The Chase (novelisation)

The Chase
Based on:	The Chase
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Barbara, Ian, Vicki, Steven
Main enemy:	The Daleks The Mechanoids
Main setting:	Earth, Empire State Building, Mary Celeste, Aridius, Mechanus
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Target Books, W.H. Allen & Co]]
Writer:	John Peel
Release details
Release number:	140
Release date:	20 July 1989
Format:	Paperback Book, 144 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20336-4
Target novelisations
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Novelisation

• This novelisation is based on the original television serial usually called TV: The Chase, which included individual episode titles. It was written by Terry Nation and shown from 22 May 1965.
• The cover and information on the right are for the original Target edition. It featured the artwork of Alister Pearson. (See below for information on editions with different covers).

Publisher's summary

1989 edition

Through a Space-Time Visualiser the First Doctor and his companions are horrified to see an execution squad of Daleks about to leave Skaro on a mission to find the TARDIS and exterminate the time travellers.
Eluding the Daleks on the barren planet Aridius the Doctor and his friends escape in the TARDIS. But this is only the beginning of an epic journey.
As they travel through space and time, they try to shake off their pursuers by making a series of random landings-but the Daleks don’t give up easily. This is a chase to the death…

1991 edition

"Those who control the TARDIS have interfered with too many of our plans. They are to be destroyed. If necessary, the assassination group will pursue them through all eternity. Exterminate them!"

The Doctor, Barbara and Ian had faced - and narrowly defeated - the Daleks twice before. They had known that there was always the possibility that the Daleks would win. But the reaches of time and space had always seemed so safe - there was always the chance that if they were being overwhelmed, they could flee.

But now, the Daleks can track them through all of time and space. They try to shake off their attackers by making a series of random landings, but this is a chase to the death ...

Doctor Who - The Chase, written by Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks, was first broadcast in 1965, with William Hartnell playing the role of the Doctor. This adaptation is by John Peel, who is also the author of The Gallifrey Chronicles, the definitive history of the Doctor's home planet and its people.

Doctor Who - The Chase is available as a BBC Video.

Illustrations

None

Deviations from televised story

John Peel states in the Author's Notes that he decided to novelise Terry Nation's original scripts rather than simply recreate the televised story. His reasoning for doing so was that The Chase existed in full in the BBC archives, so novelising the original scripts would give readers something different.

• The appearance of the Daleks at the beginning is expanded upon, with the Black Dalek seeing the squad of executioners leave in the time machine. At this point in their history, the Daleks are also aware of the Doctor's ability to change his appearance even though they encounter his first incarnation.
• The Dalek Prime from John Peel's later novel War of the Daleks makes its first appearance here, and would later do so again in the novelisations of The Daleks's Master Plan: Part 1 and Part 2 and as the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks. Its originally intended first appearance was the War of the Daleks TV story which was never produced due to the show's cancellation in 1989, although the idea was later used by John Peel in his Dalek novels and novelisation (though it is only mentioned in Legacy of the Daleks and The Power of the Daleks contains no reference to it at all).
• The Daleks make use of Hoverbouts, referred to as "flying disks", to obtain a better view of the Aridian desert.
• The Aridian Elders are confronted by the Daleks and forced to cooperate with them, something which happened off-screen in the televised version.
• The Dalek time machines are powered by taranium, the driving element of the plot in The Daleks' Master Plan, the following Dalek story. It took the Daleks two decades to gather enough taranium to power their time machines.
• More detail is given on the background of Morton C. Dill: clumsy, always speaking without thinking and not the sort of person many people wish to know, he was nicknamed 'Dill the Pill' in school for being rather hard to take. After explaining to two guards in the Empire State Building about his encounter with the TARDIS crew and the Dalek, he was locked up in a home for the bewildered (the Newman Rehabilitation Clinic, a possible reference to Sydney Newman) in 1967 where he continued to live "to this day". The Dalek decides against killing him because it considers it a far worse fate for the human race to allow him to live on.
• The crew of the Mary Celeste are all named. Additionally, while the Daleks scare the whole crew off the ship in the televised version, here one crew member is killed. Ian and Barbara discuss the matter further, wondering if the death of the crew was their fault since they led the Daleks there or if it was an inevitable fact of history. Ian notes that Barbara once tried to change the history of the Aztecs but failed. (TV: The Aztecs)

Writing and publishing notes

• Alister Pearson’s original cover design was greatly simplified. Several elements of the story were removed.
• According to the novelisation, the Dalek time machines were powered by a core of ultra-rare taranium (a reference made in the sequel story The Daleks' Master Plan).
• In the novelisation, Morton Dill is nicknamed Dill-the-Pill ("being hard to take") and later becomes a permanent resident of the "Newman Rehabilitation Clinic" (presumably named after Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman).
• Albert C. Richardson unlashes the lifeboat in the novelisation, but it rolls over and sinks.
• In the novelisation, Frankenstein's monster, Dracula and the Grey Lady are all clearly identified as robots (unlike in the television story).
• John Peel's author’s note at the beginning of this book states it is “not strictly speaking an adaptation of the televised version of The Chase.” Instead the author chose to base the story on Terry Nation's original script (unearthed by Terry’s wife Kate) and included some of the rewritten material (presumably by then-story editor Dennis Spooner) used in the televised version. The Mary Celeste sequence was also changed, using facts about the incidents sourced from Mystery Ship by George S. Bryan, published by Lippincott in 1942.
• The novel is dedicated to Terry Nation’s wife Kate and the author’s wife Nan.
• For years, Target had been trying to acquire the rights to adapt The Chase, along with the The Daleks' Master Plan and the two Second Doctor Dalek stories, The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks. For a time it seemed as if these stories (of which only The Chase still existed in complete form in the BBC Archives) would remain unnovelised, along with the three Fourth Doctor stories by Douglas Adams and the two Eric Saward Daleks stories from the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras. A surprise resolution regarding the rights to the early Dalek tales opened the door for Target to novelise them. John Peel was assigned the task of adapting these stories. The Chase was chosen as the first of these books published because it was the first broadcast.

Additional cover images

• 2Chase.jpg

  1991 edition; Cover by Alister Pearson

British publication history

First Publication: Paperback (July 1989)

• Target / W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd. One original printing and 2 reprints in 1989, estimated print run: 24,000, priced £2.50 (UK).

Re-issues: (July 1991)

• Target / Virgin Publishing, estimated print run: 5,000, priced £2.50 (UK).

Editions published outside Britain

To be added

External links

• On Target - A comprehensive guide to Doctor Who - The Chase