The Chase

The Good Companions

The Chase* (6 X 25mins B&W)

Written by Terry Nation
Doctor Who Series two Serial Eight
The Executioners transmitted BBC1 22 May 1965
The Death of Time transmitted BBC1 29 May 1965
Flight Through Eternity transmitted BBC1 5 June 1965
Journey into Terror transmitted BBC1 12 June 1965

The Death of Doctor Who transmitted BBC1 19 June 1965 

The Planet of Decision transmitted BBC1 26 June 1965
* Note: until 1966 Doctor Who serials had no overall title, instead each episode had its own title.

Synopsis
In the TARDIS, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are huddled around the Time-Space Visualiser, a television-like souvenir from their recent adventure at the Space Museum, which can pick up on any past event in the whole of time and space. They then spend half an episode with each crew member picking a moment in time. Vicki, Liverpool lass as she is, chooses The Beatles performing Ticket To Ride on TOTP, their only TOTP performance to survive thanks to this. 

The TARDIS crew land on the desert planet Aridius. Ian & Vicki are captured and disappear, even more alarmingly, the Doctor & Barbara the Daleks reporting that their own time-space machine is nearly complete and that they plan to follow the TARDIS and exterminate the crew. Searching for their missing crew members they see the Daleks emerge from the recent sandstorm. Finally rescuing their companions, they all flee for their lives in the TARDIS.

The Doctor realises that the Daleks are only fifteen minutes behind them, but every time the TARDIS materialises it takes a few minutes to take off again, thus the time gap between them shortens. The Doctor makes a weapon to kill the Daleks, but it can't be used in confined spaces. Thus ensues a chase through time and space, landing on the Empire State Building, the ship Mary Celeste, a horror fun fair show at the Festival of Ghana 1996 (famously "Cancelled by Peking"), finally they land on the jungle planet Mechanus, where live the Mechonoid robots in their elevated city. Meanwhile, the Daleks have their own secret weapon, a robot duplicate of The Doctor to infiltrate, separate and exterminate.

Review
In this serial we discover some interesting facts, more background about the Doctor and his craft. In episode 3 he states that he built the TARDIS, while in episode 4 he states that the TARDIS cannot land on the same place in the same time as it already has. Otherwise, this is a curate's egg of a serial. It's essentially a pursuit of the TARDIS crew by the Daleks in time and space, with the Daleks slowly catching up with them. Terry Nation's premise for the story is absolutely fascinating, and one wonders why it hadn't been done before. Also, like his earlier serial The Keys of Marinus he splits the episodes up into separate places. Unfortunately, we know that his script underwent major rewrites, including by story editor Dennis Spooner, and this has led to some problems with pacing, and the fact that not all the adventures are as neatly separated.

This is really three parts, episodes 1-3, then the Chase of 4-5, and the final battle, which is actually between the Mechonoids and the Daleks (the Doctor and co take no part). Although it might be fun to see the crew picking their favourite moments of time, it seems a waste to spend almost half an episode on it. Then we have the desert planet adventure, and the realisation that the Daleks are after them. Episodes 2 & 3 are actually very good, but once the chase gets under way the story falls apart.

Many critics have complained about the 'comedy' aspects, but I'm afraid I didn't see any, just some awful silliness. I'm not as annoyed as some by the attempts to differentiate the Daleks with individual behaviour. I didn't notice a comedic attempt, merely a relief to get away from the monotone Dalek voice. It's not like they gave them Brummie accents, as in the later serial The Krotons. The Empire State sequence is embarrassingly unfunny. Peter Purves should be shot for his ham ('n' eggs?) performance as an American yokel tourist. Even worse is the House of Frankenstein. This set is the only convincing one in the whole serial (the production design is noticeably poor on this serial), quite spooky. But when we see Frankenstein and Dracula you don't know whether to laugh or cry, or both. Unfunny, and not at all scary. The fact that the Creature is able to kill a Dalek beggars belief. The Mary Celeste sequence is okay, but by now one gets the sense that we've had three episodes of almost total padding.

Then we get to Mechanus, and the serial, if it's at all possible, gets worse. Where does one start? The jungle set is pathetically bad, the fungoid  creatures laughably poor, the elevated Mechonoid city is too obviously a model, especially when one sees a Mechonoid travelling along one of its causeways (a tiny and unconvincing model). The Mechonoids are just big bulky 50p shaped robots whose high-pitched electronically distorted voice is totally undecipherable. Ian repeats one of the lines, but otherwise the rest is unintelligible without sub-titles, which the original viewer would not have had access to. The Dalek's robot duplicate of the Doctor is also terrible. Since when did the Daleks need such a ruse to kill the Doctor and co? And he looks nothing like the Doctor, even if the production crew cheat occasionally and use Hartnell for a close-up, something they obviously can't do when both are in the same scene. It wouldn't convince anybody!

Then we get the character of stranded Earth astronaut Steven Taylor (Purves again, unfortunately). To escape from the Mechonoids, they must abseil by a cable from the roof 1500 feet above the ground. Vicki is terrified of heights (Maureen acts this very well), so they blindfold her and make her go first, while the others all hold onto the cable to lower her down. When they discover the building they're on is on fire, Taylor lets go of the cable, rushes back into the burning building, to save ... his toy mascot! Absolutely unbelievable! If he's going to be a new companion, I wouldn't blame Vicki for never speaking to him again. That's not Purves fault (it's the script), but he really isn't an actor, and one can see why after Who he quickly gave up acting to become a presenter on children's magazine show Blue Peter.

The serial rescues itself at the end. The final battle between the Mechonoids and the Daleks is excellent, very well staged and executed. And then we have Ian and Barbara's realisation that they can use the Dalek TARDIS to return to their own time and place. The Doctor is reluctant to let them go, but Vicki persuades him. So finally they get back to London, though two years later in December 1965. The Doctor and Vicki watch them cavorting around White City tube, and Trafalgar Square, on the Visualiser (a nice bookend, as this is how the serial started). "I shall miss them", says the Doctor, and Vicki comforts him. Hartnell underpays this nicely, but is totally convincing, and we the viewers shall miss them too. There's a wonderful moment in episode 2 where Ian asks Barbara for her cardigan. "Not again", she replies, a nice nod to the previous serial where they unravelled her cardie to make a Theseus-type trail. When Ian says "It's for the Dalek" (meaning put over his eyestalk to blind him) Vicki replies "I hope it suits him". A small, but wonderful interplay between the three that shows they were the best companions. But now there's no link to the original opening episode. 

I wonder if Bill himself wondered if this recent change in cast signalled the beginning of the end for Who. It's significant that even for a Dalek story it only opened with 10million viewers, dropping to 9 (though it must be pointed out it's now Summer when audiences are normally lower). All in all, this is not a fitting departure for two of the original cast. Apart from one-and-a-half episodes on Aridius and the final half episode, it's very poor. I don't think Spooner's alterations improved Nation's script at all, it's far too silly in the middle, dangerously so as it invites mockery of the show itself, something one should never do. Daphne and Sonia do marvellous jobs on the costumes & make-up of the Aridians, but otherwise the production design is poor, perhaps reflecting that there were two designers, and not at all convincing. Maybe with only eight episodes left of this production block the budget was running out.

Added to the poor script, the padding and odd pacing, and the irritating presence of Purves, this really deserves very few marks. The end however is genuinely touching and moving, and almost rescues the whole venture, but it doesn't quite. Half a good serial gets half marks. 

TARDIS rating: 2.5/5

Credits

Dr. Who ....................................................................................  WILLIAM HARTNELL
Ian Chesterton .......................................................................... WILLIAM RUSSELL
Barbara Wright .........................................................................  JACQUELINE HILL
Vicki .........................................................................................  MAUREEN O'BRIEN
Steven Taylor ............................................................................ PETER PURVES
Robot Voices ............................................................................ PETER HAWKINS
                                                                                                               DAVID GRAHAM
Mechonoid Voice  ..................................................................... DAVID GRAHAM

Title Music ........................... by RON GRAINER with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Incidental Music Composed and Conducted .......................... by DUDLEY SIMPSON
Fight Arranged ........................................................................ by PETER DIAMOND

Film Cameraman .................................................................... CHARLS PARNALL

Film Editor .............................................................................. NORMAN MATTHEWS
Story Editor ............................................................................. DENNIS SPOONER
Designer ................................................................................. JOHN WOOD

                                                                                                  RAYMOND CUSICK
Costumes Supervised ............................................................. by DAPHNE DARE
Make-up Supervised ..............................................................  by SONIA MARKHAM
Lighting ................................................................................... RHOWARD KING
Sound ..................................................................................... RAY ANGEL
Producer ................................................................................. VERITY LAMBERT
Directed .................................................................................. by RICHARD MARTIN

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