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The Mary Celeste (sometimes incorrectly spelled Marie Celeste) was a cargo ship captained by Benjamin Briggs. In 1872, a month after it left port in New York City, it was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, completely abandoned. The fate of the crew and passengers was never discovered.
The Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki arrived in the Doctor's TARDIS on board the ship while being pursued by the Daleks in their DARDIS. When the Daleks arrived on board, the crew were so frightened of the Daleks, who they mistook for "the Barbary Terror" that they jumped overboard rather than face them. The Doctor was unaware of the name of the ship he had landed on. (DW: The Chase)
Tegan Jovanka told Nyssa that Mawdryn's ship was more Mary Celeste than Queen Mary due to its apparently empty state. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)
Other contradictory accounts
- The Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot found that the crew of the Marie Celeste had been abducted by Arcturans. The Doctor freed the crew, but they were then all killed by a sea serpent. (DWA: The Mystery of the Marie Celeste)
- It's possible, however, that the abduction occurred after the crew jumped off the vessel.
- When the Doctor landed the TARDIS on the New York docks, the crew mistook it for cargo and had it loaded on board. To regain access to his ship, the Doctor paid for passage on the Marie Celeste. When he showed Professor Theodore Cassells the TARDIS interior, he fled from the hold to the deck. When he tried to tell the captain what he saw, the captain misunderstood and thought the TARDIS was a time bomb. He, Cassells and the crew left the Marie Celeste in a lifeboat, which was swamped by a large wave that drowned everyone on it. The Doctor left, unaware of the name of the ship he was on. (However as this ship used the spelling Marie Celeste on its nameplate, it may have been a different vessel.) (TVA: A Stitch in Time)
Behind the scenes
- In reality, the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste remains a mystery on par with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
- On the DVD release of The Chase, it's mentioned that some feel the nameplate seen in the episode is misspelled, but the production notes commentary indicates the spelling used is correct.
- Although mostly played for laughs, the scene in which the Daleks force the passengers to jump overboard takes on a sombre note as a baby is shown among those falling into sea, becoming the first, and possibly only, baby to die during the course of a televised Doctor Who story. Other children have been noted to have been killed since, but never a baby.
