History Trivia / DoctorWhoS3E4TheDaleksMasterPlan

** Creator/PeterPurves was less than impressed with the story, declaring, "the big twelve parter was tosh".
* ExecutiveMeddling: The reason this is twelve parts is because there was pressure from the higher-ups for more of the Daleks. Legend has it that the Head of Drama wanted more because his mother-in-law loved them.

** The original intention was that the police station scenes of "The Feast of Steven" would feature a crossover with the characters and location of ''Series/ZCars''. However, the production team of that show vetoed the idea, although the Liverpool-area location of the police station survived in the transmitted episode. John Peel's novelisation of the serial references this plan by using the cast names of the ''Z-Cars'' actors for the police characters' names.

** Taranium was originally named Vitaranium.

* YouLookFamiliar: Reg Pritchard, who appears in "The Feast of Steven" as "Man in Mackintosh" had previously played "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E6TheCrusade Ben Daheer]]", and the Doctor seemingly mistakes him for this character. Creator/JeanMarsh had previously played Princess Joanna in the same story.

* CreatorCouple: The lead actress of the film seen in "The Feast of Steven" was played by Sheila Dunn, who was Creator/DouglasCamfield's fiancée at the time the episode was in production. The two would marry just before the serial completed production.

** Played completely straight however by Mavic Chen's having trouble using the loudspeaker on the Dalek time machine, which was improvised by Kevin Stoney.

** Sara was originally conceived as Bret's lover, but this was later amended to make them siblings.
** Taranium was originally named Vitaranium. There were, however, concerns that Creator/WilliamHartnell would be unable to pronounce it. [=VX2=] and Vita were rejected.
** Roald was originally named Reinaml; Lizan was originally a man named Gilson; Kirksen was originally named Kirkland; Karlton was originally named Cartlon; Borkar was originally named Barker; Daxtar was originally named Tom and the Dexter; Froyn was originally named Frayn; and Rhynmal was originally named Bosworth. The names were changed at the behest of Creator/JohnWiles in order to sound more futuristic; Creator/TerryNation agreed to this but requested that Sara Kingdom and Mavic Chen remain unaltered.
** Communications Centre Earth was originally named New Washington.

** Creator/JohnWiles and Donald Tosh greatly disliked the Doctor BreakingTheFourthWall to give us a Christmas message and would later claim that this was an unplanned ad-lib by Creator/WilliamHartnell, although the fact that the line appears in director Creator/DouglasCamfield's camera script proves otherwise. (It was common practice for BBC shows, even dramas, to directly address the audience like this for Christmas episodes.)

* ExecutiveMeddling: The reason this is twelve parts is because there was pressure from the higher-ups for more of the Daleks. Legend has it that the Head of Drama wanted more because his wife loved them.

** Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, the Doctor's BreakingTheFourthWall at the end of "The Feast of Steven" was ''not'' ad-libbed. It was common practice for festive programmes, even dramas, to have someone wish the viewers a happy Christmas at the time. However, the claim that it was ad-libbed probably came about because in Donald Tosh's finished script, the Doctor doesn't explicitly acknowledge the audience. The line was changed in-studio by director Douglas Camfield (according to him, at Hartnell's request) and appears in Camfield's camera script. (Though still not quite as delivered - Camfield's script says "Incidentally, a happy Christmas to all of you, too", rather to "to all of you at home.")
** Played completely straight however by Mavic Chen's having trouble using the loudspeaker on the Dalek time machine, which was ad-libbed by Kevin Stoney.

** The original intention was that the police station scenes of "The Feast of Steven" would feature a crossover with the characters and location of ''Series/ZCars''. However, the production team vetoed the idea, although the Liverpool-area location of the police station survived in the transmitted episode. John Peel's novelisation of the serial references this plan by using the cast names of the ''Z-Cars'' actors for the police characters' names.
** A SpinOff series featuring Space Security vs the Daleks was contemplated. Bret Vyon was intended to be in it, meaning that someone else would have ended up playing TheBrigadier.

* CreatorChosenCasting: Director Creator/DouglasCamfield cast Creator/NicholasCourtney as Bret Vyon after remembering his audition for UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionheart in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E6TheCrusade The Crusade]]".

* CreatorChosenCasting: Director Douglas Camfield cast Creator/NicholasCourtney as Bret Vyon after remembering his audition for UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionheart in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E6TheCrusade The Crusade]]".
* CreatorCouple: The lead actress of the film seen in "The Feast of Steven" was played by Sheila Dunn, who was Douglas Camfield's fiancée at the time the episode was in production. The two would marry just before the serial completed production.

* An interesting loose end regarding "The Feast of Steven" is "Albert Barrington", who played the real Professor Webster whom the Doctor had been mistaken for earlier. There's absolutely no other documentation of this actor, and nobody seems to remember what they shot and no photos of the scene exist. Loose Cannon, for their reconstruction, used images of Creator/WilliamHartnell, based on the theory that it may have been a cover name for Hartnell [[IdenticalStranger playing a double role]]. An "Albert Barrington" also played a small role in an episode of ''Series/ZCars'' in early 1967; that episode was also directed by Douglas Camfield and is also missing, but raises the possibility it was a CreatorCameo by Camfield himself (though it doesn't address how the Doctor could be mistaken for a man played by Camfield, who was in his mid-thirties).
* Episode 5, "Counter Plot", caught the attention of none other than Creator/StanleyKubrick, who was so impressed by some of the effects that his production office contacted director Douglas Camfield asking how they were pulled off, hoping to replicate them for ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.

** Episode 7 "The Feast of Steven" is the only ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode generally believed to be irretrievably lost-- the BBC wiped the master tape soon after broadcast, and it wasn't offered for sale to overseas broadcasters as it was a Christmas episode intentionally written to be inconsiquential to the main plot. However, according to Restoration Team member Paul Vanezis, it's possible that a telerecording was made of this episode in the absence of instructions ''not'' to make one, simply as a matter of course, which is how the unaired "pilot" version of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E1AnUnearthlyChild "An Unearthly Child"]] survived. Therefore, there is a remote possibility that the episode could exist. Funnily enough, "The Feast of Steven" is the missing episode for which we have the most extensive visual record; no telesnaps exist for any of the episodes, but Robert Jewell, who usually worked as a Dalek operator, was cast in that episode as Bing Crosby the clown. For this reason, he took his own off-air photographs, which are the only surviving visual record.

** Creator/JohnWiles and Donald Tosh greatly disliked the Doctor BreakingTheFourthWall to give us a Christmas message and would later claim that this was an unplanned ad-lib by Creator/WilliamHartnell, although the fact that the line appears in Camfield's camera script suggests otherwise. (It was common practice for BBC shows, even dramas, to directly address the audience like this for Christmas episodes.)

* RealitySubtext: The Doctor's line "It's a madhouse - it's full of Arabs" feels like Creator/WilliamHartnell's stated bigotry bleeding into the script.

* HostilityOnTheSet: The already fragile relationship between Creator/WilliamHartnell and Creator/JohnWiles degenerated further, not helped by the deteriorating state of the star's health. Wiles was becoming increasingly exasperated by Hartnell's tendency to deviate from his scripted lines, and had to deal with a brief crew strike arising from a dispute between Hartnell and his dresser. Things got so bad that ''The Manchester Evening News'' reported that Hartnell would be quitting the show, although this did not transpire. Yet.

** Creator/TerryNation's original, untitled outline differed from the finished product in numerous respects. The setting was the year AD 1,000,000 and the Daleks had set up shop on the planet Varga. The "[[Film/JamesBond 007]] of space" met by the Doctor was called Brett Walton, the President of the Solar System was Banhoong, and Brett's traitorous friend on Earth was simply named Tom. It was the arrival of the Daleks on the “Devils Planet” (later christened Desperus) which distracted the convicts enough to allow the Doctor and his friends to escape, and there was no mention of any criminals stealing onboard the spaceship. Tom elected not to betray the Doctor's party and was murdered by the Daleks for helping them to escape to "the Planet of Mists" (later called Mira). The return of the Doctor and company to Varga happened at the start of Episode 10.

* MissingEpisode: The BBC currently hold Episodes 2, 5 and 10 in the archive. The other 9 episodes remain missing; Episode 4 may still exist, as it was lost after being loaned to ''Series/BluePeter'' for use in a featurette about the show's tenth anniversary. (The discovery of Episodes 5 & 10 was the most remarkable recovery of any missing episode, as the film cans were found in the basement of a church in London. Precisely what they were doing there has never been ascertained, but apparently the basement was often hired for storage space.) The audio for all 12 episodes exists thanks to fan recordings, and a few on-set and publicity photos of the story also exist as well as some off-air photos of Episode 7, but no telesnaps as producer Creator/JohnWiles did not use John Cura's telesnaps service.
** Episode 7 "The Feast of Steven" is the only ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode generally believed to be irretrievably lost-- the BBC wiped the master tape soon after broadcast, and it wasn't offered for sale to overseas broadcasters as it was a Christmas episode intentionally written to be inconsiquential to the main plot. However, according to Restoration Team member Paul Vanezis, it's possible that a telerecording was made of this episode in the absence of instructions ''not'' to make one, simply as a matter of course. Therefore, there is a remote possibility that the episode could exist. Funnily enough, "The Feast of Steven" is the missing episode for which we have the most extensive visual record; no telesnaps exist for any of the episodes, but Robert Jewell, who usually worked as a Dalek operator, was cast in that episode as Bing Crosby the clown. For this reason, he took his own off-air photographs, which are the only surviving visual record.

* MissingEpisode: The BBC currently hold Episodes 2, 5 and 10 in the archive. The other 9 episodes remain missing; Episode 4 may still exist, as it was lost after being loaned to ''Series/BluePeter'' for use in a featurette about the show's tenth anniversary. (The discovery of Episodes 5 & 10 was the most remarkable recovery of any missing episode, as the film cans were found in the basement of a church in London. Precisely what they were doing there has never been ascertained, but apparently the basement was often hired for storage space. )The audio for all 12 episodes exists thanks to fan recordings, and a few on-set and publicity photos of the story also exist as well as some off-air photos of Episode 7, but no telesnaps as producer Creator/JohnWiles did not use John Cura's telesnaps service.

* RealitySubtext: The Doctor's line "It's a madhouse - it's full of Arabs" feels like Creator/WilliamHartnell's alleged bigotry bleeding into the script.

* HostilityOnTheSet: The already fragile relationship between Creator/WilliamHartnell and Creator/JohnWiles degenerated further, not helped by the deteriorating state of the star's health. Wiles was becoming increasingly exasperated by Hartnell's tendency to deviate from his scripted lines, and had to deal with a brief crew strike arising from a dispute between Hartnell and his dresser. Things got so bad that the Manchester Evening News reported that Hartnell would be quitting the show, although this did not transpire. Yet.

* MissingEpisode: The BBC currently hold Episodes 2, 5 and 10 in the archive. The other 9 episodes remain missing; Episode 4 may still exist, as it was lost after being loaned to ''Series/BluePeter'' for use in a featurette about the show's tenth anniversary. (The discovery of Episodes 5 & 10 was the most remarkable recovery of any missing episode, as the film cans were found in the basement of a church in London. Precisely what they were doing there has never been ascertained, but apparently the basement was often hired for storage space. )The audio for all 12 episodes exists thanks to fan recordings, and a few on-set and publicity photos of the story also exist as well as some off-air photos of Episode Seven, but no telesnaps as producer Creator/JohnWiles did not use John Cura's telesnaps service.
** Episode Seven "The Feast of Steven" is the only ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode generally believed to be irretrievably lost-- the BBC wiped the master tape soon after broadcast, and it wasn't offered for sale to overseas broadcasters as it was a Christmas episode intentionally written to be inconsiquential to the main plot. However, according to Restoration Team member Paul Vanezis, it's possible that a telerecording was made of this episode in the absence of instructions ''not'' to make one, simply as a matter of course. Therefore, there is a remote possibility that the episode could exist. Funnily enough, "The Feast of Steven" is the missing episode for which we have the most extensive visual record; no telesnaps exist for any of the episodes, but Robert Jewell, who usually worked as a Dalek operator, was cast in that episode as Bing Crosby the clown. For this reason, he took his own off-air photographs, which are the only surviving visual record.

** Creator/TerryNation's original, untitled outline differed from the finished product in numerous respects. The setting was the year AD 1,000,000 and the Daleks had set up shop on the planet Varga. The "[[Film/JamesBond 007]] of space" met by the Doctor was called Brett Walton, the President of the Solar System was Banhoong, and Brett's traitorous friend on Earth was simply named Tom. It was the arrival of the Daleks on the “Devils Planet” (later christened Desperus) which distracted the convicts enough to allow the Doctor and his friends to escape, and there was no mention of any criminals stealing onboard the spaceship. Tom elected not to betray the Doctor's party and was murdered by the Daleks for helping them to escape to "the Planet of Mists" (later called Mira). The return of the Doctor and company to Varga happened at the start of episode ten.

* Episode five, "Counter Plot", caught the attention of none other than Creator/StanleyKubrick, who was so impressed by some of the effects that his production office contacted director Douglas Camfield asking how they were pulled off, hoping to replicate them for ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.