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 Daleks in their only comedic appearance in the series, 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 dreaded Daleks have constructed their own space-time machine, and pursue the TARDIS in a wild chase through time and space.

Plot

In the TARDIS the four travellers are huddling around the Time-Space Visualiser, a television-like souvenir from their recent adventure at the Space Museum 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.

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 leave immediately.

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. Two other Daleks soon arrive 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 get back to the TARDIS.

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, 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. The Doctor next reaches the Atlantic Ocean and boards a sailing ship. The crew venture outside and see the Daleks arrive and either exterminate the sailing crew or force them into the sea. As the Doctor’s TARDIS departs it is revealed the ship is the mystical Marie Celeste.

The next point of landing is 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 kill the original and his companions. 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. It is obviously armed, but says it means them no harm so they do as they are bidden and enter the Mechanoid city. Other Mechanoids are there too as is a dishevelled man 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.

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

  • This is the final television story featuring Ian and Barbara
  • This is the first appearance of Steven Taylor

Uncredited Cast

Crew

References

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 bloc 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
  • 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.
  • The Daleks are particularly poetic in this story: Dalek - "Advance and attack! Attack and destroy! Destroy and rejoice!"

Ratings

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

Location Filming

to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • If Frankenstein's monster is just a robot in a funfair then why does it attack the visitors?
  • How come the robots in the funfair are impervious to Dalek firepower?
  • In episode 1, Vicki and Ian cast shadows across the backdrop pained 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.
  • 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.
  • The Dalek's "duplicate" of the Doctor actually looks nothing at all like him. This appears partially intentional, so that the audience can spot the difference, however, the "real" identities of the actors swap around rather randomly.

Continuity

DVD, Video and Other Releases

  • DVD Release Only from BBC shop
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)
This two tape box set includes The Chase and Remembrance of the Daleks
In the UK the tapes were packaged individually with a booklet. They have not been sold separately

Target Novelisations

  • A novelisation of this serial, written by John Peel, was published by Target Books in July 1989. It was the first of several Dalek story novelisations Peel would write after Target came to an agreement with Terry Nation

External Links

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