075 The Chase Part 4: Journey Into Terror

EPISODE: The Chase Part 4: Journey Into Terror
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 075
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: 12 June 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

The episode title appropriateness meter hopes to be terrified this episode. Well straight off the bat we've materialised in the typical Scooby Doo haunted house. Creaking, cobwebs, thunderclaps and lightening - the works. Roiks! Oh a Dalek/stairs joke from Ian how funny - we refer you to the Dalek on the upper deck of the ship last week. The Doctor & Ian explore upstairs, while Vicki & Barbara examine the huge carved face fireplace whose eyes light up scaring them. Ian sees apparitions while Doctor finds a laboratory with SOMETHING on the table. As they approach it sits up - they're in the lair of Frankenstein's Monster. Meanwhile Vicki & Barbara encounter a dinner suited gentleman with long canines who introduces himself as Count Dracula before vanishing as does Vicki. A screaming woman comes onto the balcony as Barbara falls through a section of wall. Ian & the Doctor think there's something familiar about the house, it's what they'd expect in a Nightmare. The Doctor wonders if they've wandered into the realm of dreams (not a silly suggestion as we'll see later) The Daleks arrive as Ian & The Doctor search for Barbara & Vicki. A Dalek encounters Frankenstien's Monster which attacks it, while another is distracted by Dracula. Vicki shouts a warning and is separated from the others who've not noticed she is gone and dematerialise. The monster destroys a Dalek allowing Vicki to hide in the Dalek's time machine. The Tardis crew speculate on where they'd been as the camera pulls back revealing they've been in a House of Horrors at the futuristic Festival of Ghana. Barbara notices Vicki has gone. The Daleks observe the Tardis is nearing the planet Mechanus. They use their reproducer program to begin to make a double of the Doctor. Vicki tries to contact the Tardis for help - she finds the double. The Doctor is blaming himself for Vicki being left behind. Ian suggests capturing the functional Dalek time machine and returning to find Vicki. The next time they land they will stop and fight the Daleks. The Daleks meanwhile activate their robot Doctor as the Tardis amaterialises in swampy terrain that Ian thinks looks alive. The double is sent to infiltrate and kill the Tardis crew.

I remarked about the Scooby Doo element to Keys of Marinus episode 3. Well Terry Nation's done it again by providing us with a near perfect Scooby Doo like setting. In fact The Chase & Keys of Marinus have certain similarities: If you change the travel bands of Keys of Marinus to time machines here as the means of transport and add in a pursuing force, something that Marinus lacked, and they're not dissimilar. An early sign of Nation's recycling policy, perhaps noticing as I did that having the Vrood appearing occasionally as pursuers of the Tardis crew in the earlier story would have added something. For more recycling see also: Most other Nation written Dalek stories. In fact The Chase is strongly rehashed in later episodes of the Dalek Masterplan that throughout continues Terry Nations frequent trick of changing the setting as often as possible.

The screaming woman in this story is a return appearance by Roslyn De Winter who choreographed the Web Planet and appeared as a in the same story.

074 The Chase Part 3: Flight Through Eternity

EPISODE: The Chase Part 3: Flight Through Eternity
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 074
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: 05 June 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

The Doctor's Time Path detector shows that there's another Time Machine on the same route as them. It's the Daleks pursuing them. The Doctor believes they have a 12 minute lead. Oooh, a lovely shot of a Dalek being moved in an open lift opens our look at the inside of the Dalek time machine which contains two movie Daleks, minus their oversized basis, to make up the numbers - look either side of the ramp. The Tardis materialises in the present day in the viewing gallery of the Empire State Building in New York. A tourist from Alabama, Morton Dill, tells them they're in 1966. He's convinced they're making a movie. The Tardis crew don't stay long not wanting to imperil New York's residents, but Shortly afterwards the Daleks arrive and showing surprising restraint don't exterminate Dill,leaving promptly. The Tardis next materialises on a sailing ship. Barbara wanders off and is found by the crew thinking she's a stowaway. Vicki knocks Barbara's captor out and then accidentally clouts Ian too! They carry him back to the Tardis which dematerialises leaving the crew searching the ship for their missing stowaways. The Daleks arrive scaring the crew who jump overboard - we have our first instance of someone running upstairs to escape a Dalek yet a few moments later there's a Dalek standing on the upper deck only accessible by stairs. A Dalek is lost when it falls into the sea pursuing a crew member. The ship's name is revealed to be the Mary Celeste. The Doctor reveals their lead is reduced to eight minutes and that the Daleks are closing in.

Essentially a comedy episode it's just a bit of light fun. But in the episode we see Peter Purves playing tourist Morton Dill. He obviously made an impression with the production crew because they invited him back four weeks later to play another role....

This story marks the first time another race gains time travel. There's nothing to date the Aridus episode at any time different to that in the Dalek control room or other than the 1966 of the Empire State Building but we know that the second half of this episode occurs before the first confirming the Daleks time travelling ability. Straight away they provide science fiction element inserted into a historical context: we have the Daleks responsible for the real life unexplained disappearance of the Mary Celeste crew. Yes that's the correct spelling of the ship's name! The Daleks will continue to time travel using the technology in The Dalek Masterplan, Day of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks.

073 The Chase Part 2: The Death of Time

EPISODE: The Chase Part 2: The Death of Time
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 073
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: 29 May 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

The Daleks believe they can find the Time Machine using their seismic detector while orders are given for the extermination of the time travellers. Vicki & Ian flee from the beast in the tunnels. The Daleks encounter an Aridian,native to the planet and exterminate them. The Doctor & Barbara have met other Aridians who explains how the suns got closer (the planet was drawn closer to the suns?) drying up the oceans (well if you name your planet Aridus you're asking for something to happen to turn it into a desert) freeing the Mire Beasts from the slime they inhabited and unleashing them to pray on the other inhabitants where they multiplied at a huge rate. The Aridians believe the missing travellers are trapped in the tunnels that are about to be destroyed to keep the Mire Beasts from further invading the city. Vicki is grabbed by a Mire Beast as the detonation occurs causing Ian to be struck by falling rock and knocked out. The Aridians shelter the Doctor & Barbara from the Daleks. The Daleks find the Tardis and decide to take some Aridians prisoner to get them to dig out the Tardis. The Daleks issue an ultimatum: The Aridians will turn the travellers over or the city will be destroyed. The Doctor tries to leave but they are held prisoner. The excavation complete the Daleks execute their slave party. However attempts to destroy the Tardis fail, so the Daleks leave a guard on the Tardis. The Aridians agree to hand the Doctor over and Vicki is captured in the tunnels. As the travellers are about to be handed over a Mire Beast bursts into the city allowing them to escape. Ian has woken and found his way back to the Tardis but had to hide at which point he is reunited with his friends. Ian plots a distraction to aid their escape causing Barbara to loose another cardigan (as per the Space Museum) and the Doctor his coat. The Daleks are taken in by the diversion and move off to pursue, one of which is destroyed in a pit trap, allowing the Time Travellers to escape in the Tardis. The Dalek Supreme sends orders for the Daleks to pursue them.

That wasn't too bad at all. Decent episode that starts a bit slow, half way through I was questioning whether it would work without the Daleks as they didn't seem to be there much but as the episode went on they make their presence known. We've seen them taking slaves before in Dalek Invasion of Earth and they will again (Day, Planet, Death & Destiny) as it seems to be a common Dalek trait to get lesser life forms to do the hard work. The casual extermination of the workers at the end highlights their evil. There's several shots of the Daleks in the sand on location which highlights the difficulty working with these props outside the studio - in one shot it looks like the Dalek is being picked up and moved by the operator inside.

Making his television début in this episode as one of the Aridians is Hywel Bennet, later to find fame starring in the ITV sitcom Shelley.

072 The Chase Part 1: The Executioners

EPISODE: The Chase Part 1: The Executioners
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 072
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: 22 May 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

Oooh, a shot of the Tardis travelling, nice. The Doctor is finishing work on the Space Time Visualiser as the other try to relax. It will allow them to visualise any event in history as the Doctor demonstrates. Ian gets the Doctor to show him the Gettysburg Address, while Barbara sees Queen Elizabeth talking with William Shakespeare and him gaining the inspiration for Hamlet. Vicki sees a performance by the Beatles singing A Ticket To Ride saying she didn't realise they did classical music while Ian does his best Science Teacher At A Sixth Form Disco. The Tardis materialises in a sandy desert surrounding but Vicki fails to properly turn off the Time Space Visualiser. Outside of the ship two suns bake the landscape. Vicki & Ian explore, as a tentacle reaches out the sand. The Doctor & Barbara are sunbathing when they're interrupted by the Visualiser making a noise. Barbara goes to turn it off but finds it showing a transmission from the Dalek's control room. The Black Dalek machine dispatches a squad of Daleks in their own Time Machine to track the Tardis - we see six enter the time machine but more may be inside (we'll keep track of them over the next few episodes). Knowing this the Doctor & Barbara go to find Ian & Vicki who are still wandering the sandy landscape dotted with odd sculpture. As night falls Ian finds a metal ring in the sand which when he pulls it opens a trap door into an underground passageway. The Doctor & Barbara are searching for them without luck but have got themselves lost. Another tentacle seals Ian & Vicki in the passageway as they are stalked by the strange beast that it's a part of. The Doctor & Barbara are trapped overnight in a sandstorm which has buried the Tardis which they now cannot find. As they look there is a disturbance in the sand as a Dalek rises from it.

After the last four episodes that was manna from heaven. Not the most complicated or sophisticated episode of Doctor who but it made sense and worked OK. I'm not sure the attempt to recreate Dalek Invasion of Earth's shock ending works too well.... we've already seen the Daleks twice in the episode anyway!

And it had the Beatles in it! The clip used, originally from another program which has now been lost, prevented the story from being released on DVD for a while but a new rights agreement has allowed this to be released, though I'm led to believe that the American version of the DVD has this scene cut.

Plus we have the Daleks complete with a small redesign: around the upper ring on the shoulder section we now have a layer of wire mesh and a number of upright slats obscuring the ring. This feature is present on all future Dalek appearances and they're referred to as Power Slats, taken as the reason for the Dalek's increased mobility. The Dalek seen at the tail end of the previous episode and the start of this one has a silver eye ball, like the Daleks seen in Dalek Invasion of Earth, but does have the modified shoulder section. The black Dalek Supreme is seen again in this episode, and like his Dalek Invasion of Earth appearance he's the prop using the broken & repaired neck ring section.

071 The Space Museum Part 4: The Final Phase

EPISODE: The Space Museum Part 4: The Final Phase
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 071
STORY NUMBER: 015
TRANSMITTED: 15 May 1965
WRITER: Glyn Jones
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

Right I can do this. In 25 minutes the Space Museum will be over, I'll never have to watch it again and the next story has The Daleks in anyway so it must be better than this right? Deep Breath.....

The Doctor is held in a room where he lies immobile in a machine. Ian gets the Morok leader Lobos to reverse the process and revive the Doctor. The Xerons distribute weapons and prepare to make their move while Vicki returns to the museum to rescue the Doctor accompanied by Sita. Barbara is trapped in the gas with Dako. Lobos revives the Doctor, who was aware of everything that was happened while he was frozen. Ian is knocked out by the guards who creep up behind him. Barbara & Dako escape but are instantly captured only to be freed by Vicki & Sita. Sita & Dako are stunned by Xerons and the women are captured. All the Tardis crew are now captured and destined for the museum. The bulk of the Xeron forces arrive and storm the museum freeing the Tardis crew and slaying Lobos. They start to dismantle the Space Museum while the Doctor repairs the Tardis. He has persuaded the Xerons into give him a piece of the museum: A time & space visualiser that he thinks he can repair. Meanwhile on a devastated planet out in space The Daleks have monitored the Tardis leaving Xeros and promise that they will be exterminated!

Oh thank goodness that's over. The last few minutes of the story are probably the best: the Doctor gets his new toy and we get a glimpse of the redesigned Dalek. But over the four episodes it's the worst story so far by a country mile. I went and dug out the results for Doctor Who Magazine's Mighty 200 poll and this story ranked 190. I've looked at what's bellow it and if I were voting I think it would rank a bit lower than that. Interestingly (!?) it's only real competitor so far, The Sensorites, was rated 183rd. But the same poll ranks Horns of the Nimon at 189 and that's just WRONG!

The Space Museum was released on VHS with the two surviving episodes of the previous but unconnected story The Crusade. One episode of the Crusade (3: The Wheel of Fortune) had been out previously but the other (1: The Lion) was a recent recovery. You might think it an odd pairing as apart from being consecutive there's little to link the two stories. But The Chase - which the Space Museum leads into - was already out in a Dalek boxset with Remembrance of the Daleks and if a recovered missing Episode won't shift copies of the Space Museum then nothing will. For DVD the Space Museum was paired with the Chase and that makes much more sense. Cos the DVD range is sensible and wouldn't do anything silly like pair The Gunfighters and The Awakening *then* release Frontios, or put the Ambassadors of Death & The Sunmakers in the same box.....

EDIT: Word reaches me that Ambassadors of Death has now dropped off this year's schedule and The Sunmakers will be released by itself. Now swap Gunfighters & Frontios in that other box!

070 The Space Museum Part 3: The Search

EPISODE: The Space Museum Part 3: The Search
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 070
STORY NUMBER: 015
TRANSMITTED: 08 May 1965
WRITER: Glyn Jones
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

The Xerons examine the Tardis but are warned away by the Moroks.

"This whole things is becoming a nightmare"
"all we do is stand around..."

Nail, Hammer, hit on head. I thank you Mr Chesterton & Miss Wright.

The Morok's can't get into the Tardis and think it looks strange and uncomfortable. Ian, Barbara and Vicki overhear the Doctor has been captured. One of the Moroks finds them and takes them prisoner but still lets them chat to each other for a few minutes - stupid and underlines the lack of urgency here. Ian attacks the guard allowing Vicki and Barbara escape, followed by himself after a tussle. Barbara gets locked in a store room while Vicki finds the Xeron rebels. Ian overpowers the guard at the Tardis and questions him finding out the location of the Doctor. Barbara is released by the Xeron Dako while Vicki accompanies Tor & Sita. Dako tells Barbara the history of the Morok invasion. The Moroks try to gas the Tardis traveller out of their hiding place. Vicki tries to incite the Xerons into action in order to avoid being trapped in the Tardis crew exhibit seen in the first episode. Vicki, Tor & Sita break into the armoury. Vicki works to override the computer keeping the weapons locked up. Barbara and Dako stumble through the gas but are eventually overpowered. Vicki is successful with the computer allowing the Xerons access to the weapons they need. Ian comes to see Lobos and threatens him demanding to be taken to the Doctor.

Help! I'm loosing the will to live. I'd say the Moroks were the most useless invaders ever but I have seen the Dominators. They look more like a bunch of scientists than an army. By contrast the Moroks are pretty rubbish rebels.

William Hartnell is absent from this episode, save for a brief appearance during the reprise. This was one of the few Hartnell episodes found in the BBC film library during Ian Levine's initial visit.

069 The Space Museum Part 2: The Dimensions of Time

EPISODE: The Space Museum Part 2: The Dimensions of Time
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 069
STORY NUMBER: 015
TRANSMITTED: 01 May 1965
WRITER: Glyn Jones
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

No, this isn't the infamous Children in Need special Dimensions in Time. Don't confuse the two.

Two of the Moroks confer in an office: a third arrives to tell them a ship has arrived. They wonder if it is the rebels. Two of the Xerons hide in a cellar, waiting for the third Tor. He arrives with the news of the visitors and says the head of the Moroks, Lobos, has organised a search. Ian frees a gun from a display cabinet. Barbara notices she may have lost a button which the Doctor takes particular note of. The Moroks continue to search for them, but the travellers are spotted by the Xerons. The Doctor is separated from the others, is grabbed by the Xerons and collapses. Two leave to find something to revive home while the third is over powered. The others have noticed the Doctor is gone. The two Xerons return to find their colleague on the floor and the Doctor gone: They leave to find the other travellers while the Doctor is revealed to be hiding in the Dalek exhibit! However he is soon captured by the Moroks. The other travellers unravel Barbara's cardigan as an aid to navigate their way round the maze like museum. The Doctor is being held in a room restrained in a chair. The Xerons follow the cardigan thread. Lobos interrogates the Doctor: he is the governor of Xeros which is part of the Morok empire. Other Moroks search for Ian, Barbara and Vicki, who have found the Tardis which has been brought into the museum. The Doctor is taken away to be prepared as a museum exhibit.

Oh my goodness, how boring can you get? Hardly any threat or menace at all.

Featuring as the Xeron Tor we have Jeremy Bulloch. Later to return as Hal the Archer in The Time Warrior, he's most famous for playing Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi. Or he was until George Lucas re-dubbed his voice and filmed new scenes with a different actor relegating his role somewhat.

This episode is the last appearance of the original Dalek design: They're back next story with a small but significant make over.