2 out of 5

Directed by: Derek Martinus

Everyone’s confused by this, I’m not alone.  Besides being one of only two standalone episodes (wiki says the other was ‘Five Doctors,’ which was eventually aired in parts) and the only episode sans Doctor and companions, ‘Mission’ also gets to be chronologically confusing because its the setup for… not the next serial, but the one after that, ‘The Dalek Master Plan.’  Not so bad in the world of modern TV where every episode is a setup for some future event, but in Doctor Who land, which is fairly linear, and by ending on a shot that suggests ‘we’ll pick up on this detail next week’, it must’ve been rather… well, confusing.  It’s also a wonderful precursor to the world of spin-offs, as this was apparently Terry Nation’s failed attempt to start a separate line of stories that would focus more on The Daleks and not feature the Doc and crew.  Oh well.

This is dialogue and stills only, so I realize it’s hard to rate things, but it’s really a pointless feeling episode.  Some humans have crashed on a planet and it’s revealed that they’re there to check out rumors of Daleks in the area, something that’s confirmed by the presence of some killer living plants which are native to Skaro.  Indeed, now we flash to the Daleks, who are teaming up with the leaders of some other galaxy (/-ies?) to… take over stuff, I guess.  If it had been linked to the full serial, I’m sure this would’ve have more effect, but as a solo ep, it’s hard to feel out what the focus of the episode is meant to be.  Also – the leaders of the other galaxies all like to talk in Dal-Ek Ro-Bot Speech even though they don’t appear to be robots.  Cool ya’ll.  I’d mock the Daleks too.

Not a bad episode, and definitely a quick watch, but by no means necessary in any way to really advance our plot or add to the series.