The Randolph Tapes", had been discovered.[14]

The music from this serial was released as part of Doctor Who: Devils' Planets – The Music of Tristram Cary in 2003.