077 The Chase Part 6: The Planet of Decision

EPISODE: The Chase Part 6: The Planet of Decision
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 077
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: 26 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 travellers ascend in the lift with the Mechanoid to it's city. The Daleks fetch equipment from their ship to cut through the wall and follow. The travellers are herded into a room but the Doctor isn't happy. Inside the room is a bearded man: He is astronaut Steven Taylor, marooned when his ship crashed. He assumes they are rescuers sent from Earth and is overcome. He has been a guest of the Mechanoids for two years, robots who were sent from Earth to prepare the world for colonisation. They await a command code that never came. The Mechanoids are holding them as specimens monitoring all they do and say. The Daleks summon the lift and prepare to confront the Mechanoids. There is a way out from the cell onto the roof of the city 1500ft above the ground. The travellers see this as an escape route: Ian finds some power cable which he thinks they can lower and climb down. The Daleks enter the city and confront the Mechanoids. Neither side will back down and a pitch battle ensues. Vicki is overcome by the height so the others lower her as the city catches fire in the battle. Steven charges inside to retrieve his cuddly panda mascot. The travellers make it to the ground but there's no sign of Steven. They shelter in the Tardis as the city is destroyed. Emerging later they find the Dalek time craft empty and abandoned. Ian & Barbara realise that since it works properly they would be able to get home. While they go into the machine to talk with the Doctor, Steven stumbles out of the jungle and into the Tardis. The Doctor isn't keen on Ian and Barbara leaving, claiming it could kill them, but Vicki talks him into it. He programs the machine for one flight to London 1965 and then sets it to self destruct. The machine dematerialises leaving the Doctor and Vicki together. Ian & Barbara materialise in a warehouse opposite White City Tube Station and leave just before the time machine is destroyed. Ian and Barbara are overjoyed to have returned home to London and then wonder how they will explain their absence. The Doctor and Vicki watch on the Time Space Visualiser, as the Doctor admits he will miss his friends. The Tardis leaves Mechanus, with it's remaining crew unaware that they have a guest.

Well..... the battle scenes are short lived and the Mechanoids are little more than a Dalek rip off. Leaving them aside, what this episode is remembered for is bidding farewell to Ian & Barbara and introducing Steven Taylor, played by Peter Purves, cast after his brief appearance in episode 3.

This is the last time we see Ian & Barbara on screen but apparently the powers that be wanted to give them a brief cameo at the end of the Massacre, witnessing the Tardis depart from Wimbledon Common. Many years later we came so close to getting Ian back during 1983's Mawdryn Undead. William Russel was unavailable for filming as teacher Ian Chesterton so the function was filled by Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier having retired to teach maths. As I write William Russel is alive and well, if advancing in years and has regularly contributed commentary to Doctor Who DVDs. Jacqueline Hill, who played Barbara, took a break from acting to raise a family, returning to the trade in the late 70s when her appearances included a guest role in the Tom Baker story Meglos. Sadly she was taken ill with cancer and died in 1993. A tribute to her can be found on the recently released Doctor Who - Meglos DVD.

We also bid farewell to two members of behind the scenes staff. Script Editor Dennis Spooner takes leave of his post with this story. His tenure on staff was brief but he'll be back writing the next story as well as a good proportion of next year's Dalek Masterplan. This is the last Doctor Who directed by Richard Martin. Popular with the cast he seemed to get lumbered with technical monster stories which perhaps weren't quite his forte. It's interesting contrasting the Daleks under his direction to that of Christopher Barry in their first appearance and Douglas Camfield in their next. He had a long career in television working on a variety of programs.

The Mechanoids were another attempt to produce the next BIG Doctor Who monster (see also: Vrood & Zarbi) but this was their only appearance. Unlike most other Doctor Who monsters of the time they were immortalised in toy form and did appear in the Daleks comic strip during the 60s. If you're a Doctor Who fan you'll be able to hazard a pretty good guess as to what the next big monster was, but they're not due to show up for another season and a half yet!

The Chase was one of the last Target Books to be released, novelised by John Peel. It was released on VHS in 1993 as part of Doctor Who's 30th anniversary in a limited edition Dalek tin with Remembrance of the Daleks then on DVD in 2010 when it was packed with the Space Museum.

076 The Chase Part 5: The Death of Doctor Who

EPISODE: The Chase Part 5: The Death of Doctor Who
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 076
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: 19 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, Ian & Barbara explore the jungle on the planet Mechanus examining the plants which are surprisingly mobile. Ian thinks it's the perfect place to fight the Daleks. Vicki sneaks out of her hiding place in the Dalek's time machine. The Doctor and his group follow some lights to a cave where Vicki finds what looks like a weapon. Vicki hammers on the Tardis door but nobody is there to let her in while the plants continue to attack her. Vicki's screams are heard by the others so Ian & The Doctor leave to find her. The Daleks engage the attacking plant life. Meanwhile the robot Doctor finds Barbara and tells her Ian is dead. The real Doctor and Ian, carrying the unconscious Vicki return to the cave to discover Barbara gone. Ian searches for her but when Vicki wakes she thinks the Doctor is the robot but when Ian returns she is convinced and tells them of the robot. Ian finds Barbara who is attacked by the robot. The robot flees the scene, returning when the real Doctor arrives. There's an argument but they figure out which Doctor is the robot when he gets Vicki's name wrong and calls her Susan. The real Doctor defeats the robot. The Daleks guarding the Tardis decide to search the jungle at daybreak. The travellers spend the night in a cave during which they are monitored by a mechanical eye. In the morning, with clearer skies, the travellers are able to see a city raised high above the jungle they are in. The Daleks approach them, but the Doctor pretends to be the robot duplicate - oh look there's the broken neck ring on a normal coloured Dalek, I assume the Supreme has had a respray. Good grief, five weeks in and two of the Dalek power slats have been damaged already! The Doctor attempts to deceive them but fails and they attack. A door opens at the back of the cave revealing a strange, almost spherical Mechanoid which invites them to enter.....

Yeah this episode struggles. It's main problem is that for most of the time it's obvious which is the Doctor and which is the double due to a different actor playing the duplicate in most of the scenes. But I think lessons are learnt here and the next time there's a duplicate of the doctor the two are kept apart allowing Hartnell to play both roles. As well as the Time Travel, the duplication of another being shows up as a Dalek ploy in a later story too: Many year later the Daleks use this technique in The Resurrection of the Daleks.

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!