The Chase (TV story)

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The Chase was the eighth story of Season 2 of Doctor Who. As well as featuring the first use of time travel by the Daleks, it also featured the departures of original companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, played by William Russell and Jacqueline Hill respectively, and the first appearance of new companion Steven Taylor, portrayed by Peter Purves.

Synopsis

The travellers are forced to flee in the TARDIS when they learn from the Time-Space Visualiser taken from the Moroks' museum that a group of Daleks equipped with their own time machine are on their trail with orders to exterminate them.

The chase begins on the desert planet Aridius and takes in a number of stopping-off points including the observation gallery of New York's Empire State Building, the 19th Century sailing ship Mary Celeste (the Daleks' appearance causing all the crew and passengers to jump overboard) and a spooky haunted house which, although the Doctor and his friends do not realise it, is actually a futuristic fun-fair attraction.

Eventually both time machines arrive on the jungle planet Mechanus, where the Daleks try to infiltrate and kill the Doctor's party using a robotic double of him. The travellers are taken prisoner by the Mechanoids - a group of robots sent some fifty years earlier to prepare landing sites for human colonists who, in the event, never arrived - and meet Steven Taylor, a stranded astronaut who has been the Mechanoids' captive for the past two years.

The Daleks and the Mechanoids engage in a fierce battle which ultimately results in their mutual destruction, and the Doctor's party seize this opportunity to escape. The Doctor reluctantly helps Ian and Barbara to use the Daleks' time machine to return home.

Plot

The Executioners (1)

In the the Doctor's TARDIS the four travellers are huddling around the Time-Space Visualiser, which can pick up any event in the whole of time and space. They each choose an event to witness: Ian picks Abraham Lincoln giving his Gettysburg Address, Barbara elects to look into Elizabeth I's court, and sees the genesis of William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet; and Vicki sees the Beatles performing "Ticket to Ride", but is surprised that they should play "classical music".

The TARDIS then lands, and the Doctor confirms that the conditions are hospitable. Ian and Vicki leave into the desert wilderness, the former entrusted with the "TARDIS magnet" in case they should get lost. Vicki investigates some formations which appear to similar to seaweed, which Ian knows is impossible. They then find a trail of what appears to be blood in the sand, which Vicki runs off to follow. As they move off, they do not notice a tentacle rise up from the sand where they were.

Daleks on the Time-Space Visualiser reveal their evil intent to chase the TARDIS

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Barbara start sunbathing. Barbara is distracted by the sound of the Visualizer, which has not been shut off. She sees on it a "broadcast" of the Daleks preparing to give a report. The Doctor enters and hears to his horror the Daleks' plan to follow "the enemy time machine" (the TARDIS) to the Sagarro Desert on the planet Aridius. Dalek assassins will take their time machine, find the Doctor and his companions, and exterminate them. The Doctor and Barbara watch a group of Daleks embark and dematerialize. The Doctor immediately realizes that these events happened in the past — the Daleks may already be here! They must find Ian and Vicki and go.

Barbara and the Doctor lost in the hostile Aridian desert

Tiring from their walk, Ian and Vicki take a rest as the "blood" trail ends. In the sand, they find a large metal ring. At first, Vicki is reluctant to disturb it for fear of what might happen (due in no small part to a similar ring from her childhood). However, they decide they should pull it loose, and Ian duly does just that. At first, nothing happens and they prepare to leave, but then an ancient trap door creaks open in the sand. Vicki and Ian go inside the newly-opened cavern to have a look. Once they are inside the trap door close behind them: they are trapped - and another tentacle looms out of the darkness. It seems the creatures are everywhere.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Barbara have had no luck finding their friends, night has fallen and the wind has begun to pick up, covering all tracks including their own. They decide to return to the TARDIS, not entirely certain of the direction; as it may have been covered by the sand. A sandstorm breaks out which lasts all night. When they awake they see a Dalek, buried by the sandstorm, emerging from the sand.

The Death of Time (2)

The Daleks' Aridian slaves work to open the Doctor's TARDIS

Two other Daleks soon arrive in their own time machine but cannot find the time travellers but do locate the TARDIS under the sand and begin to have it dug out by a group of native Aridians, whom they have enslaved. The slave force is exterminated when they are of no further value.

The Doctor and Barbara are saved by other amphibious humanoid Aridians, who explain that Aridius was not always a desert, but that the suns have got nearer the planet and destroyed the seas. Only themselves and the hideous Mire Beasts are left, and the Mire Beasts can only be contained by destroying sections of the Aridian city that have become over-run. The Daleks soon contact the Aridians in the underground city and tell them they will leave Aridius if the Doctor and his party are handed over, and the elders agree to this. The Aridians also find Vicki and Ian, who was injured when a wall collapsed in an explosion to kill the Mire Beasts that were threatening them. The Mire Beasts soon reappear, killing the Aridian Malsan who was holding the party prisoner in preparation for the handover. The Doctor and his friends flee in the confusion and manage to evade a Dalek scout and return to the TARDIS. The Supreme Dalek vows revenge.

Flight Through Eternity (3)

There now follows a chase through time and space, with the Dalek vessel determined to track down and exterminate the Doctor and his friends. They are but fifteen minutes behind and the gap is closing. The first stop is the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, where a young man from Alabama, Morton Dill, tells them it is 1966. Fortunately for him neither the TARDIS nor the Dalek time vessel stays long and his life is not imperilled in fact the young man even stalls a dalek by talking it way while The Doctor and his companions escape. The Doctor next reaches the Atlantic Ocean and boards a sailing ship captained by Benjamin Briggs. The crew venture outside and see the Daleks arrive. Some of the crew they exterminate. Others they force into the sea. As the Doctor's TARDIS departs it is revealed the ship is the legendary Mary Celeste. In the TARDIS, the Doctor calculates that their advantage has narrowed down to only eight minutes.

Journey into Terror (4)

The time craft land in a mysterious old house where both Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster have come alive. These terrors stalk the building but also attack the Daleks when they arrive. In the confusion to depart, the Doctor, Ian and Barbara leave Vicki behind, never realising they have simply been visiting a futuristic theme attraction called the Festival of Ghana in 1996. The Daleks are repelled back into their vessel by the monsters (who are in fact robots), and Vicki stows away aboard the Dalek ship. She travels in it to the jungle world of Mechanus, where the Doctor's TARDIS has already landed.

The Doctor, Ian and Barbara are very sad about Vicki's possible fate at the hands of the Daleks and blame themselves. They decide their only course to rescue her is to try and take control of the Daleks' own time vessel. On that ship Vicki witnesses the Daleks' Replicator machine in action: an android replica of the Doctor is produced and is programmed to "infiltrate and kill".

The Death of Doctor Who (5)

The TARDIS trio get surrounded by fungoids in the Mechanus jungle

When the Dalek ship arrives on Mechanus the robot killer is despatched. The jungle is also hostile, with large fungoid plants which attack humans, and only retreat when exposed to light. The time travellers now split up and Barbara stays to protect a machine the Doctor has built to defend them from the Daleks. She encounters the robot Doctor, while and Ian and the Doctor are reunited with Vicki, who is hiding in the jungle. After a while the four travellers are reunited and the real Doctor unmasks the robot counterpart, disabling it with his stick.

The Daleks too have fallen victim to the fungoid creatures and call off their search until the morning, letting the Doctor and his party sleep freely in a nearby cave. In the morning the Doctor notices that there is vast metal city over the jungle and they all decide to venture into the structure. Within moments a robot Mechanoid arrives and invites them into the city.

The Planet of Decision (6)

The Daleks and Mechanoids fighting

It is obviously armed, but says it means them no harm. The travellers do as they are bidden and enter the Mechanoid City. Among the Mechanoids is a dishevelled Human survivor named Steven Taylor. He is an astronaut from Earth who crash-landed on the planet two years earlier and has been kept as a prisoner by the Mechanoids since then. They are colonising robots built to make the city for human colonisers that never arrived, and so their current guests will be kept in the city permanently: Steven has not been permitted to leave.

Ian and Barbara find a real police box back home in 1965's London

The Daleks now attack the city so it is time for action. The Doctor and his party and Steven manage to escape from the city down some cables while the Mechanoids and Daleks become involved in a pitched battle which devastates both sides and the building. They flee to safety but are separated from Steven, whom they presume to have been killed.

For Ian and Barbara it is decision time. The navigable time machine gives them a chance to get back to modern day Earth. They find the deserted Dalek time machine and persuade the Doctor to show Ian how to operate it. After a tearful farewell, Ian and Barbara return to their own planet at last – and almost to their own time, being two years out in London of 1965. The machine is destroyed using the auto-destruct mechanism once Barbara and Ian are out of it.

The Doctor and Vicki oversee their farewell on the Time-Space Visualizer, glad they made it, but the Doctor is very sad at the loss. Neither of them notice that a new traveller has sneaked aboard the TARDIS...

Cast

Crew

References

  • Vicki mentions New York City in the 22nd century Dalek invasion.
  • The Robot Doctor in "The Death of Doctor Who" calls Vicki, Susan because The Daleks havn't met Vicki before and were unaware that Susan had left in the Dalek Invasion of Earth

Daleks

TARDISes

  • The first reference is made to the time rotor.
  • The Doctor uses the time path indicator.
  • The Doctor explains to the others it takes twelve minutes for the TARDIS's flight computer to re-orientate itself and 'gather power', thus limiting the speed with which they can make each new jump.

Story Notes

  • All episodes exist as 16mm telerecordings.
  • Negative film prints were recovered for all episodes in 1978.
  • This story went under the working title The Pursuers.
  • The story was commissioned at late notice when another of Terry Nation's stories fell through. It is believed that the slot was originally to be filled by his planned historical The Red Fort.
  • The scenes in episode 6 with Ian and Barbara celebrating their return to London was made as part of the production block for The Time Meddler and the Director for these is consequently Douglas Camfield.
  • This is one of the few Dalek stories to incorporate humour and is the only story to attempt comical performances from the Daleks. Examples includes a stammering Dalek who cannot do simple mental arithmetic (in the first two episodes); Daleks nodding their eyestalks to confirm a plan (in the fifth episode); and showing a trait for deviating from the subject at hand (during their deliberations in the first episode).
  • Morton Dill, the young man from Alabama whom the travellers meet at the top of the Empire State Building, was played by Peter Purves, who would appear in the last episode as Steven Taylor.
  • The story also features The Beatles in a film clip. Ironically, considering the number of lost Doctor Who episodes, the Beatles performance from which this clip was taken now only survives in this story.
  • The Beatles were originally planned to appear as old men performing in the 21st Century but this proposal was vetoed by their manager Brian Epstein. Had this gone through, of course, it would have become an anachronism given the fates that would befall both John Lennon and George Harrison before they got to be "old men".
  • This story includes the joke that, in the future, contemporary pop musicians such as The Beatles would be considered classical music. This joke was repeated in the series 40 years later in The End of the World.
  • Although Ian displayed knowledge of modern musical groups in An Unearthly Child, this does not seem to extend to his ability to dance, as demonstrated during the "Ticket to Ride" sequence.
  • The Daleks are particularly poetic in this story: Dalek - "Advance and attack! Attack and destroy! Destroy and rejoice!"
  • This is the final television story featuring Ian and Barbara.
  • This is the first appearance of Steven Taylor. Actor Peter Purves became the first actor to play two completely different roles (without the use of heavy makeup or prosthetics) in the same story. He also became the first actor to appear in a guest-starring capacity before being offered a regular role. This would next occur when Ian Marter appeared in Carnival of Monsters several years before joining the series as a different character, Harry Sullivan, in Robot. The fact Purves played two different roles, one to become ongoing within the same story, however, remains a unique circumstance.
  • The Chase was earmarked to form the basis for a third "Dr. Who" film starring Peter Cushing, to follow Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, but the film was never made.
  • Episode 5 carries the title "The Death of Doctor Who"; this is one of only two occasions in which the technically incorrect name "Doctor Who" is used in an on-screen title (the other occasion being the seven episodes of Doctor Who and the Silurians in 1970).
  • During rehearsal the three fungoid costumes were given nicknames to avoid confusion; Fungoid Fred, Toadstool Taffy and Mushroom Malone. [1]
  • The three main pillars of the Mechanus forest set were referred to in the script as the "Gubbage Canes".[1]
  • A later novel, EDA: Interference - Book One, would establish that the Dracula and Frankenstein robots were built by Microsoft, although the company wasn't established until a full ten years after The Chase was broadcast.
  • Episode six features the first use of the Dalek battle cry of "Exterminate!" (Previously, The Daleks mentioned the term "extermination", and in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the Supreme Dalek ordered his subordinates to "exterminate" Ian, but this is the first time the word is used as a singular exclamation.)
  • In DWM , The Chase was voted the readers least favourite Dalek story.

Ratings

  • The Executioners - 10 million viewers
  • The Death of Time - 9.5 million viewers
  • Flight Through Eternity - 9.0 million viewers
  • Journey into Terror - 9.5 million viewers
  • The Death of Doctor Who - 9.0 million viewers
  • The Planet of Decision - 9.5 million viewers

Myths

  • The scene showing Ian and Barbara on the bus was shot on location. (The scene was actually shot at Ealing Studio with a back projection active behind the bus to give the impression of movement.)

Filming Locations

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • When they exit the TARDIS on Aridius, you can clearly see it has no backing to it, as the desert set is visible.
  • At the beginning of "The Executioners" Ian seems to know the words to The Beatles' song, "Ticket to Ride". This would seem to be inconsistent, as he left England in 1963 and "Ticket" wasn't released until April 1965.
  • Later in "The Executioners", Vicki and Ian cast shadows across the backdrop painted like a desert.
  • An Aridian can be seen getting up and sneaking off camera after being knocked over by Vicki.
  • Whilst moving across the screen in episode 4, a countdown is projected across one of the Daleks.
  • A man's shadow can be seen cast across the TARDIS when it lands in the haunted house.
  • At the end of "Flight", its technical flaws are obvious. In the first place, the angle of entry into the water is inconsistent with the casing housing an interior creature. It should have been vertically aligned when it hit the water. Second, contact with the water immediately makes it break apart. This is wholly inconsistent with the general durability Daleks are said to have. And lastly, once the creature breaks in half, its empty interior can clearly be seen.
  • As Ian and the Doctor are standing on the stairs in the haunted house a boom mike and operator can be seen clearly in shot.
  • In episode 5, a camera, clearly marked BBC, appears on the Mechanus jungle set.
  • Despite ripping off its bandages Frankenstein's Monster takes the time to change into a jacket between scenes. * One of the Daleks can be seen in Frankenstein's lab before they have supposedly arrived, Vicki can also be heard talking in the background just before the scene ends.
  • The Daleks' "duplicate" of the Doctor actually looks nothing at all like him. A different actor was used for the distance shots, much as a stunt double is used as common practice in films and television. Up close, William Hartnell plays the duplicate also.

Continuity

Timeline

DVD, Video and Other Releases

VHS releases

Initially released to VHS video as part of The Daleks Box Set, alongside DW: Remembrance of the Daleks.

UK Release: September 1993 / US Release: October 1993
PAL - BBC Video BBCV5005 (2 tapes)
NTSC - CBS/FOX Video 4795 (2 tapes)
NTSC - Warner Video E1145 (2 tapes)

In the UK the tapes were packaged individually with a booklet. They were never sold separately.

DVD releases

A DVD release of this story was delayed due to rights issues regarding the use of the Beatles song, "Ticket to Ride". Release finally occurred in Region 2 (UK and Europe) on 1 March 2010, as part of a box set also including the preceding story, DW: The Space Museum.

Region 1/North American release is scheduled for 6 July 2010, again alongside The Space Museum.[1]

Due to the licensing issues surrounding the Beatles song, it has been announced that non-European (Region 2) releases of The Chase will be edited to remove the scene. A Region 4 release date has yet to be announced as of late March 2010.[2][3]

DVD special features

(Except for trailers, the special features are expected to be included in all versions of the release).

  • Commentary - stereo. With actors Maureen O'Brien, William Russell and Peter Purves, director Richard Martin.
  • Cusick in Cardiff - Raymond Cusick, the designer of the Daleks, visits the new series production studios in Cardiff.
  • The Thrill of The Chase - director Richard Martin looks back at the making of the story.
  • Last Stop White City - documentary on Ian and Barbara
  • Daleks Conquer and Destroy - examining the appeal of the Daleks
  • Shawcraft - The Original Monster Makers - documentary on Shawcraft Models, who built many 1960s Doctor Who props
  • Follow that Dalek - an amateur 8mm cine film from 1967 looking around the premises of Shawcraft Models.
  • Give-a-Show Slides - sixteen stories presented on seven slides each, as featured in the Doctor Who Give-a-Show Slide Projector toy from the sixties.
  • Photo Gallery - production and publicity photos from the story.
  • PDF Material - Radio Times listings in Adobe PDF format for viewing on PC or Mac.
  • Programme Subtitles
  • Subtitle Production Notes
  • Trailer for the Myths & Legends box set (UK only).
21 minutes.jpg

Audio releases

April 1966 saw the release of "The Planet of Decision" (episode six) as a 7" mini album by Century 21 Records and PYE Records as part of their "21 Minutes of Adventure" series. Some editing was done and linking narration was provided by the Dalek voice actor, David Graham. This was the first Doctor Who audio release of either an existing or original story, predating both Doctor Who and the Pescatons and the LP release of Genesis of the Daleks by a little over a decade.

Novelisation

Chase novel.jpg
Main article: The Chase (novelisation)

External Links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Howe, David J., Stammers, Mark, Walker, Stephen James, 1992, Doctor Who: The Sixties, Doctor Who Books, an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd, London, p.44

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