Masters of Earth (Mark Wright and Cavan Scott)

The second of the final trilogy of stories for 2014 starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant (as the Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri) is called "Masters of Earth".

Written by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott, and directed by Nicholas Briggs, this story features the return of the Daleks and is set during the Dalek occupation of Earth in the twenty-second century.

Sixth Doctor

This story stars: Tracy Wiles, Brian McCardie, Sean Biggerstaff, Hugh Ross, Damian Lynch and Nicholas Briggs (playing the parts of the Daleks and a Roboman).

On their first adventure since reuniting, the Sixth Doctor and Peri find themselves slap-bang in the middle of the Dalek occupation seen in the 1964 First Doctor story "The Dalek Invasion of Earth".

As revealed by co-writer Mark Wright in this story a later incarnation of The Doctor has been inserted into events that we have already seen in the series. 'Quite big events, with an outcome that has an enormous effect on planet Earth. It's one of those fixed points in time, really - you have a Doctor who arrives and can't do anything, can't do much to change the timelines at all, because he's scared that anything he does could alter things horribly'.

Peri

'It's quite a change of pace', co-writer Cavan Scott has also revealed. 'The Sixth Doctor likes to go in and announce his presence, with his head held high and Shakespearean quotes on his lips, but he can't really do that in this. He has to be careful, he has to be a bit sneakier, he has to be a bit like his successor in a lot of ways. I think he starts to enjoy himself, but at the beginning, he's incredibly reticent to get involved - which again is something we don't usually see with this incarnation of The Doctor'.

This story takes place in Scotland, with a narrower focus than the original serial. 'Within every war story, there are little pocket stories going on, so this is very much one of those', Cavan Scott has stated. 'You haven't got the weight of the entire world hanging on The Doctor's shoulders -the situation, the danger, the peril that he's in is far more personal, I think; closer. The fate of the Earth doesn't hang in the balance, but the fate of the people he meets does'.

This is a very character-based story and rather than being a big group of people who lead the resistance this story has a much smaller group of characters. This story is therefore very different to "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" which was very much about that spectacle of flying saucers over London, Daleks patrolling around Trafalgar Square.

'It really is our love letter to the Terry Nation Dalek stories', Cavan Scott has stated. 'That was very much in our minds when we were writing, and constructing the plot - those things we love about the early Dalek stories that we wanted to pay homage to, and hopefully update a little bit as well...'

On the Back Cover:

The year is 2163. Ten years since the Daleks invaded the Earth. One year until the Doctor, in his first incarnation, will help bring the occupation to an end. But for now, their reign of terror goes on.

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Peri to Scotland – enslaved, like everywhere else on the planet. But there are rumours of Dalek-free islands off its coast. Places where resistors and refuseniks are coming together, gathering arms and armour, preparing to strike back against the enemy.

When the Doctor falls in with an unlikely group of freedom fighters making that dangerous journey to Orkney, he finds himself trapped – but not only by the Daleks, their robotised henchmen and their human collaborators.

By history. Because history shows that for another year, resistance is useless...