Season 10, Episode 3 | 6 parts | First broadcast: 24 February – 31 March 1973 | Writer: Malcolm Hulke | Director: Paul Bernard
Cast
- Jon Pertwee as the Doctor
- Katy Manning as Jo Grant
- Roger Delgado as the Master
- Michael Hawkins as President of Earth
Summary
Arriving amid escalating hostility between Earth and the Draconian Empire, the Doctor and Jo discover the Master is secretly engineering a series of staged attacks to provoke full-scale interstellar war, working in league with the shadowy Daleks. Bounced between Earth and Draconian prisons and pursued across space, the Doctor must expose the true instigators of the conflict before humanity and the Draconians destroy each other.
Interesting Facts
- This serial marks Roger Delgado’s final television appearance as the Master before his death in a car accident later in 1973.
- It introduces the Draconians, an honour-bound reptilian empire considered one of the era’s more nuanced and well-developed alien cultures.
- The story functions as the first half of a two-part epic, directly continuing into the following serial, Planet of the Daleks.
- Its plot, hinging on manufactured pretexts for interstellar war, echoes Cold War fears of engineered conflict between rival superpowers.
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