Mission To

The Unknown

9TH OCTOBER 1965

(1 EPISODE)

Mission to the Unknown - a single episode broadcast four weeks before the first episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan - is an episode unique in the history of the classic series. This stand-alone story has the distinction of being the only twenty-five minute tale in twenty-six seasons of Doctor Who, and those twenty-five minutes are not even carried by the regular cast, who had all buggered off on holiday.

Effectively just a bloated trailer for the upcoming twelve-part Dalek story, this “Dalek Cutaway” episode focuses exclusively on the exploits of the Space Special Security Service’s agent Marc Corey on the planet Kembel. Corey unearths evidence that the Daleks are planning to unite several aggressive alien species against mankind, and although he is exterminated by the Daleks, a tape containing his findings survives, setting up the ensuing twelve-parter.

Mission to the Unknown is a difficult story to invest in as there is no anchor for the audience. Though from the surviving soundtrack Edward de Souza’s performance seems perfectly reliable, Corey just isn’t a charismatic enough character to carry the narrative on his own, particularly when that narrative has already been protracted far, far longer than it should have been. Corey needs the Doctor to show up in more ways than one. Of course, the Who historians in us might be tempted to argue that at least Mission to the Unknown offers us a fleeting glimpse of what Terry Nation’s mooted Dalek spin-off series, The Destroyers, might have been like. Unfortunately the broadcasters at the time were probably thinking much the same, which makes it a little easier to understand why The Destroyers never saw production despite Dalekmania running rampant.

To its credit though, when listened to in conjunction with the rest of The Daleks’ Master Plan, this little episode does a fair job of slowly cranking up the tension, but at the time I fear that it must have left a lot of viewers scratching their heads, looking for a resolution that wouldn’t be forthcoming for a long, long time.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

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