It’s nearly time! Like me, you’re probably getting the ingredients for Dalek-based cocktails to enjoy on 4th April while watching the two returned episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan (‘TDMP’ as no one else is calling it). So let me help you with this link. It’s a recipe for ‘The Daleks – The Exterminator’ cocktail.
Like the metal meanies from Skaro, it’s described as being ‘NOT for the faint of heart’ because it ‘contains nearly twice the amount of alcohol in a standard Long Island Iced Tea’. That’s about five units of alcohol. A few of those, and you won’t be conscious enough to watch TDMP. All you need, apparently, is Light Rum, Dark Rum, Kraken Black Spiced Rum, Agave Nectar, Amaretto, Triple Sec, Grenadine, Orange Juice, and Pineapple Juice. And Nurofen, presumably.
But if that doesn’t rattle your cocktail shaker, how about a Dalek cake? Here’s a few examples of my attempts to inspire you…
Okay, so the only one that actually looks like a Dalek was made with a Dalek cake mould. Here is some cake-making advice from someone who actually knows what they’re doing.
So, we’re all prepared with cake and cocktails. But it’s still not 4th April. Why is that? There’s something wrong with time. Living your life one day after another, all in a neat pattern, is a pain in the plunger, frankly.
But we Whonatics know how to waste time. By watching Doctor Who, of course! But what are you going to watch in the run-up to viewing two missing episodes, not seen for 22,057 days (The Nightmare Begins) or a measly 22,043 days (Devil’s Planet)? You could watch Terminus. Or a Dalek story? But it wouldn’t be the Dalek story.
It’s just a shame there isn’t some sort of prelude to TDMP, a one-off episode that serves as an introduction to the story. A kind of ‘Dalek cuttaway’ if you will. Hang on…
But boo to the junkers, Mission to the Unknown (MTTU) is also missing. Only the soundtrack remains. You could listen to that, I suppose, while playing with your Dapol screen-accurate Daleks. It’s just a shame that some film studies students at uni — the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) for example — hadn’t got out of bed at three in the afternoon and produced a 1960s-style recreation of MTTU in 2019. Hang on…
Yes, it’s the perfect prequel to your Saturday miss-epp viewing. [Peter told me he’d hunt me down and force me to rewatch Meglos if I edited that to read “missing episodes”, so please forgive us, lest we get stuck in a chronic hysteresis loop — Ed.] If you sandwich Day of Armageddon between the two and put MTTU at the start, you get a four-part story! And you could still watch Terminus the day before, with a Terminus-based cocktail: a pint of vodka with a slice of lemon. Trust me, it works.
If you’re worried about the quality of the ‘recreation’, don’t take my word for it. Read Tyler Harris’ glowing review. “If you had told me that the BBC found this missing episode and then showed me this recreation, I would not have batted an eyelid. Yes, it’s that good,” says Tyler, and he knows his onions. And Daleks, hopefully.
Plus, the class of 2019 clearly have an Organon-like soothsayer in their midst as the end screen of the recreation states: THE DALEKS WILL RETURN. Binro was right! Next time you rabble at UCLan change out of your onesies and do some actual work for a change… in your next recreation, please use this text as your end screen:
THE SPACE PIRATES EPISODES 1 AND 3-6 WILL RETURN. WE KNOW IT’S NOT THE TOP OF ANYONE’S LIST, BUT THE CHANCE OF ANYONE GETTING ROUND TO ANIMATING THIS YAWNFEST IS VERY SLIM. THANKS, THE UNIVERSE.
But fear not, you don’t even have to go far to find the recreated MTTU. Those clever chaps who run the YouTube have tracked down a copy and projected it onto their Time-Space Visualiser, and we’ve hijacked it so it screens straight into your eye sockets if you just hit “play” below.
No need to thank me. Thank Film is Fabulous! Thank BBC iPlayer! Thank UCLan! Praise Logar! It’s nearly time! Stand by your tellybox, the nightmare is about to begin again! Hic.
