Doctor Who audiobook review: The Daleks’ Master Plan: The Mutation of Time

The novelization of The Daleks’ Master Plan concludes with The Mutation of Time. How well does it resolve the epic Doctor Who serial?

Mission to the Unknown – the first half of John Peel’s novelization of The Daleks’ Master Plan – was an extremely enjoyable Doctor Who audiobook to listen to. The writing expanded on the story considerably, while staying true to the spirit of the epic serial’s first six episodes. But how well does The Mutation of Time, the second part of the story, work as a novelization?

Overall, rather well. One thing that instantly leaps out is Peel’s focus on Sara Kingdom. In her original TV appearance, we barely got to know her character. Technically, she was a companion, but only for the duration of that story, and only for two-thirds of it, at most. In fact, she only arrives on the TARDIS at the very end of the story’s first half.

For The Mutation of Time, Peel decides to expand on Sara considerably. There’s a lot of focus on how much her brother Brett Vyon’s death haunts her. The death of a family member would be traumatic for anyone, but what’s even worse for Sara is that she was the one who literally pulled the trigger.

Sara Kingdom

In the original TV serial, Sara’s tragic mistake of killing her brother was only discussed in one episode before the story very quickly moved on. However, for the novelization, Peel very wisely makes this a central focus for Sara’s character. Throughout the novel, she not only finds herself thinking about what she did but constantly has nightmares about it. It’s central to her character, and it adds so much more as a result.

Interestingly, Peel also creates a key gap between the first and second parts of The Daleks’ Master Plan‘s novelization. The Mutation of Time is described as being set a few months after the end of Mission to the Unknown. It’s clear that Peel wanted to give Sara more of an era of her own, and the gap works.

Interestingly, Big Finish themselves have created a similar gap for Sara, one where they’ve told many stories with the character. The only difference is that they inserted it at a slightly later point, to fit better with the original TV serial.

The second half of this First Doctor story gives us something rather lighter than the first half.

(Photo by Chris Ware/Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Lighter plot

If there’s one thing that makes The Mutation of Time slightly less enjoyable overall than Mission to the Unknown, it’s the plot itself. While the opening chapter gives us a lovely moment between the Doctor and Sara, the first half of the book is generally quite light compared to the previous one. This is mainly because most of the episodes were written by Dennis Spooner instead of Terry Nation, and the story becomes generally more comedic.

This is especially true of The Feast of Steven, the completely bonkers Christmas episode that has the plot go completely off the rails. It’s a fun enough TV episode, but it adds nothing to the story. Things do improve when the Monk appears, but his portion of the story definitely feels slower compared to the rest.

However, things pick back up when the TARDIS crew returns to Kembel. Interestingly, Peel takes some major creative liberties with this portion of the story. While in the original TV serial, the Doctor completely disappears until he suddenly shows up at the very end, Peel includes him in the action the entire time.

As someone who’s listened to the audio recordings of the TV episodes many times, Peel’s major change provides a fresh angle on the story that still feels broadly faithful. He also wraps up the novel well and ties up many loose ends, some of which weren’t addressed in the original serial.

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Audiobook presentation

Like The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Mission to the Unknown, The Mutation of Time is a great audiobook to listen to. As with the previous part, both Peter Purves and Jean Marsh narrate different chapters and do an excellent job of bringing both the characters and the writing to life. Purves is especially fantastic when performing as Hartnell’s Doctor – something he continues to do well thanks to Big Finish.

The sound design continues to remain strong with this release. Sound effects often help to add to the story’s atmosphere. If there’s one slight flaw it has, it’s that the music can come across as a little repetitive at times, and makes me wonder if it would have been simpler to reduce it, at least. But overall, it is another solid and immersive production.

The Mutation of Time works well as a conclusion to The Daleks’ Master Plan. John Peel not only expands on the original story but also provides some much-needed depth to Sara Kingdom. An excellent novelization aided by a strong audiobook presentation.

Have you read or listened to The Mutation of Time? Do you think it was as strong as Mission to the Unknown? Let us know in the comments below.