Escape Switch (The Daleks' Master Plan Episode 10)

The one where the Doctor hands the taranium core back to the Daleks...

Hooray, it's Doctor Who's 100th episode already! And what better way to mark this milestone than with the Doctor facing off against his greatest foes in a showdown in Ancient Egypt? Thankfully, William Hartnell has his health (and mojo) back after a couple of weeks croaking his way through proceedings. The Christmas break must have done him good, but as Escape Switch was recorded on New Year's Eve 1965, I'm guessing the cast enjoyed a few celebratory drinks afterwards!

We start by discovering that the mummified hand emerging from the sarcophagus in last week's cliffhanger actually belongs to the Monk, who's been wrapped up in bandages by a mischievous Doctor and bundled into a coffin! The bandages aren't all that tightly wrapped, to be honest, so it's hard to see why the Monk feels so debilitated by his predicament, but it's a rather amusing resolution all the same. We'll have to wait a little longer for Doctor Who's first mummy, obviously (well, nine years anyway).

Peter Butterworth is adorable as the Monk in this episode, giving a cuddly warmth to a character who is a staunch survivalist. I can't help chuckling at the scene where Steven and Sara are shouting for the Doctor, and the Monk reluctantly joins in by "whisper-shouting" with them. He doesn't want them to find the Doctor, but neither does he want to seem like he's being unhelpful. The Monk's raw sense of self-preservation is evident throughout, written so well by Dennis Spooner: when the Monk bumps into the Daleks, he pretends he's brought Steven and Sara along as hostages. But he later claims to Steven and Sara that he only did it to save their lives, and feigns upset that they should think so little of him. Spooner and Butterworth make this character sing.

The Daleks and Mavic Chen finally gain some leverage in their battle with the errant Doctor and offer the hostages in exchange for the taranium core. Being bargaining chips is pretty much all Steven and Sara have to do in Escape Switch, further demonstrating Spooner's inability to write engagingly for the Doctor's companions (he was guilty of this neglect in both The Reign of Terror and The Time Meddler too). It's pretty unforgivable that the writer has a futuristic action man, and a karate-kicking intergalactic security agent, on his character list and manages to make nothing of them whatsoever.

The relationship between Chen and the Daleks is really strained by this point, with Chen reminding the Daleks that the expedition to recover the taranium is his. The moment where he violently shoves aside the Dalek's eyestalk is wonderful. I don't know if it was scripted, but it looks quite off the cuff, and it takes the poor Dalek operator a moment or two to recover and get back on track!

The Doctor, complete with sun hat and cane, arranges a rendezvous to make the exchange, demanding just Chen and one Dalek, prompting the chilling line from the Dalek leader: "One Dalek is capable of exterminating all!" Sadly, this confident threat is undermined rather when they actually turn up at the rendezvous with a whole bunch of Daleks. This one line was extrapolated into an entire story 40 years later in Robert Shearman's Dalek.

We mustn't forget the indigenous Egyptians in all this, of course. There's warrior Hyksos, hirsute Khepren and nervy Tuthmos, but the actors are given very little by way of characterisation, and the Egyptians end up as mere cannon fodder for some frankly exhilarating battle scenes with the Daleks. To see the Daleks gliding ruthlessly through Barry Newbery's well-built sets, gunning down the defenceless Egyptians, is great, capitalising again on their innate blood lust. There's a great scene where a Dalek exterminates an Egyptian but finds its way forward blocked by dead bodies (what, no elevation ability yet?), and then more Egyptians start piling rocks up around the Dalek's base to prevent it from moving in any direction. Clever Egyptians!

Ultimately, the bad guys get their taranium core back and are set to return to Kembel and begin their dastardly plan to subjugate the universe. But although it might seem the Doctor has failed, he does have one trick up his sleeve - he's stolen the directional unit from the Monk's TARDIS, and hopes he can wire it into his Ship to get back to Kembel and try and stop the Time Destructor. The bad news is that the directional unit is from the Monk's Type IV TARDIS, and the Doctor's TARDIS is a Type 40, so they may well not be compatible. When the Doctor tries to operate the unit, it will either work... or it will blow up the central column!

Guess what happens? Cue cliffhanger!

First broadcast: January 15th, 1966

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: I'm sorry to see Peter Butterworth's Monk for the last time. His portrayal is delightful, and it's a shame the producers didn't think to bring him back as a recurring enemy throughout the Troughton, Pertwee and Baker years... Then again, maybe they did in other ways...? ;o)
The Bad: Again, the weakness of Dennis Spooner's writing for the companions. I find it quite unforgivable.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Abandoned Planet...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Mission to the Unknown (prelude); The Nightmare Begins (episode 1); Day of Armageddon (episode 2); Devil's Planet (episode 3); The Traitors (episode 4); Counter Plot (episode 5); Coronas of the Sun (episode 6); The Feast of Steven (episode 7); Volcano (episode 8); Golden Death (episode 9); The Abandoned Planet (episode 11); Destruction of Time (episode 12)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/mission-to-unknown-aka-dalek-cutaway.html

The soundtrack to The Daleks' Master Plan is available on CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-original-television-soundtrack/dp/0563494174