Doctor Who, season 3 continues …

The Daleks’ Master Plan is the title of an epic 12-part Doctor Who adventure featuring the first Doctor, William Hartnell.  Most of the story is no longer in the BBC archives and so I’ll be watching most episodes thanks to CGI recreations from Who Recons.  The following observations will cover the first six episodes.

The first episode (CGI) is a bit plodding and I wasn’t going to continue with the adventure in the same sitting, but the second episode (live action) helped to bring some meat to the programme and made up for some dodgy audio and struggling CGI of the first episode. It also helped that the fifth episode was also live action, and I have a few clips of one or two of the other episodes.

The story, the “master plan” or whatever, should really have been called “The Chase for the Macguffin” because what it comes down to is the Doctor stealing an essential piece of the Daleks’ new weapon, and then Mavic Chen, the SSA, and the Daleks hunting the Doctor & co. down just like a slightly better version of The Chase.

There’s precious little story to justify the length of the adventure, and it’s hard to know how it’s going to stretch itself out for another six episodes.  Having an adventure this long allowed the story to have an episode of irrelevant padding for little purpose beyond leading up to Katarina’s death.

Still, since the first episode it has largely kept up my interest.  I have a tough time watching the CGI for too long, but that’s a small matter.  Sometimes the audio leaves plenty to be desired, but there’s enough there to get the gist of the story.

Next time … The Feast of Steven