Who do you love? 21: The Daleks' Masterplan
One thing to love about The Dalek Mas Ter Plan: Hmm, can't do one, here are lots.
1. This!
Click to view- the best purring-villain-talks-to-purring-sidekick scene in all of Doctor Who ever, with a nice sting in the tail. (Note that the above is heavily edited so YouTube doesn't bust me; the true 2:30-length scene is even better). Karlton is another great Terry Nation character who lives next door to evil and isn't particularly bothered by it.
2. Even better, in some ways, is the fact that this scene turns out to be the sidekick Karlton's last scene in the entire story. Which is a shame, but also brilliant. The story got away from the writers.
3. The various speech impediments of the alien delegates! Except that making fun of speech impediments isn't funny, except sometimes it is. And the delegates hammering the table because they're worried their hands might fall off if they clap.
4. The casual way the Time Destructor is turned on at 8:55 in episode 12, with the Doctor giggling away, and the horrific way it lays waste to the planet.
5. Daleks with flamethrower guns! Real flames in the studio! Real things burning!
6. All the arguments William Hartnell / the Doctor has with Nicholas Courtney / Bret Vyon!
7. Douglas Camfield directing!
8. They killed a companion! And this is ballsy, and everything about the way it is done is perfectly judged: the way the attack comes out of nowhere; the fact that the attacker is the loser one of the three criminals we've met of Desperus and not one of the ones you'd expect; the fact that opening the airlock is Katarina's conscious choice (compare to Russell T Davies's kicking-a-puppy approach to making the audience feel sad - I may have more to say about this come October / November). Various accounts of the writing of the script make it seem probable that this end was originally meant to be Vicki's, and rather than Katarina's long tresses flowing out through space it was meant to be Vicki's pigtails bobbing gently (though see also this). Phil Sandifer thinks that, if true, this would have been a terrible idea - “This isn't just reactionary. It's savage - a declaration of the fundamental failure of 60s counterculture made in late 1965, right as it was really starting to kick up to its heyday.” I don't know that I agree. First, and more broadly, if Vicki had died this way, it would have raised her standing in fandom - an unarguably proper companion with a strong back catalogue who died. And that would have led to more people seeking out her stories, and that would have led to more people realising how brilliant she is. Second, and more importantly, and more directly to Phil's point, I don't think that killing her off would in any way have diminished what her character stood for (“go forward in all your beliefs” fits her and Barbara much more than Susan). Nothing gives you legitimacy like martyrdom.
9. “A merry Christmas to all of you at home.”