6 episodes
Aired between 22nd May 1965 and 26th June 1965
Written by Terry Nation
Produced by Verity Lambert
Directed by Richard Martin
Synopsis
On the planet of Skaro, the Daleks, arch-enemy of the Doctor begin to make new plans to bring about his downfall.
Elsewhere in the universe, life has become run-of-the-mill for the TARDIS crew. The Doctor tinkers with the Time-Space Visualiser like any dad would, Ian elects to read some sci-fi, and Barbara begins to make a new dress. Vicki however is incredibly bored. Lucky for her then that the Doctor successfully fixes the visualiser and puts it to the test.
Working on the principle that anything that's ever happened in all history has been recorded on light neutrons, the machine can read those neutrons and play them. In other words, the Time-Space visualiser is a "time telly". Through it, the group watch the Gettysburg Address, witness Shakespeare talking to Queen Elizabeth the first, and watch the Beatles perform Ticket to Ride (to which Ian dances about as good as your Dad).
With all the frivolity out of the way, the TARDIS lands on the planet Aridius, a desert planet if you couldn't guess. Ian and Vicki go off to explore, taking a TARDIS homing device with them, whilst Barbara and the Doctor do a bit of sunbathing in their full clothes and cardigans.
As Barbara sunbathes, she hears the buzz of the visualiser still running and goes to turn it off, but she gets a surprise. The time telly is clearly showing images of the Supreme Dalek. She fetches the Doctor and together they hear about the Dalek's plans to pursue the Doctor in a time machine of their own. Sure enough, the Daleks all sidle into a strange box which disappears. The Doctor says that the visualiser can only show events from the past, so the Daleks must already be on their way.
Together, he and Barbara go off to search for Ian and Vicki so they can make a getaway.
Meanwhile, Ian and Vicki come across a strange ring in the sand. Vicki is apprehensive about pulling the ring at first, but eventually relents. The ring comes away, and it opens up a trapdoor in the sand. Curious, Ian and Vicki enter the trapdoor into a tunnel. Out of nowhere, a clear screen slides across the entrance, shutting them inside, where they confront a strange octopus creature.
Barbara and the Doctor are still searching for the other two as the suns go down. Their search gets even worse when they are hit by a sand storm. They are forced to huddle down for the night. In the morning, they begin their search again, but are forced to hide, when a strange grunting sound occurs near them. The Doctor and Barbara watch horrified as a lone Dalek pulls itself out of the sand.
The pair turn to leave, but come face to face with strange silver humanoids that have gills and spiny fins. The creatures are the Aridians, who take the Doctor and Barbara away but not before one of their group is exterminated by the Daleks.
The Aridians explain that this was once a planet filled with oceans, but the arrival of the two suns has evaporated the water. Now only they and the octopus like mire beasts are left and the Aridians are forced to live in an great underground city, which is being overrun by the Mire beasts. The only thing the Aridians can do is to blow up the older tunnels to slow their enemies advance.
Ian and Vicki flee from the sight of the Mire Beasts that begin to close in on them, only to be caught in an underground detonation that collapses the tunnel. Vicki comes out of it ok, but Ian suffers a head wound and is knocked unconscious.
Thanks to the use of a seismic resonator, the Daleks are able to locate the TARDIS. They capture some Aridians and use them to dig out the time machine. Once their work is done, the Daleks kill the Aridians and attempt to destroy the TARDIS with their guns, but it proves fruitless, so they have to settle for posting a guard by it so that the Doctor cannot escape.
The Aridians take the Doctor and Barbara into the city for shelter, but soon tell the group that the elders have been contacted by the Daleks. They have decreed that the Doctor and Barbara be handed over to the Daleks so that the Aridians do not get wiped out.
As the sun is setting, Vicki decides to leave the unconscious Ian and goes off to find the Doctor. On her travels, she finds a way back to the TARDIS, and manages to escape detection from the Dalek guard. As she continues her search, she is captured by an Aridian and brought to the Doctor's side. Once she explains the situation, the Doctor is hopeful, until the Aridians explain that it is time to go to the Daleks.
At that moment, a Mire Beast breaks through a nearby wall and begins attacking everyone. The Aridians retreat in fear, again, having one of their number sacrificed in the process. Whilst the Mire Beast is busy eating the Aridian, the group of travelers escape, finding Ian back conscious.
Ian comes up with a quick plan to escape using Barbata's cardigan again (which she is decidedly not happy about). Sure enough, the Doctor and Ian successfully manage to lure the Dalek guard over the edge of a precipice and into the tunnels below, allowing them to successfully reach the TARDIS and escape.
The Daleks vow to return to their own time machine and pursue the group through all of time and space.
On the TARDIS, the crew are happy about getting out away from the Daleks, but their celebrations are short lived, as they soon discover that they are being followed.
The TARDIS lands, and the group find themselves parked in the viewing gallery of the Empire State Building in 1966. A very excitable bystander by the name of Morton Dill greets the group, whom he believes as movie stars shooting a scene from a film.
The group find no easy way of hiding from the Daleks, and they find Mr Dill so annoying that they soon leave again, just as Morton is looking for his camera. This sudden disappearance confuses the man.
When his back is turned again, the Daleks arrive, cementing Morton's belief that he'd stumbled across a movie scene. The Daleks too find Morton extremely annoying, so decide to leave, again just as the man from Alabama is retrieving his camera once again.
Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor grows concerned as each time they land, the ship has to recharge, thus shaving off the gap between the Daleks and themselves. He pulls out a device that he's been working on to attack the Daleks, and enlists Vicki's help.
Their next stop is on board an old ship. Barbara goes exploring whilst Ian returns to the TARDIS, a bit queezy. As she is looking around, one of the sailors finds her and grabs her, believing she's a stowaway. Vicki comes out of the TARDIS and sneaks up on the struggling pair, knocking the sailor out with a cudgel. The girls hear footsteps and prepare to attack again, fearing the worst. Ian turns up, feeling a little better, but Vicki doesn't realise it's him and bops him on the head! The girls sheepishly carry Ian back to the TARDIS, by which time it's been recharged and ready to go off again.
Shortly after the TARDIS departs, the DARDIS arrives. As soon as the sailors clap eyes on the alien travellers, they panic and throw themselves overboard (one of the Daleks even gets a bit carried away with it all and does the same for no reason).
Disappointed at the lack of information they gained, the Daleks can do nothing but set off again. As they leave, the ship - clearly named the Mary Celeste - continues on its own,
The Doctor grimly tells the group that their lead is now down to eight minutes, and that they will loose even more on the next stop.
The TARDIS' next stop is in a spooky old house on a dark and stormy night. As with any horror movie, the group choose to split up, with the Doctor and Ian exploring upstairs whilst Vicki and Barbara stay downstairs. Each of the companions see spooky things like glowing eyes in the fireplace, apparitions of ladies, and the old favourites - Frankenstien's monster and Dracula.
This set of scary circumstances leads the Doctor to believe that they've arrived in the collective unconscious of humanity, and they are in effect in a nightmare.
Unknown to them, Vicki and Barbara have found a secret passage, so when the Doctor and Ian return, they find that the girls have gone. They begin looking for them and in desperation, they re-enter the room with Frankenstein's monster. the monster rises from the slab menacingly, and as they are preparing to defend themselves, a Dalek appears. Ian traps it in a cage, and they both manage to escape.
They run back downstairs to find Barbara and Vicki have been captured by the Daleks. Lucky for them, Count Dracula turns up and distracts the Daleks long enough for the group to get back into the TARDIS and fly off. The Daleks try to exterminate Dracula and Frankenstein, but discover they are immune, and end up taking a battering from these horror icons.
The Doctor reiterates his theory about the collective unconscious, but he never realises the truth is that they landed in a chamber of horrors in Ghanna's 1996 festival. The group relax again, but when Barbara asks where Vicki is, they realise that she must not have made it back to the TARDIS in time.
On the DARDIS, the Daleks run for their lives, and Vicki stows away in the confusion. She tries to contact the TARDIS on the microphone, but it doesn't work. She is interrupted by the Daleks return and hides just in time to see them come up with a new masterplan to create a robotic imitation Doctor. They give the fake Doctor orders to infliltrate and kill.
With not much of a lead, the TARDIS lands on the jungle planet of Mechanus, where strange "living" plants try to swallow the group until a bright light is shone on them, forcing them to retreat. More lights appear, revealing a corridor for the Doctor, Ian and Barbara to follow. They do this until they reach a cave. Barbara is excited as it looks the perfect place to mount a defense with the Anti-Dalek weapon. The Doctor has to burst their bubble however, as he says that they will all go up in smoke if he uses the weapon in a confined space.
The DARDIS lands and the Daleks emerge with the fake Doctor, allowing Vicki to sneak off the ship. She goes off to find the Doctor and is attacked by the plant life that causes her to scream and pass out.
The Doctor and Ian hear her cry, and rush out into the jungle to save her. This gives the fake Doctor an opportunity to find his way into the cave and convince Barbara that Ian died. He tells her to go with him. She's unsure, but she does what he says.
The Doctor and Ian find Vicki and surmise that she must have hitched a ride with the Daleks, meaning that their enemy must also be on the planet somewhere. Ian picks her up and they take her back to the cave where they find Barbara missing. Vicki wakes up and looks terrified of the Doctor. She tells them about the dopelganger, and Ian rushes off to find Barbara as fast as he can.
Barbara hears Ian calling her, and it forces the fake Doctor to attack her. Ian gets to her in time and explains that the Doctor she followed is a Robot. Unfortunately for them, the real Doctor has turned up too, making it difficult to tell which is the real one.
One of the Doctors gets shirty and ends up fighting Ian whilst the other bloodthirstily orders him to kill. Barbara stops Ian and says the other is the robot, and sure enough, it is. The robot tries to flee, but ends up in combat with the real Doctor who destroys it by pulling out its wires.
Exhausted from their ordeal, the group retire to the cave and sleep, unaware that a mobile CCTV camera is watching them.
Elsewhere on Mechanus, the Daleks have found the TARDIS and are using their seismic detector to hunt for the group, all the while having to kill off the hungry plant life that keeps trying to eat them.
In the morning, the group awaken to see a great white city on stilts some 1,500 feet above the jungle.
As they set off to explore it, they are cornered by the Daleks and forced back into the cave. In desperation, the Doctor tries to bluff them into thinking he's the robot, but the Dalek's know he isn't.
The group all know that the end is nigh, and with no other option left, prepare the anti-Dalek weapon to fire. At that point, the back of the cave opens up to a lift with a big ball like mechanical creature in it. The creature in a shaky voice says something like:
"Three...hundred...eighty...mechanoid...english...input...enter."
Ian miraculously interprets that as the creature wanting them to get into the lift. The lift departs, just as the Daleks storm the cave.
The lift takes them to the great white city where they are made to go into a room. As they enter, the door slams behind them and the creature leaves them to get acquainted with the person living in the room. His name is Steven Taylor and he was part of flight Red 50, an experimental spaceflight that went wrong, causing him to crash land on Mechanus.
Steven expains that the creatures are called Mechanoids, and they were sent here fifty years ago to build a landing site for colonists, but global war erupted before that could happen and everyone forgot about Mechanus. Steven has clearly gone a little bit round the twist, not having seen or spoken to anyone other than Mechanoids for two full years. He explains they're all prisoners now, and the Mechanoids will study them like animals in a zoo. He carries a mascot panda teddy called Hi-Fi and he's built himself a tree house that goes to the roof of the city.
Ian and the Doctor go with Ian to check out the roof for possible ways to escape, finding some cable that they can use to climb down. Vicki isn't keen on the idea, being afraid of heights, and even Steven is apprehensive until he finds out the Doctor still has a working ship.
Their plan is spurred into action by the arrival of the Daleks into the Mechanoids city. The Doctor sets his anti-Dalek weapon up and they all go out to the roof.
The Daleks demand that the Mechanoids hand over the TARDIS crew, but the Mechanoids spout some computer babble about threat and activating defence systems. The Daleks open fire and they begin a pitched battle for the fate of the TARDIS crew.
On the roof, Vicki is terrified and must be blindfolded and lowered down the drop. She is nearly sent to her death as the city catches fire and Steven rushes back into the building to rescue his stuffed toy.
As the place goes up in flames, the TARDIS crew get out and escape into the jungle, where they find that all the Daleks were called to the city and have been toasted alive. The group check out the DARDIS to confirm it's empty and the Doctor marvels at it, saying it must have incredibly accurate controls to follow the TARDIS so well.
Ian and Barbara suddenly realise that they could use the ship to get home and go to tell the Doctor.
Steven luckily escaped the burning city and heads through the jungle, to find the Doctor, being attacked by the plant life on the way.
The Doctor is absolutely furious at the notion of Ian and Barbara leaving him and he calls them both idiots and warns that they could be reduced to burnt cinders flying around in Spain...erm I mean in space. Ian and Barbara insist though that they want to return to Earth and belong somewhere rather than aimlessly travelling about the universe. The Doctor is very stubborn and refuses to show them how to pilot the DARDIS until Vicki reassures him that she will stay. Reluctantly, the Doctor relents and shows them the controls.
Together, the Doctor and Vicki watch as Ian and Barbara pilot the DARDIS back home. Once there, they set it to self destruct and begin to look around, finding out they've landed in 1965. Finally home, Ian and Barbara lark about in Trafalgar Square before taking a bus ride and laughing about the change in fare.
Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor and Vicki watch the whole thing on the Time-Space Visualiser. Vicki is happy for them but the Doctor is clearly upset. He says he will miss them, but gives Vicki a hug and takes her back to the console room for another adventure.
Trivia
- The Beatles were originally intended to appear themselves in the show, but conflicting schedules meant that they had to make do with an appearance on the visualiser
- This is William Russel, and Jacqueline Hill's last appearance in Doctor Who. It marks a distinct turning point, as only William Hartnel is now left from the old crew. Allegedly, Hartnel was beside himself with rage when he found out they were leaving. He no doubt felt isolated, and simply couldn't understand why they would leave when things were going so well.
- Peter Purves wasn't cast as Steven until he'd turned up to play the wonderful Morton Dill. Richard Martin liked him so much that he put in a good word.
What worked
- Although it's obvious that the Daleks are going out the back of their DARDIS and rolling around the front to go in again, it worked enough to give you the feeling that a big strike force were after the group.
- I debated whether the silly jokes at the beginning of episode 1 and all the family togetherness of it should go in the "what didn't work" section, but seeing as the audience are meant to identify with the main characters, I thought that this helped to do that, it gives you just a bit of what's normal before we go on a tour of the universe being chased by bug eyed monsters.
- There's a wonderful bit of humour when the head of the Dalek strike force is outlining the plan and the Dalek with him just keeps saying "yes" like that's all it can say.
- Wonderful, idiotic, Morton Dill.
- The big battle sequence between the Mechanoids and the Daleks wasn't as good as Marvel's Avenger's, but it was shot in an interesting way, and the flamethrowers were quite novel.
- Peter Purves' acting when Steven first meets the TARDIS crew. You can believe that he really has been stranded with those stupid machines for two years!
What didn't work
There are so many things wrong that if I listed them all, it would take the entire blog, so I'll just do the ones that particularly stood out for me:-
- The grunting Dalek pulling itself out of the sand.
- he wobbly Daleks that move across the sand.
- The Dalek that can't do its sums
- The part when the Mire Beast bursts through the wall to ensnare Barbara. What was that! She has to travel half way across the room and throw herself into its arms!
- The suicidal Dalek on the Mary Celeste
- The Dalek skulking in the background of the house of horror. You know, the one that nobody sees until it's too late.
- Anything the Mechanoids say or do
Overall Feelings
As you already know, the Daleks by now were a BIG hit with the British public. So much so that the producers were effectively forced to bring them back every six months for some more time and space antics. Although the money was no doubt good, this didn't sit too well with Terry Nation. He was trying to write other stuff and having to break off to bring in the next Dalek story. That's probably partly the reason why the Dalek Invasion of Earth became such a spectacle (see my feelings on that story).
So, when it came to the Chase, Nation wasn't in the best frame of mind for creating a really gripping story. he threw together a script that was a whirlwind tour of "wouldn't it be cool if" scenarios and sent it in. The production team couldn't care, so long as it had Daleks in it, so they passed it, and here we are.
The story has obvious similarities to the Keys of Marinus, but where that had a conscious effort to try and present extremes in locales and offer a rich history of a planet, the Chase just meanders from one absurd setting to the next without much thought in between. If you don't agree, then ask yourself why the hell the Daleks were even messing about with a fake Doctor, when their mission was clearly just to find the TARDIS crew and kill them.
There are minor gems to enjoy in the scenes, and I find myself wanting to like the story, just because it's got Daleks in it, but I just can't. I can't applaud something that the writer clearly never cared about in the first place.
Rating
5 out of 10
The best bits about this story are the funny bits, and the very poignant image of an upset William Hartnell. Other than that, this story is just one big thing that didn't work.
If I'm being overly generous, I could say the music for the house of horror wasn't bad, but the rest just didn't work.
Rewatchability Factor
4 out of 10
Like the Keys of Marinus, it offers something new every episode, but those new planets / scenes don't even have much in the way of problems to retain your interest
Watch this if you liked...
Consulting the Matrix
What was your favourite Ian and Barbara bit throughout their time on the TARDIS?
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