Doctor Who: The Space Museum/The Chase (Stories 15 & 16/BBC DVD Set)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: A+ Episodes: B
BBC
offers up a pair early Doctor Who
stories in this latest DVD release. First
Doctor William Hartnell portrays the time-traveling alien, aided by companions
Barbara (Jacqueline Hill), Ian (William Russell), and Vicki (Maureen O’Brien). Although perhaps the least sympathetic of all
the Doctors, Hartnell’s does possess a certain irascible charm born in part
from his own foibles as an actor. By
this point in his wonderful career, he was flubbing lines and ad-libbing, and
the BBC’s limited budget and tight schedule did not allow for a lot of
re-shoots at that time. However, Creator
(and BBC head) Sydney Newman had another big hit on his hands.
“The Space Museum”
(story no. 15) finds the Doctor and his cohorts arriving on a lonely, seemingly
uninhabited planet. They soon find they
are not alone, but that they appear to be invisible to the caretakers of a
bizarre museum of aliens and artifacts. Even more confusing, they find chronal
duplicates of themselves in one of the exhibits. Soon enough they find themselves at odds with
the fascist Moroks who run the museum, and each in their own way, they work to
undermine their control. While Ian gets
his licks in during some inspired fight scenes, Vicki manages to aid a group of
rebellious native’s intent on driving the Moroks off their world. Although a bit zany, the story is replete with
all of the trappings of a classic Who
tale.
The
action of “The Space Museum” flows
into the story no. 16, “The Chase”,
as the Doctor’s old foes, the Daleks return in a time machine of their own. Written by Dalek creator Terry Nation, the
episodes detail their pursuit of the Doctor’s TARDIS across the chronoverse,
with each installment featuring stops at different times and places along the
way to a final showdown on the planet Mechanus. After run-ins in New York and on the legendary sea ship the
Mary Celeste, the Doctor and company pay a visit to a haunted house where they,
and their Dalek pursuers, encounter facsimiles of some of the classic Universal
movie monsters (Frankenstein and Dracula).
The
action then leads to planet Mechanus. Here both hunter and hunted fall prey to
attacks from living, fungoid monsters, and the Doctor and his companions wind
up imprisoned by another robotic race, the Mechanoids. This sets up a very cool battle royal between
Daleks and Mechanoids. Perhaps most
notable about story no. 16 is that some of the companions depart at the end,
beginning the show’s long history of a rotating cast.
Plentiful
extras make this package complete, and include documentaries covering aspects
of both the stories and the cast. These
offerings are really some of the finest BBC has included on the Who series so
far. Tops among these has to be Daleks Conquer and Destroy and Daleks Beyond the Screen, two wonderful
explorations into every aspect of the Daleks. This includes their original design,
distinctive voices, and the massive amount of toy and collectible merchandising
that has marked their rise to pop-culture phenomenon. Cusick in Cardiff features original Dalek designer Raymond Cusick
visiting the new Who studios in Cardiff; it’s wonderful to
see the respect paid him by the show’s current design team.
Doctor Who fans interested in the show’s
rich and detailed history will not want to miss these stories, and their
accompanying support material really makes them a worthwhile acquisition.
- Scott Pyle
