Legacy of the Daleks is the first in an ongoing story arc involving the Doctor searching for Sam after they are separated by the events of Longest Day. The Doctor gets a telepathic distress call from Susan (yes, the Susan his granddaughter who left in "Dalek Invasion of Earth"), and decides to go and help her, thinking that maybe he'll find Sam along the way, as Susan and Sam happen to be in the same time period. He arrives on Earth to find that England is having trouble coping with life after the invasion, and is on the brink of war, as warring factions (lead by various lords who supply electrical power to their domains) vie for control of the land.
The Doctor, searching for Susan with David Campbell and a knight named Donna (no, not that Donna) who he met along the way, soon discovers that a man named Estro, (which is Esperanto for "Master") is supplying one of the factions with Dalek weapons. The Master has arrived on Earth and is once again involved in some convoluted plot to steal a superweapon by working his way through the local power hierarchy. Unfortunately, this plan involves giving power to a Dalek Artifact, which turns out to be exactly what the Daleks inside it need to reawaken...
Tropes:
- Ambition Is Evil: Subverted, as all of Lord Haldoran's council are ambitious, but only the sadistic/theiving/murderous ones are portrayed as evil
- Beware the Nice Ones: The Master learns this the hard way when he gets on Susan's bad side by killing her husband.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Features Dalek Invasion of Earth Daleks, so there's a Red Dalek and a Black Dalek at different levels of command
- Crapsack World: You'd think that the Earth would be a nice place to live after the Daleks were gotten rid of, but no, society is actually quite dystopian - the lords that control everything are rather sadistic and if you can't have kids or are an alien, you're basically an outcast.
- Gambit Pileup: The Master is feeding power to the Dalek Artifact in order to get the Dalek matter transmuter, while the Daleks are using the Master in order to revive themselves, while Haldoran uses the Master's guns to gain power, while Haldoran's council...etc, etc.
- Have We Met Yet?: A lower-key example of this for the Master; obviously the Doctor and the Master have met before, but this is the Master who commonly faced the Third Doctor, so obviously the Doctor's fought older Masters since.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: The main reason the Master suffers his nearly fatal accident is that he doesn't know Susan's from Gallifrey until it's too late.
- Interspecies Romance: Between Susan and David. Causes some tension when she doesn't age and he does, which means she has to put on ageing makeup so that people don't get suspicious
- Klingon Promotion: How Barlow becomes the lord.
- Mayfly–December Romance: The cause of relationship trouble and angst with Susan and David.
- Taking the Bullet: David is killed when the Master tries to shoot the Doctor and he leaps in the path of the bullets.
- This Is My Name on Foreign: The Master, who's done this trick a few times, is going by "Estro", which is Esperanto for "Master".
- Timey-Wimey Ball: These events see the Doctor learn exactly how the Master ended up in the burnt body long after his first encounter with that incarnation.
