Friday 29 May 2015

073 The Chase Episode 2: The Death of Time

EPISODE: The Chase Episode 2: The Death of Time
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 073
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 29 May 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 9.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

"The Dalek Supreme has ordered they are to be pursued through all eternity. Pursued and exterminated!

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 drying up the oceans 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.

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Ooo, here's another Dalek with a special arm. The Daleks talk about using "seismic detectors" and a "Perceptor" to locate the Tardis crew so I'm guessing this is what this is!

Unfortunately The Chase is not a high point for Dalek dialogue. We've already had one coughing as it comes out the sand now we get this exchange where the Leader behaves like Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring to it's subordinate:

DALEK 1: The seismic detector is registering a contact.
DALEK 2: The enemy time machine is beneath the sand at this point.
DALEK 1: Then it was buried by last night's storm.
DALEK 2: It must be uncovered before we can destroy it.
DALEK 1: Yes.
DALEK 2: We will take some Aridians prisoner.
DALEK 1: Yes.
DALEK 2: And use them to dig the ship free.
DALEK 1: Yes.
DALEK 2: Well, see to it!
DALEK 1: I obey!
vlcsnap-2014-10-13-11h40m48s245 More will follow... .

Since last week there's been some repainting of the Daleks done. The Dalek Supreme prop, in black, had the broken neck ring. This week the broken neck ring Dalek is silver so that's obviously had a respray. They've also worked quite hard, save in this one shot, to keep the damaged neck ring hidden. I can't spot the silver eyed Dalek this episode, come back next episode to discover it's fate!

The Daleks' assault on the Tardis is probably the first time we get to see the time ship is resistant to external damage. But hang on a second: How do the Daleks know what the Tardis looks like? They never went near it in the Daleks and it was buried under rubble for the entirety of Dalek Invasion of Earth. So can we assume some encounter between Doctor and Daleks since? And if so when did occur? Vicki can't have been there because the Space Museum is the first time she's seen on. It can't be between Dalek invasion of Earth and Rescue because they lead straight on. Dalek Invasion of Earth is the first time Ian's met the Daleks since their destruction on Skaro. So the encounter has to be in the future.... in which case what are the Daleks doing trying to kill them before that? The Daleks learnt of the Tardis in the initial story as the Doctor tries to bargain and create time for the Thals:

DOCTOR: Just a moment. I haven't told you how we came to this planet.
DALEK 1: It does not matter now.
DOCTOR: But it does. I have a ship capable of crossing the barriers of space and time. Surely this would be invaluable to you?
DALEK 1: A ship? What do you mean?
DOCTOR: A machine.
DALEK 1: I do not believe you.
DOCTOR: But I have.

(Taken from The Daleks Episode 7: The Rescue)

But those Daleks didn't survive the end of the story. So how have these Daleks acquired knowledge of the Doctor's vessel and created their own? In just three stories they've gone from trapped in their own city to invading other worlds to travelling through time. some big steps there.
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I'm quite enamoured with the multi level set inside the main chamber of the Aridians' city. The stairs give it a nice feel.

But what exactly happened to their planet?

This desert was once a vast ocean. We, the Aridians, lived in a city beneath the sea, but for a thousand years those twin suns that burn, have moved closer and closer.
We'll forgive the Aridians some faulty cosmology and assume that what's more likely to have happened is their planet was drawn closer to the suns. But how? Have the Daleks been there before and attempted to text their Dalek Invasion of Earth plan of flying the Earth round the Galaxy? On the other hand I suppose if if you name your oceanic planet Aridus you're asking for something to happen to turn it into a desert!

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Making his television début in this episode as Rynian, one of the Aridians is Hywel Bennett, later to find fame starring in the ITV sitcom Shelley. Out of the other Aridians Ian Thompson, Malsan, has appeared in Doctor Who before as the Optera Hetra in Crater of Needles, Invasion & The Centre, the last three episodes of The Web Planet, also directed by Richard Martin. He later appears as Farren in the Blake's 7 episode Breakdown

Operating the Mire Beast is Jack Pitt who, like débutante Dalek John Scott Martin was previously a Zarbi in the Web Planet. He gets a few roles this story before playing a Dalek & Gearon in The Dalek Masterplan.

MireBeast The Mire Beast proved difficult to get a clear picture of from The Chase. It's either in the dark, or just tentacles, or Vicki's in front of it or it's lopsided! In the end I resorted to the internet giving me this picture which I think was from an exhibition.

(M'learned colleagues at Roobarb's DVD forum correct me and tell me it's a publicity shot. They also draw my attention to this photo from the same shoot and this colour picture from Doctor Who Bulletin 55)

If memory serves in it's early days Doctor Who Magazine, possibly when it was still Doctor Who Weekly, printed that photo and claimed it was The Slyther from Dalek Invasion of Earth!.

Friday 22 May 2015

072 The Chase Episode 1: The Executioners

EPISODE: The Chase Episode 1: The Executioners
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 072
STORY NUMBER: 016
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 22 May 1965
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: Richard Martin
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 10 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

"The assassination group will embark at once in our time machine. They pursue the humans through all eternity. They must be destroyed! Exterminate them! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

vlcsnap-2014-10-12-16h37m27s37The 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 Daleks' control room. The Black Dalek machine dispatches a squad of Daleks in their own Time Machine to track the Tardis. 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.

vlcsnap-2014-10-12-16h36m54s207 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.

The episode opens with a shot of the Tardis travelling through space which I think is the first time we've seen that!

The Doctor's new toy, The Time Space Visualiser, obtained from the Space Museum at the end of the previous episode treats us to some scenes from history:

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We'll see most of the actors involved here again: In these Robert Marsden appears as Abraham Lincoln - He's back as a prisoner in Mind of Evil episode 3 and a UNIT soldier in episode 4 of the same story. Roger Hammond, who plays Francis Bacon here, returns as Doctor Runciman in Mawdryn Undead while Hugh Walters, William Shakespeare, is also in The Deadly Assassin as Runcible and Revelation of the Daleks as Vogel. Only Vivienne Bennett as Queen Elizabeth I fails to make a return appearance but Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare reappear in the 10th Doctor story The Shakespeare Code where they're played by Angela Pleasence & Dean Lennox Kelly respectively. Elizabeth then returns, apparently marrying the 10th Doctor, in the anniversary story The Day of the Doctor where she's played by Gavin & Stacy's Joanna Page.

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And then up pop The Beatles in it! The clip used in the episode was originally from is from the 15th April 1965 episode of Top of the Pops which has now been lost. This is believed to be the only surviving clip of The Beatles performing on the program. Unfortunately it's inclusion prevented the story from being released on DVD for a while but a new rights agreement in the UK has allowed this to be released, though I'm led to believe that the American version of the DVD has this scene cut!

This all soaks up ten minutes of the episode before we get to the most important thing in the episode: The Daleks are back!

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Since their last appearance in Dalek Invasion of Earth they've had a redesign, glimpsed in the closing moments of the Space Musuem. Gone are the enlarged bases and the dish on the back of the Dalek while the eye balls have reverted to the black used in the first story. Added 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 Daleks' increased mobility. 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. For more details see Dalek 6388's The Chase Page.

vlcsnap-2014-10-12-17h25m48s94 We see six Daleks enter the time machine achieved by having the three silver painted props entering the time machine, going through the back off to the right of the screen and entering the time machine again! Unfortunately the effect is spoilt a little by the middle Dalek in each group of three still having a silver eye from Dalek Invasion of Earth: this is the same prop used in the previous story The Space Museum.

There may be more than the six Daleks inside so we'll keep track of them over the next few episodes.

With the Daleks come the usual suspects from the first two stories: Peter Hawkins & David Graham as the Dalek voices with Robert Jewell, Kevin Manser & Gerald Taylor as the Dalek operators who are joined for the first time by John Scott Martin who was previously a Zarbi in director Richard Martin's previous story The Web Planet.

vlcsnap-2014-10-12-16h48m25s214As the Doctor is about to leave the Tardis we get a rare glimpse of the things hanging from the Tardis ceiling:

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!

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However the model shot we see on screen wasn't the original plan: they were going to attempt to physically pull a Dalek out the sand while filming on location at Camber Sands. However that didn't work too well so they were forced to resort to the model shot.

Material from Camber Sands does make it into the episode, but with long shot doubles for the series regulars. It's the first time that location filming doubles for an alien planet!

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Friday 15 May 2015

071 The Space Museum Episode 4: The Final Phase

EPISODE: The Space Museum Episode 4: The Final Phase
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 071
STORY NUMBER: 015
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 15 May 1965
WRITER: Glyn Jones
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 8.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

"Well, it would appear that this little diversion will soon be over"

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.....

Ian isn't sure but he thinks he's seen this somewhere before 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. Twenty odd minutes mucking about followed by a dreadful explanation of what caused the trouble in the first episode:

DOCTOR: Well, there you both are. That’s it. That’s the little thing that’s been giving us all this dimensional trouble.
IAN: Just that?
DOCTOR: You know, it’s a funny thing how it happened. It got stuck. I don’t know whether you’ve gone into a room and switched on the light and had to wait for a second or two before the thing lit itself up.
BARBARA: Yes, I have. I think most people have.
DOCTOR: Well, this is the same kind of problem, you see. We landed on a separate time track, wandered around a bit, and until this little thing clicked itself into place, we hadn’t actually arrived.
IAN: Ah. Well, thanks very much for explaining it.
Does this device have a name ? How about telling us what it is and what it's supposed to do? It's almost as bad as the stuck spring in The Edge of Destruction. At least then we were told it was part of the Fast Return Switch!

That’s the little thing that’s been giving us all this dimensional trouble. Our greatest enemies have left the planet Xeros. They are once again in time and space.  They cannot escape! Our time machine will soon follow them. They will be exterminated! Exterminated! EXTERMINATED!

The last few minutes of the story are probably the best: the Doctor gets his new toy, the Time Space Visualiser, and we get a glimpse of the redesigned Dalek. It's the same Dalek seen in episode two but since then it's been modified with the "power slats" added and has lost the hinge: you can still see the holes in the dome where it was attached. For more details see Dalek6388's Space Museum Page. With the Dalek comes one of the voice artists, Peter Hawkins, and one of the operators, Murphy Grumbar, both of who worked on the first two Dalek stories.

The addition of these two brings the total cast for the story to 16 and incredibly they all appear in this episode. This has happened previously, notably the middle two episodes of the very first story An Unearthly Child. But the guest cast there was five strong there's several more in this story.

Choose your next witticism very carefully Mr Morok, it may be your last Death Star toy by Palitoy

In the middle of this episode there's a piece of machinery making it's Doctor Who début that we'll become familiar with. The dome shaped thing was originally created for Curse of the Fly.

curseofthefly003 curseofthefly001

Here it powers the Xeron freezing equipment but later on it's be in the Warehouse in The War Machines, the X-Ray laser in Wheel in Space, in the Tardis Power room in The Mind Robber and in the Lab in Spearhead from Space.

The War Machines Wheel In Space Mind Robber Spearhead from Space

For viewers of my age it really stands out due to it's resemblance to the Palitoy Star Wars Death Star playset!

This episode also features one of the unintentionally silliest lines of dialogue in the series:

Have any arms fallen into Xeron hands?
Oh dear.

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! There is a connection between The Sensorites and the Space Museum: both are directed by Mervyn Pinfield so it's tempting to lay blame at his feet. He was planned to direct another story, Galaxy Four, later in 1965 but fell ill and died on 20th May the following year.

The Space Museum was novelised by it's television author Glyn Jones and released in June 1987. The story was released on VHS with the two surviving episodes of the previous, but unconnected, story The Crusade. One episode of the Crusade, the third The Wheel of Fortune, had been out previously but the other, the first 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 finally paired in a boxset 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 try to put the Ambassadors of Death & The Sunmakers in the same box.....

Friday 8 May 2015

070 The Space Museum Episode 3: The Search

EPISODE: The Space Museum Episode 3: The Search
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 070
STORY NUMBER: 015
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 08 May 1965
WRITER: Glyn Jones
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 8.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

"This whole thing is becoming a nightmare"

vlcsnap-2014-10-11-11h41m03s233 The Xerons examine the Tardis but are warned away by the Moroks. The Moroks can't get into the Tardis and think it looks strange and uncomfortable. Ian, Barbara and Vicki overhear the Doctor has been captured. One of the Moroks finds them and takes them prisoner. Ian attacks the guard allowing Vicki and Barbara escape, followed by himself after a tussle. Barbara gets locked in a store room while Vicki finds the Xeron rebels. Ian overpowers the guard at the Tardis and questions him finding out the location of the Doctor. Barbara is released by the Xeron Dako while Vicki accompanies Tor & Sita. Dako tells Barbara the history of the Morok invasion. The Moroks try to gas the Tardis traveller out of their hiding place. Vicki tries to incite the Xerons into action in order to avoid being trapped in the Tardis crew exhibit seen in the first episode. Vicki, Tor & Sita break into the armoury. Vicki works to override the computer keeping the weapons locked up. Barbara and Dako stumble through the gas but are eventually overpowered. Vicki is successful with the computer allowing the Xerons access to the weapons they need. Ian comes to see Lobos and threatens him demanding to be taken to the Doctor.

Help! I'm loosing the will to live.

This whole things is becoming a nightmare

all we do is stand around...

Nail, Hammer, hit on head. I thank you Mr Chesterton & Miss Wright.

vlcsnap-2014-10-11-11h20m34s226 I'd say the Moroks were the most useless invaders ever but I have seen the Dominators. They look more like a bunch of scientists than an army. Their uselessness is underlined when one of them, captures the Tardis crew but still lets them chat to each other for a few minutes - stupid and underlines the lack of urgency here.

vlcsnap-2014-10-11-11h24m34s113 By contrast the Moroks are pretty rubbish rebels. Still it's not long after that that some stuff finally happens with a bit of a chase and, 2 1/2 episodes in, a member of the Tardis crew finally making contact with the rebel Xerons. They need Vicki, a young girl, to put a rocket up their backside to get them doing anything!

Then we get the discussion between the Tardis crew about changing the future, which they've observed.

BARBARA: Don’t! He’ll fire that thing.
IAN: Well? Wouldn’t that change the shape of things to come?
BARBARA: Well, it would for you. You’d be dead.
IAN: They can’t kill us. We’re going to end up in those cases.
BARBARA: Not necessarily. Oh, you can change the future so that we don’t end up in those cases, but if we’re all dead, what’s the point?
IAN: But that means we can’t fight against anybody. We don’t know what we’re doing.
VICKI: We’ve just lost the Doctor. Has that already changed the future?
BARBARA: We don’t know Vicki. Maybe that’s the way it happened. We’ve no reason to suppose that we all ended up in the cases at exactly the same time.
VICKI: So we could be doing exactly what we’re supposed to do.
So it's OK to muck with a future you've observed but not OK to change the established past as we saw in the Aztecs?

William Hartnell is absent from this episode, save for a brief appearance during the reprise. So by 36 seconds in he's gone for the rest of the duration! Oddly, given his absence, this was one of the few Hartnell episodes found in the BBC film library during Ian Levine's initial visit with the other episodes being located at BBC Enterprises shortly after.

vlcsnap-2014-10-11-11h18m11s123 Ivor Salter makes his first appearance here as the Morok Commander. He'll be back as Odysseus in The Myth Makers and then, many years later, Sergeant Markham in Black Orchid: Part Two. One of his guards is Billy Cornelius who was the Man At Arms in the last episode of the previous story, The Crusade episode4: The Warlords.

One of the Xerons has a return appearance to his name: Edward Granville returns in the opening episode of The Massacre: War of God as an uncredited Tavern Customer. The other two Xerons who appear here, Michael Gordon & David Wolliscroft, won't trouble us further. But I suspect Wolliscroft's IMDB credit as an animator on Beast Wars and Action Man is incorrect!

Friday 1 May 2015

069 The Space Museum Episode 2: The Dimensions of Time

EPISODE: The Space Museum Episode 2: The Dimensions of Time
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 069
STORY NUMBER: 015
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 01 May 1965
WRITER: Glyn Jones
DIRECTOR: Mervyn Pinfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 9.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Space Museum/The Chase

"We’re just going round and round in circles."

vlcsnap-2014-10-11-09h13m51s219 Two of the Moroks confer in an office: a third arrives to tell them a ship has arrived. They wonder if it is the rebels. Two of the Xerons hide in a cellar, waiting for the third Tor. He arrives with the news of the visitors and says the head of the Moroks, Lobos, has organised a search. Ian frees a gun from a display cabinet. Barbara notices she may have lost a button which the Doctor takes particular note of. The Moroks continue to search for them, but the travellers are spotted by the Xerons. The Doctor is separated from the others, is grabbed by the Xerons and collapses. Two leave to find something to revive home while the third is over powered. The others have noticed the Doctor is gone. The two Xerons return to find their colleague on the floor and the Doctor gone: They leave to find the other travellers while the Doctor is revealed to be hiding in the Dalek exhibit! However he is soon captured by the Moroks. The other travellers unravel Barbara's cardigan as an aid to navigate their way round the maze like museum. The Doctor is being held in a room restrained in a chair. The Xerons follow the cardigan thread. Lobos interrogates the Doctor: he is the governor of Xeros which is part of the Morok empire. Other Moroks search for Ian, Barbara and Vicki, who have found the Tardis which has been brought into the museum. The Doctor is taken away to be prepared as a museum exhibit.

No, this isn't the infamous Children in Need special Dimensions in Time. Don't confuse the two.

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Though to be honest I'm not sure which one I'd rather watch....

Oh my goodness, how boring can you get? Hardly any threat or menace at all. Barbara's statement very much rings true:

We’re just going round and round in circles.
Then there's the Doctor's comment while captured:
Well, from my observation it seems to arouse very little interest.
Yup he's got it in one there. Though to be fair Hartnell himself is on fine form during the interrogation. He gets the concept of confusing the Moroks by thinking things unlike, say, what happened in the last episode, what the Daleks were doing in Dalek Invasion of Earth and radiation in the Daleks. You can tell, he acts much better with material he's comfortable with which is mainly historical stories and especially those involving comedy. Here he's latched onto th sci fi idea and it shows: there's a sparkle there when he gets something.

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And if you are looking for something of interest in this episode is then you have the last appearance of the original Dalek design: They're back next story, and briefly at the end of this, but with a small but significant make over. The Doctor seems to take a lot of childish delight by hiding in the Dalek case to evade the guards! The prop has had a hinge added to the dome since it's last appearance to allow Hartnell to open it.

Featuring as the Xeron Tor we have Jeremy Bulloch. He'll later return as Hal the Archer in The Time Warrior, he's most famous for playing Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi. Or he was until George Lucas re-dubbed his voice and filmed new scenes with a different actor relegating his role somewhat. Like Morok guard Lawrence Dean he's also in the Bond Film Octopussy as well as a great many other things. You can hear Bulloch interviewed in Toby Hadoke's Who's Round #77.

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The Morok leader, Lobos, is played by Richard Shaw who'll be back as Cross in Frontier in Space: Episode Three & Four and Lakh in the Underworld: Part Three & Four.

vlcsnap-2014-10-11-09h04m43s163 In the middle of this photo is Salvin Stewart who's credited as a Morok Messenger here and a Morok Guard in the final two episodes. But on the left is Peter Diamond, here playing a Morok Technician but again a Morok Guard in the final two episodes. An actor and stuntman the question more is what hasn't he been in? As for Doctor Who he's already fight arranged The Rescue in the first Dalek story, The Waking Ally in the second as well and three episodes of the Romans in which he also appeared as Delos. More fight arranging follows in the 5th episode of the next story, The Chase's The Death of Doctor Who before he's a sailor in The Highlanders. Again he fight arranges episode 5 of The Evil of the Daleks before appearing as the luckless Davis in the first episode of the Ice Warriors, as an extra in the first and a double for both The Doctor and Salamander in the last episode of the Enemy of the World, a Confederate Horseman in the third and an Alien Guard in the ninth episodes of the War Games which he also fight arranged the tenth and final episode a role he also fulfils for The Dæmons Episodes Three & Four. Outside Doctor Who his most famous jobs are probably appearing in in and stunt arranging all three of the original Star Wars films. Playing multiple roles in the first film he can easily be spotted in Empire, where he's the Snowtrooper operating the e-web cannon that's shot by the Falcon's guns during the final stages of the escape from Hoth, and in Jedi, where he's the Biker Scout that gets unseated from his ride. Diamond died on March 27, 2004.