The First Doctor, Part 3

The Space Museum

And having done an historical story (The Crusade), it is back to space! This is a very clever story that plays with the idea of traveling in time. The Tardis has somehow jumped time tracks and the crew arrives before they arrive! When they enter the Museum, they see themselves as exhibits and figure out what must have happened. So they decide they have to stay there until time catches up with itself. The Museum was created by an invading race, the Moroks, to glorify their conquering empire, though the empire is declining at this time. The indigenous inhabitants of the planet, the Xerons, want to overthrow the Moroks and take back their planet. A lovely scene is when Vicki reprograms the computer guarding the Armory to allow the Xerons to grab the weapons they need. This story did suffer from budget problems because other stories had turned out to be more expensive so director Mervyn Pinfield tried to economize by using just a few sets. But Willam Hartnell and Maureen O’Brien delivered good performances that help rescue the story.

The Chase

While the Tardis crew was leaving Xeros after the revolution, someone was watching. The Daleks have now been able to build their own time-and-space machine and are out to get the Doctor! This Terry Nation story has some very funny moments, and each episode has a different setting. First, the Tardis lands on a desert planet called Aridius, and the Daleks land shortly afterwards. They threaten the local inhabitants to get the Doctor surrendered to them, but the Doctor and the companions manage to escape. They know they need to find the right place to confront the Daleks who are closing in. They show up first on the top of the Empire State Building, where Peter Purves does a comic bit reminiscent of Gomer Pyle. Then it is on the the deck of the Mary Celeste, a haunted house (featuring Frankenstein and Dracula), and finally the planet Mechanus, where they are captured by the Mechanoids. In the cell, they meet a spaceship pilot, also played by Peter Purves, called Steven Taylor. The Daleks land, they and the Mechanoids fight, and the Daleks are wiped out. The Tardis crew escape and get back to the Tardis, saddened by the fact that Steven Taylor didn’t make it. At the Tardis, Ian and Barbara tell the doctor they want to go home and leave the Tardis, so the Doctor programs the Dalek ship and sends them back. So now none of the original three companions are left, just the Doctor.

This story was written by Terry Nation, who owned the rights to the Daleks, and he had cashed in big when when Dalekmania hit Britain. All of the Dalek toys and merchandise paid him a royalty, and he and the BBC were both hoping lightning would strike twice with the Mechanoids. But they never caught on and disappeared after this one story. But the Daleks would be here to stay, no doubt about it. This story was very expensive to make, what with all of the sets and props, and explains why the preceding story, The Space Museum, had to be made cheaply.

The Time Meddler

And back to an historical story, but iwth an interesting twist. To begin with, it turns out that Steven Taylor did make it, and was in the Tardis when they left Mechanus. So now the Doctor has two companions, Steven and Vicki. And they land in Northumbria in 1066. If you have read your history, you know that Harold, the King of England, had to march his army north to repel a Viking invasion of Northumbria, in which he was successful, before turning around and marching south where he was defeated by William the Conqueror. So what is up here? There is an abandoned monastery nearby, and a monk seems to have moved in, but something doesn’t quite add up. The Doctor discovers that this monk in 1066 is using a record player to play the sound of groups of monks chanting. Then Steven and Vicki discover that he has a Tardis! This is the Meddling Monk, as he has become known, and he is a classic character, a renegade Time Lord, that many fans would love to see brought back. His plan is to change the outcome so that William the Conqueror is not successful. And Doctor Who sometimes likes to emphasize that you shouldn’t try to change history. Of course, other times that gets ignored. (see, for instance, The Fires of Pompeii). An excellent story, and it illustrates the importance of good writing. Because of the expense of The Chase, this was made on a tight budget, but you don’t notice it as you go along because the story is suspenseful.

Movies

With Dalekmania running rampant in Britain it should come as no surprise that the film industry wanted a piece of the action. An option was purchased to produce three films, but while the first was modestly successful, the second showed a drop-off and the third movie was never made. The biggest change is that The Doctor is no longer an alien, but rather an eccentric scientist played by Peter Cushing, the king of the “B” movies

Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965)

In 1964 Dalekmania hit England, so you shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that a movie studio looked to cash in on it. They took the basic story from William Hartnell’s The Daleks, but recast all of the roles, with Peter Cushing as Doctor Who, Roy Castle as Ian Chesterton, Jennie Linden as Barbara, and Roberta Tovey as Susan. In this version, however, Susan is a much younger girl, not a teenager. And Barbara is yet another, older, granddaughter of the Doctor, and Ian is her boyfriend. The movie is oddly put together. The plot is different in several ways from the original TV story, but many of the specific scenes are retained. At 1 hr, 23 mins. it is shorter than the TV original story, but for some reason I didn’t seem to think anything was missing. This was not a critically regarded movie, but was commercially successful to a degree that the same studio made a movie out of the second Hartnell Dalek story. If you have a little over an hour and need to fill it, this is might be worth looking at, but if you pass it by you haven’t really missed anything. But if you want the pleasure you can get from The Internet Archive

Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)

This second movie recapitulates the main plot points from the Hartnell serial, but as in the first movie the casting is different. Peter Cushing and Roberta Tovey return as The Doctor and Susan, But in place of Barbara there is now a niece Louise, played by Jill Curzon. And in place of Ian we now have a police constable played by Bernard Cribbins, who returns many years later during David Tennant’s run as Wilf, the grandfather of Donna Noble, though he previously appeared in a small role in Voyage of the Damned as a newspaper seller. As in the first movie, many of the scenes from the TV serial are retained, but details are changed. It is interesting that Cribbins, playing a Police Constable, enters the TARDIS thinking it is a police call box, which is exactly what happened with Dodo Chaplet. At 1 hr, 24 mins this is scarcely longer than the first movie, and like the first, cannot be considered essential. And no further movies about the Daleks were made after this, which may be a commentary on its success. As with the first movie, this ca be found on The Internet Archive should you wish to view it.

BTW, please allow me a brief aside at this point to suggest that if you aren’t already supporting The Internet Archive, you should consider doing so. They provide an essential service to the Internet, and I personally send them $5/month.

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