The Daleks' Master Plan Part II: The Mutation of Time by: John Peel

 

The Daleks’ Master Plan Part II: The Mutation of Time was written by John Peel, based on The Daleks’ Master Plan “The Feast of Steven” to “The Destruction of Time” by Dennis Spooner and Terry Nation.  It was the 148^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

John Peel excels when he is adapting the work of Terry Nation, especially when it is a dramatic script from nation as is evident from The Daleks’ Master Plan Part I: Mission to the Unknown, but there is a great danger in shifting to the second half of the story as Dennis Spooner becomes responsible for writing duties of the episodes, though working from Terry Nation’s original outline.  Spooner’s style of storytelling varies greatly from Nation’s, generally skewing towards comedy, though The Daleks’ Master Plan generally stays serious with a great helping of wit to get it through to a very dark ending.  When it comes to getting to that very dark ending, Peel is great.  The Daleks’ Master Plan Part II: The Mutation of Time takes its title from one of Nation’s working titles for the serial and Peel really makes the shifting time aspect of the serial brought out to the forefront.  While the televised episodes would keep Mavic Chen and the Dalek alliance throughout the serial, this back half cuts back to them and their developments far more than the televised story ever did.  This is perhaps because they provide the dramatic weight of the serial as the episodes immediately penned by Spooner on television go to the comedic side.  The Meddling Monk is brought in as a tertiary antagonist and in The Daleks’ Master Plan Part II: The Mutation of Time the comedy of Peter Butterworth’s performance is greatly muted.

 

Muting the comedy is something Peel seems keen to do, except that makes the book become quite uneven for the first two-thirds of the events.  “The Feast of Steven” is perhaps the reason for this, as there wasn’t much Peel could actually do to mute the comedy in the Christmas episode, outside of cutting out the Doctor’s request to the viewer at the very end.  It takes up two chapters and is played mainly for comedy, while also having some of the largest cuts of the adaptation.  The comedy is preserved from Nation’s original script, the only episode he penned included in this half of the novelization, but the scenes are shortened without Peel attempting to bring it in line with the way he adapts Spooner’s later scripts.  It sets the reader up for a more tonally accurate recreation of the scripts, but as soon as the Daleks are back in the narrative the jokes are gone and the fear is back.  This is especially apparent when the TARDIS materializes on a cricket pitch without the signature humor of Dennis Spooner, just this sense of stiff upper lipped Britishness before quickly moving on.  The sequence in Ancient Egypt with the Monk is especially less comedic, the potential of the TARDIS being sealed in the pyramid is played as the most dangerous thing that could happen, while the action is heightened with danger.  Dalek hierarchy is explored as an additive, but removing the comedy means that the chasing sequences of the story feel more like a slog.

 

Peel does do admirably in opening the novelization with an original scene, a character moment for Sara Kingdom exploring what life has been like now that her world has been turned upside down.  Narratively it assists in bringing the reader back into the story and providing any necessary catchup on the off chance somebody picked up the second half of the story without first having the first half.  In terms of character, it allows the Doctor a book original moment which is incredibly sweet, reflecting on the deaths that have already occurred at the hands of the Daleks and allowing Sara some closure and guilt around the death of her brother.  This comes full circle in the end, while she is dying she is guided into death by the image of Bret which feels slightly out of place, but I can see what Peel was going for in this sequence.

 

Overall, The Daleks’ Master Plan Part II: The Mutation of Time is actually a step down mainly due to the weakness of the author and his general reverence for Terry Nation meaning he underestimates what made the Dennis Spooner penned scripts interesting and kept the story going.  When it’s great, it’s utterly brilliant, in parts even better than the first half, but in between those moments the pace slows down and the comedy is transformed into completely straight prose which holds the book back.  8/10.