The Space Museum (TV story)

Summary

The TARDIS arrives near a vast Space Museum on the planet Xeros, but has jumped a time-track. The First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki have a series of bizarre experiences for the time travellers as the venture outside and into the Museum – not least that they see but cannot be seen by the militaristic Moroks who run the museum, or the servile indigenous Xerons who work for them. The museum contains fascinating exhibits, including a Dalek shell, but the most worrying is the four travellers themselves encased and on display. Quite soon afterward the time track slips back and, though the exhibits of the TARDIS and the four travellers vanish, they still find themselves inside the Museum.

The head of the Moroks, Lobos, is a bored and desperate museum administrator and colony governor, who reflects sourly that the glories of the Morok empire are past. Like Rome, the Empire became decadent and declined. The Moroks have found the TARDIS and now start tracking down the occupants who have, as usual, become separated. The Doctor is the first to be found, but evades their interrogation tactics.

Vicki has meanwhile made contact with the Xerons and, hearing of their enslavement, aids them in their plans to stage a revolution. The Moroks step up their resistance, but it seems luck and cunning are on the side of the Xerons. They attack the Morok armoury and Vicki outwits its controlling computer. With their new weapons the Xerons are able to begin a revolution which slowly takes hold. The Moroks try to use deadly zaphra gas to poison the rebels and seize control of the situation, but this too is a failure.

Ian has meanwhile freed the Doctor from Lobos, who had begun the process of freezing him and turning him into an exhibit. They find Barbara and Vicki in the Museum’s endless corridors, but are soon all captured together. It looks like the time track prediction of their future as museum exhibits will soon be realised after all.

Help comes from the Xeron revolutionaries, who kill Lobos and the other Morok captors. The Xerons then go about destroying the hated Museum as the TARDIS crew slips away. They take with them a time/space visualiser as a souvenir. On the planet Skaro, their departure is noted by the Daleks….

Cast & Characters

Crew

Notes

All episodes exist in 16mm telerecordings
Episode 3 was held in the Film & TV Library when it was audited in 1978
Negative Film Prints of all 4 episodes have been found
A clearer print of episode 1 was returned to the BBC in 1981
The episodes of this story went by different titles during the production stage. Episode 1 was originally known as The Four Dimensions of Time and Episode 4 was originally known as Zone Seven
William Hartnell does not appear in Episode 3.
Of all the William Hartnell stories with individual episode titles, this is the only one for which only one overall story title has ever been used. See also Doctor Who story title controversy.
Episode 1 begins with a brief reprise of The Crusade episode 4, which is currently the only surviving film footage of that episode
Features a guest appearance by Jeremy Bulloch who is better known for his appearance as Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi
Richard Shaw, who spoke with a Cockney accent, was cast as Governor Lobos, but was asked to deliver his lines with a BBC accent. His accent slips only once, when he bellows at an underling use "maximum securi'ee!" He later appeared as Cross in Frontier in Space with his own accent
The incidental music was all from stock recordings rather than being specially composed for the story

Influences

Ratings

The Space Museum - 10.5m viewers
The Dimensions of Time - 9.2m viewers
The Search - 8.5m viewers
The Final Phase - 8.5m viewers

Myths

This was a low budget due to the high cost of some of the other stories this season (The story had a similar budget and cost about the same to make as the other 4 part stories at the time)

Location Filming

To be addedd

Continuity

The Doctor manages to fix the Time/Space Visualiser in The Chase and uses it again in The One Doctor
The Faction Paradox use a similar device in The Ancestor Cell to show Fitz his future.
A device like the Time/Space Visualiser is seen in Ghost Ship
The TARDIS jumps its own time track again in Festival of Death
In No Future it is revealed that the Monk was once an adviser to the Moroks
The Doctor claims he was with James Watt when he discovered steam power

Discontinuity

When they exit the TARDIS, the main characters cast shadows across the mountains in the distance

Quotes

Vicki - "We must have changed the future... we must have done!"

Barbara - "Must we, Vicki? Or were all the things that happened planned out for us?"

Story Arcs

To be addedd

References

To be addedd

More Info

Public Releases

DVD Release This story has not yet been released on DVD

Video Release Released as Doctor Who: The Crusade/The Space Museum

UK Release: July 1999 / US Release: January 2000

PAL - BBC video BBCV6805

NTSC - CBS/FOX Video 2000020

NTSC - Warner Video E1399

External Links

BBC Episode Guide Page with video clips

Story synopsis at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

A Brief History of Time Travel

Encylopedia of Fantastic Film and Television

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