h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Regular Cast-Sylvester McCoy(The Doctor), Sophie Aldred(Ace), Martin penny(Rasputaltron), Mike Mills(Barok).

TRAP OF THE DALEKS.
GUEST CAST-Nicholas Courtney(Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart), Anthony Ainley(The Master), Terry Molloy(Davros), Kate O' Mara(The Rani), Angela Bruce(Brigadier Winifred Bambera), Hugh Spight(Supreme Dalek), John Scott Martin(Supreme Daleks aide), Roy Skelton, Royce Mills, Brian Miller(Dalek Voices), John Scott Martin, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne, Cy Town(Dalek Operators).

The Daleks have located the Master and sent him on a mission to destroy the Doctor. The Doctor meanwhile is struggling to cope with the death of his companion Ace, who has recently been killed on Kanderaan under mysterious circumstances. The Doctor visits his old friend Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart on Earth.
The Master arrives on Earth with a landing party of Daleks and encounters Brigadier Bambera, who saw the Dalek ship arrive. After saving Bambera from a Dalek, the Daleks begin to doubt the Masters good intentions, and send a squad to exterminate him.
The Master takes Bambera hostage and confronts the Doctor, only to be exterminated by Daleks who claim to have saved the Doctors life.
The Master however is not dead and has merely deployed a duplicate to fool the Doctor, he opens a channel to the Supreme Dalek and reveals that everything is going perfectly to plan.
The Doctor and the Brigadiers are taken aboard the Dalek ship and are to be taken back to Skaro, on the ship the Doctor meets his old enemy the Rani. The Rani reveals that both the Brigadiers are duplicates. The Rani then reveals that she has been steadily taking over the Daleks...

BEHIND THE SCENES.
Trap of the Daleks was the first story to be penned by Martin Penny and Mike Mills, and it also featured other writers who would occasionally contribute, one of them being Matt Painter and another being John Smith.

'When I first began this story, I named it 'Continuing story. Add what you like', not the most imaginative title, but it got people writing,' Martin Penny says, 'I wanted to give the Supreme Dalek a large part, I didn't feel that he ever got enough credit in the series. The scene where the Supreme is placed in a new casing was to explain that he has several, which he changes over periods of time. I also wrote a lot of scenes with him thinking and meditating on recent events to make him seem more intelligent and cunning.' Martin concludes.

Mike Mills seems to agree on this point about the Supreme Dalek, The Supreme Dalek- 'I agree with Martin that he deserved a bigger part than on the series. The only problem was the same one that Terry Nation realised, you can't have a Dalek making a huge speech. To this end we added in the Red Dalek to break up the dialogue a bit so that your poor man wasn't fried by trying to hear all these addresses in Dalek speech.'

Mike Mills recalls that there was some confusion over the Master in this particular story, 'Now I always got the impression that this was the Ainley Master and so did Martin as far as I recall. I only mention this because I got the impression that some of the others may have thought him to be the Master from the NAs or even Delgado! Apologises if this leads to any confusion (it confused the hell out of me!)'

A number of other old enemies of the Doctor returned in this story, which over complicated things in the long run, especially since most of them turned out to be duplicates.
Martin Penny recalls that he had planned to include Davros himself earlier on in the story, a scene was written in which The Doctor tells Ace that he needs Davros' help if he is going to stop the Rani, The Master and the Daleks. Eventually this scene was scrapped due to technical errors on the boards. But in the end Davros was introduced anyway.
Another character to return was the Rani, 'I added in the Rani as a sort of irony within the story itself,' Mills says, 'By this time it had metamorphosised into a 'how-many-old-characters-can-you-fit-into-one-post?' competition. So I stuck the Rani in their expecting people to write her off as soon as possible (as Martin did a couple of times). The irony is that she became one of the most serious characters in the plot, as opposed to Davros how as supposed to be in it but towards the end ends up as a side kick and "handy boff" to the others and that was one of the few things that I felt let the plot down.'
Martin says, 'Involving the Rani was Mike's idea, At first I wasn't to keen on the idea but I grew to like it.'

The Duplicates also caused quite a few problems during the story, 'There were an awful lot of duplicates in this story, and after a while there was a little too many but they proved to be an essential part of the story after a while.'
Mike Mills agrees, 'Totally with Matt on this one. I could just hear people typing 'What?! You killed off my favourite character?! Ha ha! The joke's on you, 'cos they're only a duplicate! Raspberries all round!'

TRAP OF THE DALEKS-DAY OF DAVROS.
GUEST CAST-Nicholas Courtney(Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart), Anthony Ainley(The Master), Terry Molloy(Davros), Kate O' Mara(The Rani), Angela Bruce(Brigadier Winifred Bambera), Richard Franklin(Captain Mike Yates), John Levene(Sergeant Benton), Hugh Spight(Supreme Dalek), John Scott Martin(Supreme Daleks aide), Derek Keller(Major Hinchcliffe), Joseph Marcell(Wing Commander Aled Richards), John Scott Martin(Davrite Commander), Roy Skelton, Royce Mills, Brian Miller(Dalek Voices), John Scott Martin, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne, Cy Town(Dalek Operators).

Davros launches a full scale invasion of Earth using his newly created Davrites.
Meanwhile the Doctor, Ace, The Brigadier and Bambera arrive back on Earth, arriving in the Millennium stadium in Cardiff when the invasion begins.
Davros arrives on Earth but the Davrite Commander reports that another ship is dematerialising.
This ship belong to the Supreme Dalek, and he and the Master begin to attack the Davrites, and also the Earth itself.
U.N.I.T troops begin to attack the Dalek and Davrite invaders as Davros confronts the Doctor. Just as he does The Rani arrives and turns half of the Davrites and daleks against their respective rulers.
Davros escapes on a hoverdisk and the Doctor, Ace and Bambera go with him. The Brigadier meanwhile goes to lead the attack against the alien invaders.
Meanwhile, The Doctor needs Davros' help to take out the Dalek mothership and stop the invasion...

BEHIND THE SCENES.
While writing Trap of the Daleks, Martin Penny or Mike Mills, or anyone else involved, had no idea there was going to be a sequel- 'I didn't know we were going to do a sequel but it appeared as though it s necessary, my original intention was to have the Master exterminated because the Daleks tired of him, and the Rani assassinate the Supreme Dalek, but again this never happened and the Dalek ship ended up being destroyed instead.'

A further development in the second part of the story was the inclusion of the Davrites, who had played only a minor role in part one, both Mike Mills and Martin Penny like the Davrites very much and they were a genuinely chilling presence in the story, Mills says-'One of my favourite creations. The idea between Matt and I was that Davros wouldn't spend all his time trying to retake control of his "supreme master race" because he's a level headed scientist. No, he'd create a new race, a better one.'

The story starts off in Whales, or more precisely Cardiff, Mike Mills explains why-'Cardiff- Now, I am Welsh. Yes, yes kill me later but I was going through a bit of a nationalist stage right about then so as I seemed to have control on where the squad landed I landed them slap bang in the middle of the Millennium Stadium. There were a couple of complaints that this was a bit unrealistic at the time but I merely pointed out "The world's a big place. If you find it so likely that they'll always attack London or the home counties then why is Cardiff so bad?'

Another feature of the story was the battle scenes on Earth between the U.N.I.T troops, Davrites and Daleks, 'Battle scenes- The battle scenes were added after complaints (don't worry, some people liked it!) that they weren't getting the Dalek v UNIT fighting they wanted so I added in a scene with he air force and the guy that actually complained added in a small scene with Yates and Benton.'

Martin Penny comments about the use of Davros in this story, 'With Trap 2 Davros was much more interesting, in Trap 1 he was merely a supporting character, but now he was much more complex and ruthless, much like the Davros of Genesis and Revelation of the Daleks. He also ended up having to ally himself with the Doctor, something we never thought he would ever do! but he did it anyway, and ended up in prison.'

This story seems to round off the Trap saga, however a further sequel was made, which had nothing at all to do with the first two parts of the saga. Therefore, many of the key characters from the first two parts of the saga were killed off, 'The Supreme Dalek got pushed down a large shaft at the end of Trap 2, but a new clone of him was immediately activated back on Skaro. The Master fell down the generator shaft with the Supreme Dalek, how he survived we have no idea. The Rani faked her death and got away, since she was basically our arch villain in Trap 2(along with Davros) she was made a very interesting and cunning character.'

An unexpected turn in the story was the introduction of the Thals, 'This seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I look at it with utter loathing and pure disgust.' Martin penny says.

The ending of the story was very cheerful, as Martin penny recalls, 'I wrote the celebration scene to round everything off, everyone was happy, an invasion had been repelled, the world had been saved. I always wondered why they didn’t have something like this in the series.'

TRAP OF THE DALEKS-THE GREAT WAR.
GUEST CAST-Rik Mayall(Castellan Zigrosi), Richard E Grant(Castellan Zigrosi), Anthony Ainley(The Master), Terry Molloy(Davros), Kate O' Mara(The Rani), Peter Butterworth(The Meddling Monk), Dinah Sheridan(President Flavia), Nabil Shaban(Sil), Terrence Woodfield(Tor Garane), Maurice Browning(Karlton), Vera Fusek(President of Earth), Michael Hawkins(General Williams), Terrence Stamp(President of the Federation), Stuart Fell(Alpha Centuri), Ysanne Churchman(Voice of Alpha Centuri), Alan Bennion(Izlyr), Sonny Caldinez(Ssorg), Nick Hobbs(Delegate Portis), David Banks(Cyberleader), Mark Hardy(Cyberlieutenant), Hugh Spight(Supreme Dalek), John Scott Martin(Supreme Daleks aide), Roy Skelton, Royce Mills, Brian Miller(Dalek Voices), John Scott Martin, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne, Cy Town(Dalek Operators).

PLOT.
On Skaro The Daleks have organised a conference for various races who wish to destroy the Galactic Federation, the Time Lords, and conquer the universe. Those present include the Cybermen, the Galatron Mining corporation, the intergalactic bank and the Amor prospect Division.
Those present sign a treaty which unites them together, and they prepare their respective armies for war.
In another part of the galaxy the Doctor and Ace arrive at a small bar on Trargon Minor, there the Doctor notices that someone is interfering with the course of time.
Suddenly the space station is attacked by the Cybermen and the Doctor and Ace are forced to escape after the Cyberleader reveals the alliances plan, trying to find where the alliances headquarters are...

BEHIND THE SCENES.
"This was really the start of the Penny and Mills partnership, and it set the scene for future stories and also introduced many of the recurring characters which populate the future stories. Trap of the Daleks parts 3-5 introduce, Rasputaltron, Castellan Zigrosi, Barok, Tor Garane and the partnership between Davros and the Rani." Martin Penny says.

This story was the first to feature the arch villain of the Penny and Mills stories, Rasputaltron, Martin Penny describes him-"Rasputaltron is my favourite creation. He was the true villain in Trap of the Daleks(parts 3-5). Rasputaltron is quite a sick and evil person, his grim appearance as a dark robed skeleton added to his menace. I wanted him to be the ultimate villain, the biggest menace the Doctor had ever faced. He is very cunning having brought about an alliance which will make him ruler of the universe, which he then intends to rule as an Emperor. He also holds quite a sick side to his character, he decieves everyone apart from his servant Barok, and has an obsession with Princess Astra, he ruthlessly kills Zigrosi for no reason other than pleasure and he destroys millions of lives throughout the story."
Mike Mills adds to these comments,"This is probably my favourite story for Rasputaltron as he still holds some menace. The reason is simple, it is that he still holds some of his menace which starts to slip in his next story, Chekawowe, and by his most recent story, Conspiracy, has become one of the good guys. In this story he is probably my favourite of all the villains. He's everything a good Who villain should be; ruthless, megalomaniac and more than slightly camp!" Mills concludes.

Another character to be introduced was Zigrosi, who would also return several times in the future, "Zigrosi is probably my favourite character from this story (that's why it's part of my nickname). He's an old friend of the Doctor's but unlike all the others who are professors or turned bad he's still good but still different to the Doctor. I created a series of notes on Castellan Zigrosi that I may add on here at a later point."
"I thought Zigrosi was a great character, in both incarnations," Martin says, "After his death in this story I had no idea we were going to bring him back, but I was glad when we did becuase he's such a good character." Penny concludes.

Rasputaltrons sidekick Barok would also return in the future, "Barok is an interesting character but wouldn't really have worked as a bad guy in his own right, he had to be Rasputaltron lacky."
"I like Barok in this story, because in later stories he just became a moron. Barok was a sort of Bat like creature, I dont really know what species he is, but he is small, since he sits on Rasputaltron's shoulder a lot of the time, but not so small he cannot hold a weapon."
In future Barok was regulary described as a small-bat-like-creature.

Nearly every other character from parts 3-5 was from the series, "we had an awful lot of recurring characters here like the Master, Davros, the Rani, The Meddling Monk, Alpha Centuri, Sil, The Cyberleader, Cyberlieutenant and The Supreme Dalek so I was worried things might spiral out of control. However this wasnt the case and it worked really well in the end." Martin says.

TRAP OF THE DALEKS-TOTAL WAR!
GUEST CAST-Richard E Grant(Castellan Zigrosi), Anthony Ainley(The Master), Terry Molloy(Davros), Kate O' Mara(The Rani), Peter Butterworth(The Meddling Monk), Mike Mills(Barok), Dinah Sheridan(President Flavia), Nabil Shaban(Sil), Terrence Woodfield(Tor Garane), Maurice Browning(Karlton), Brian Blessed(King Yrcanos), Mike Mills(Saeehe), Terrence Stamp(President of the Federation), Stuart Fell(Alpha Centuri), Ysanne Churchman(Voice of Alpha Centuri), Nick Hobbs(Delegate Portis), David Banks (Cyberleader), Mark Hardy(Cyberlieutenant), Hugh Spight(Supreme Dalek), John Scott Martin(Supreme Daleks aide), Gareth Hale(Taxi Driver), Marek Anton(Commander Zenefon), Roy Skelton, Royce Mills, Brian Miller(Dalek Voices), John Scott Martin, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne, Cy Town(Dalek Operators).

PLOT.
Inside Federation headquarters Rasputaltron orders Commander Zenefon to see that the planet Atrios is kept out of the conflict of the war. it appears as though he has sinister designs on the princess.
Meanwhile on Skaro the Cyberleader arrives and meets with the Supreme Dalek, who reveals that Krontep has fallen to their attack forces, however Andromeda is still in the hands of the Federation.
On Gallifrey Zigrosi arrives and accesses the Presidents personal control centre. However as he is about to utilise the room Davros and the Rani arrive, and Zigrosi is about to kill Davros when the Doctor stops him, Zigrosi aims for the Rani but she shoots his blaster out of his hand, Davros blasts Zigrosi with a bolt of energy from his hand.
Davros and the Rani enter the control room and they transport all of Gallifrey's most valuable artefacts into the Rani's Tardis, these include the Hand of Omega, the Eye of Harmony and the sash of Rassilon.
the Master and the Monk are suddenly are thrown out of harmony, and they enter the Rani's Tardis. As all four renegades leave, Zigrosi wakes up and realises that they have left a bomb in the room...

BEHIND THE SCENES.
Part four of the Trap of the Daleks saga is the lonegest and most epic in the series.
"I like episode four because it never got boring," Martin penny says, "It also sees Rasputaltron being very evil indeed, he got a lot to do in this episode, and also has his first encounter with the Doctor, so the episode is quite special in that respect. It also sees the first of Rasputaltrons supposed 'deaths', when he tumbles over the balcony after being shot by Barok, only to climb back up unscathed." Martin concludes.

A character introduced in Trap of the Daleks but not really payed any attention is the mysterious Tor Garane, Martin Penny says- "Tor Garane was one of my favourite characters in this story, he was an evil buisness man similar to Sil, I never described him in the story, but I imagined him as a sort of reptillian creature wearing long blue robes. I thought that he had good interaction with Sil and the Supreme Dalek, and I immediately planned to give him an appearance in a future story, and by now Tor Garane has become one of our chief villains."
Mike Mills comments on Garane-"I don't think I actually wrote any scenes with Tor in but looking back I wish I had. He was a good character with some interesting ideas that were never fully exploited." Mills concludes.

This episode also sees the start of Rasputaltron obsession with Princess Astra, "I made Rasputaltron a little more complex by giving him a crush on Astra, however by the time I wrote Reunions I made it so that Rasputaltron was only interested in her because she was key to his plans to re write time. But I later followed it up again when he falls in love with Romana." Martin Penny says.

Also returning in this story was Sil, "Sil was always one of my favourite characters in the series. In Trap of the Daleks I think I captured his character well, since I was the only one who wrote any of the scenes with him in."

And another returning character was Kalrton, who had previously appeared in The Daleks Master Plan, Martin Penny says-"I really liked Karlton in the Daleks master Plan and wished he would have been in it more, so I decided to make him a traitor, karlton was a man who deserved his come uppance and that was exactly what he got, as you'll see in Trap 4."

TRAP OF THE DALEKS-ENDGAME.
GUEST CAST-Anthony Ainley(The Master), Terry Molloy(Davros), Kate O'Mara(The Rani), Peter Butterworth(The Meddling Monk), Mike Mills(Barok), Dinah Sheridan(President Flavia), Nabil Shaban(Sil), Terrence Woodfield(Tor Garane), Michael Hawkins(General Williams), Alan Bennion(Izlyr), Sonny Caldinez(Ssorg), Eric Chitty(Co-Ordinator Engin), David Banks(Cyberleader), Mark Hardy(Cyberlieutenant),Tomek Bork(Captain Hanik), Hugh Spight(Supreme Dalek), John Scott Martin(Supreme Daleks aide), Roy Skelton(Laran), Roy Skelton, Royce Mills, Brian Miller(Dalek Voices), John Scott Martin, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne, Cy Town(Dalek Operators).

PLOT.
In space above Federation capital the final battle between the Dalek Alliance and the Galactic Federation has begun.
In the Tardis the Doctor receives a message from Flavia who asks him to recover the stolen artefacts from the renegades, the Doctor knows he is being used again but accepts none the less.
The Tardis arrives on Mio Simea Gorea and the Doctor and Ace make their way to the Ranis fortress.
Inside the fortress, Davros and the Rani have prepared the Hand of omega for launching and have set the course for Gallifrey while the Master and the Monk are chained up.
The Doctor and Ace manage to enter the Ranis fortress, but they are captured by Davros and taken to the rani, where she explains her plan to destroy the Time Lords by connecting all three artefacts together.
The Doctor and Ace are chained up alongside the Master and the Monk and Davros prepares to fill the chamber with gas, killing them all, however before he can do so Gallifreyan troop transports arrive outside and a huge battle begins with the Rani's troops and the gallifreyans.
The power to the chamber is knocked out and the Doctor and Ace are able to get free, reluctantly untying the Master and the Monk as they head for the control room...

BEHIND THE SCENES.
Mike Mills comments on the Final part of the saga "I particularly like the apocalyptic feel to the whole episode. The battle scenes are particularly enjoyable looking back. However, there are a number of aspects that disappointed me, the Rani just explaining her plan to the Doctor for no apparent reason being my major gripe. The ending (with the Doctor resetting time) is perhaps a little tacky but it was obviously the only way that it could be concluded. And I am still very proud and Martin and my work on the final scenes between the Doctor and Flavia."

"Flavia was a character who should have appeared more than once in the series, since she became President in the Five Doctors. In the series she appeared to be very pleasent, but as the old saying goes "Absolute power corrupts absolutely!" and Flavia has become corrupt and power hungry." Martin penny says.

Martin Penny also says that he needed to find a way to bring Rasputaltron back, "When the Doctor flips the switch and un does all of Flavias changes I could have simply let Rasputaltron return to being a senator, but instead I decided to let him escape the changes to the time line and swear revenge, that way I was free to use him again."

CHEKAWOWE.
GUEST CAST-Adrian Endmunson(Chekawowe), Angelina Jolie(Mhssca), Sean Bean(Ethan Forbes), Martin Jarvis(Azrael), Alexandar Siddig(Azoth).

PLOT.
The Doctor and Ace arrive in France at the time of the Revolution where they are captured by the mad deformed scientist Chekawowe and his assistant Mhssca.
Chekawowe reveals that he has been stealing the frames of time from different points of conflict throughout the galaxy, what he intends to do with them remains a mystery to the Doctor.
Chekawowe is also in communication with a mysterious shadowy figure who uses temporal communication technology to give him his orders from the future...

BEHIND THE SCENES.
Mike Mills says-"I knew it was going to be a tough challenge to follow up on the success of Trap but we ploughed ahead anyway. The strange thing about Chekawowe is that out of all of our stories it is probably the one that would be easiest to realise on television as the planet featured - which I have a sneaking suspicion may actually be Kanderaan - could so easily be filmed in a quarry!"

Mike Mills reveals the thoughts behind the name Chekawowe-"CHEKAWOWE
I have to admit that when I first suggested the title of Chekawowe I wasn't one hundred percent sure what Chekawowe would turn out to be. I knew that it would be one of three things:
1) A character 2)A planet or location 3)something else."

Martin Penny comments about the use of Rasputaltron once more-"Before his return in Chekawowe Raspy had appeared in a short story called Reunions, where he seemed to have been killed at the end. But he survived! by this time he had been established as the arch villain of the Mills and Penny partnership. In this story Raspy does'nt appear until half way through, he had made some appearances but I left it a mystery as to who he was."

Mike Mills comments about the naming of Chekawowe and Mhssca-"I had a couple of names for both these characters first of all. Chekawowe won out of Gritish, Mulg and (obviously) Chekawowe. Whilst a few other names for Mhssca were Hrssi, Cttannla and Xlyah (I guessed Mhssca was the easiest to pronounce M-uh-sca)"

In Chekawowe The Doctor and Ace are shown to wear Revolutionary costumes-"This was in honour of those earlier episode where the TARDIS crew would try to blend in rather than later on where they just walked out into the world in whatever they had on at the time."

And here Mike comments about the use of France in this story-"There were a few reasons that I chose the French Revolution as a place for the TARDIS to land. I knew it had to be during a war and I wanted a historical setting and preferably abroad (I live in the UK). In the end I think it between French Revolution or the Boar War but I knew more about the former."