The Chase

The Daleks are back pursuing the Doctor and his companions throughout eternity, or at least as much of eternity that can be depicted on a Doctor Who budget, stopping at the Empire State Building, the Mary Celeste and Ghana amongst other places. The Daleks pursue in a vehicle with the same dimensionally transcendental properties as the TARDIS and gain on the Doctor with every step.

The first episode, "The Executioners" is reasonably good. The scenes from history that are displayed on the Time-Space Visualiser are well done, particularly the charming Elizabethan one (we also get a vintage performance of "Ticket to Ride" from The Beatles). However, I must say that the Time-Space Visualiser is a bit of pseudo-science I cannot quite suspend my disbelief for, especially when it tunes into the Daleks that are on the TARDIS’s trail, rather than any other event that has ever happened or will happen. However, the story dips in quality once episode 2 starts. The Aridians are sketchily written and only adequately acted. Hywel Bennett would eventually become a great actor, but here, he is no better than any other young actor making their start in the profession. The Mire beasts are merely pathetic and immobile octopus models and hardly the stuff of nightmares.

This is nothing, however, compared to the abortions that are episodes 3-5. The Empire State Building at least has an amusing performance by an actor whom we will hear more of later. However, the Mary Celeste sequence is utterly amateurish and the haunted house segment plays like The Munsters but is even less funny. We are then given the atrocious ‘robot double’ of the Doctor which is, in actuality, poor Edmund Warwick who is taller than Hartnell and is dubbed very poorly. This episode is, very rightly, called "The Death of Doctor Who".

Then, miraculously, episode 6, "The Planet of Decision" manages to be excellent. The Mechanoids are excellently realised, with their incomprehensible alphanumeric dialogue, and the battle between them and the Daleks is excellently rendered with a well-constructed montage. The design of the Mechanoid city is great, and even the Michael Bentinesque miniatures actually work. We are also introduced to Steven Taylor, who is brilliantly brought to life from the start, by Peter Purves- speaking as a fan of all three characters, it is a real joy to have Ian, Barbara and Steven sharing scenes. There is also the ending of the story, which I shall return to later.

By all accounts, The Chase was written in a hurry at the last minute, and it really shows. Terry Nation would often resort to cliché, but this is actually worse. The middle episodes consist of ‘sketches’ that are clumsily tied together in order to boost the running time. The robot double segment is wholly unnecessary dramatically and, honestly, could not have been realised more poorly. Richard Martin’s excellent direction in "The Planet of Decision" is all the more astonishing because the preceding episodes have seen some of the sloppiest visual direction the programme has ever seen. The editing, too, is atrocious- look at the scene where Ian tricks the Dalek into a trap on Aridius (imaginative name there, Terry. Was it the planet Soakedus when it had an ocean?)

The portrayal of the Daleks is more comedic, but this approach is a failure. There is one Dalek who is a bit thick, but he is so underused that it does not work comedically and just looks like a mistake. The Daleks also fall into the sea for no reason and are beaten up by an amusement park Frankenstein(‘s monster). Even in the strong final episode, a fatally wounded Dalek screams ‘Am Exterminated! Am Exterminated!’.

The regulars make the best of what they are given and make this mess watchable, but it is the end of the story where they are shown at their best. This is, of course, Ian and Barbara’s final story and their leaving scene is utterly gorgeous. Ian states firmly to the doctor that he misses the ordinary things in life, the sense of belonging. The Doctor is furious that they would risk their lives in the Dalek machine, but programs the machine to take them back. We are treated to a joyous photo montage of them in 1965 and the Doctor watching them on the Time-Space Visualiser. He is visibly upset at their leaving, as am I. Ian and Barbara have become two of my favourite companions of all time. William Russell’s portrayal always made Ian interesting, always avoiding being just the square jawed hero by injecting playfulness and humour into the role. And Jacqueline Hill as Barbara- brave, intelligent, creative, funny and very, very sexy. Yes, she screamed at times when a lot of people would, but she also held a knife to Tlotoxl’s throat. She confused the Daleks with pseudo history. And she looks really good in a Roman stola. I shall miss them too.

It is a good thing that the last episode was so good, because this story contains some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who I have ever seen. It is not quite enough to save it.

NEXT: The Time Meddler