Mission to the Unknown (First, 1965)

This is one of the oddest stories in the First Doctor's run because The Doctor isn't in it. At all. This is a one episode prologue to The Daleks' Master Plan that was going to air a month later. It is actually a pretty cool story that sets up some important things. I like it.

But of course it's only composed of stills. The BBC wiped this episode and it hasn't been miraclously recovered. So all that remains is the audio track and production stills. Still watchable! (And still only 25 minutes!)

Here's a link to it on DailyMotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xn6vej_mission-to-the-unknown_shortfilms?search_algo=1

What did you think of it? What do you think the Daleks are up to? Were you okay The Doctor wasn't in it? Kinda weird, right?

Definitely a bizarre little episode. Very strange not having the Doctor in it. It actually worked without the Doctor in a weird way though. It was short enough and the plot simple enough he really wasn't necessary. Always a little scary seeing the daleks form an alliance.....definitely interested to see the Dalek master Plan now.

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Yikes! An alliance. Earth better be on its best game or else they're in trouble! Fun little adventure even with out the Doctor. Short and a nice litte breath before beginning the epicness that seems to be The Dalek's Master Plan.

So, that was... a thing.

It was weird going into the story without the Doctor and the Tardis "crew", but once it got going, it wasn't too out of the ordinary. Especially in this era, a large part of the stories play out independently of the stars.

It's been my experience that when the Daleks enter alliances, it's underwhelming next to when they're on their own, but it's still kind of unsettling that they think they have the means to subjugate an entire galaxy just with soldier power, and not a gimmicky "destroy the universe" bomb.

ok, Dalek Empire -> great shit, and it doesn't even have visual media associated. so why does this non-doctor Dalek episode suck so much? and by suck i mean i watched it and after i could reflect on nothing at all but wonder what the hell it was that i just watched. maybe if i just listened to it and closed my eyes it would make a lot more sense, but the stills and all that weren't doing it for me. At least they brought back the walking cacti things ...oh wait they didn't cause this happened much before Dalek Empire, so never mind... why the hell'd they make this episode?

I think I remember hearing it was a filler. The one way this episode has any relation to Master Plan is the tape discarded at the end that has what the guy learned about the plans, and the Doctor didn't learn much that he didn't already know from infiltrating the meeting.