DOCTOR WHO, SEASON 2 SERIAL 8:

THE CHASE

Doctor: First (William Hartnell)

Companions: Ian, Barbara, Vicki

And introducing...Steven Taylor

April 2023

Now this is a fun romp.

The Chase is not the final story of the second season of Doctor Who, but it feels rather like a season finale: extravagant plot beats, high stakes and drama, the Daleks are even here! Then again, season finales didn’t really...exist at this point in time, so it rather makes sense that it’s the penultimate episode instead.

I quite like The Chase: it’s not without its flaws to be sure, and unfortunately it’s been too long since I’ve seen The Dalek Invasion of Earth to check how well it measures up to that one (which I remember also quite enjoying, except for how it dealt with Susan’s character) — but this is a strong showing from the Daleks’ third appearance.

The Chase, like The Keys of Marinus before it, is another divided-up six-parter. The first two parts take place on an alien planet whose name I’ve already forgotten; the third and fourth are standalone bits, where the travelers enter at the episode’s beginning and have left by the end, and the fifth and sixth form another chunk on their own. By and large I think this is a great way to handle the six-part format, which has a tendency (for me) to drag on otherwise. ...I am already somewhat dreading next season’s The Daleks’ Master Plan, which comes in at a whopping twelve episodes. But The Chase doesn’t fall into these potholes, and it also more or less avoids (with the possible exception of Episode 3) the problems The Keys of Marinus had with pacing being too fast. Let’s go through the chunks in order.

The first two parts are pretty fine! The TARDIS goes to a desert planet, which used to be a sea planet—that’s a pretty neat idea! The aliens here are some fish people whose names I also forget, and they’re...fine. It looks like they’re played by dancers. The Mire Beasts (big tentacle frogs) are okay. The bit about the TARDIS locator is really nice here, and of course, the fact that the Daleks show up to ruin everyone’s day by surprise. The stuff with the Daleks is the best stuff in these first two episodes, I think: they first see them with the Time-Space Visualizer (“you can see any event throughout time and space!”) which tunes in to watching the Daleks plan to track down the TARDIS...but since that’s in the past, that means they’ve already begun. And then suddenly everyone is in high-alert mode and they need to leave, now, but Ian and Vicki have already gone off somewhere and now there’s a sandstorm and everything goes to shit. It’s a strong way to ratchet up the tension, even if it’s built up to by a couple apparently unnecessary historical scenes. The escape from the Daleks at the end is also pretty solid.

The overall arc of the serial is one that I don’t think Doctor Who ever did again? Which is a shame, because it’s a really good arc. The idea that the TARDIS is not just casually flying through the universe, but actively being chased through the timestream—obviously, it requires a certain perhaps mildly illogical viewing of time travel for the logistics of it to work, but frankly, who cares? The TARDIS is being tracked and chased by the Daleks (“down the same timestream as us!”), and that’s all that matters! This is also, incidentally, the first time the Daleks actually land on the catchphrase of “exterminate!” And it’s quite good. Later in the story they also go with the repeated lines “Advance and attack! Attack and destroy! Destroy and rejoice!” which aren’t as catchy, but I do like for how they give the Daleks a little bit more characterization.

Episodes 3 and 4 are the weak middle of this story: episode 3 sees the travelers ducking around the Empire State Building and the Mary Celeste, and leaving shortly before the Daleks show up. Apart from this being (to the best of my knowledge) the first explanation of an event in Earth history on the show (which we’ll be seeing a Lot of later down the line), and some fun lines by Vicki about NYC being “ancient New York”, it tends to drag a bit, especially with an Alabaman with a truly bizarre accent being given a weirdly large amount of screentime. The Daleks also ascend some stairs offscreen on the Mary Celeste.

Episode 4 is slightly more interesting—here the travelers end up in a spooky haunted house! Which is...fine. It’s very fun to see all four of them get freaked. And here (finally again!) the Daleks once again catch up to them! And...get whomped by Frankenstein’s monster! Really there’s three things to note here. Firstly, the explanation for where they are, because I think this is the first time they’re just blatantly incorrect in the show’s canon and never find out: the Doctor seems quite sure after a little while that they’ve landed in a manifestation of humanity’s collective unconscious: the archetypal haunted house. But then after they leave it’s revealed that this was an actual haunted house which was just abandoned, which is kinda great. Secondly, Vicki gets separated. I don’t think this happens again like ever maybe?? But Vicki fully gets left behind because they’re in such a rush to escape the Daleks and they each thought she was with someone else. Not only does this lead to some nice characterization where they all mourn and then start trying to figure out how to get back to her (“if we steal the Daleks’ machine, we can go back again! we just have to defeat the Daleks!”), it also lets Vicki get a little time in the spotlight, because she stows away aboard the Dalek ship and witnesses one of (I think) this story’s best features: the Daleks making a robot Doctor to impersonate them.

About half the time, the robot Doctor isn’t played by William Hartnell, which is a little odd, because the actor who does play him (who was apparently Hartnell’s body double in an earlier story) doesn’t really look that similar. But about half the time it is Hartnell, so it looks okay overall. But I am a sap for this sort of find-the-fake plotline, and it comes to a head in the next episode.

The last two episodes have them land on the planet Mechanus, which is a weird fungus forest on the bottom (the mushroom trees look fine, but a little silly when they start uh. attacking people) and an elaborate, empty city on top (doctor who LOVES fancy empty cities). More or less, the first episode has them on the ground and the second up top.

The three travelers arrive without Vicki and prepare to fight the Daleks so they can go back and find her—but then Vicki arrives too, and she’s the only one who knows about the robot Doctor, and all four (five?) of them are lost in this big forest, and it’s a very good start. And it has quite a good finish, too! Ian and the Doctor go off, but then the fake Doctor comes to meet Barbara; Vicki meets up with Ian and the Doctor and they find Barbara missing, and then The Scene happens. You know the one. There’s always one. The two duplicates come up in front of the others and can’t prove which one is which, and so the others have to decide. And William Hartnell does (I think) a very good job of it. Especially when they choose the wrong Doctor, and Ian goes to fight the real Doctor! Bash him on the head with a rock! (That’s what the fake Doctor says.) And the resolution is also quite good—the fake Doctor calls Vicki “Susan” and there’s a moment where they know. And then two old men beat each other up with their canes! And the fake Doctor Who is defeated. :) I like this a lot.

Wow there’s a lot going on in this story. The last episode gives us The Mechanoids, who are big round robots with flamethrowers. I think they’re alright. They have tiny little arms. More compellingly, it introduces us to Steven Taylor, who is (shhh) going to be the next companion. Their escape from the city is quite nice too—they have to climb down an intensely long cable, and even though the actual climbing is skipped somewhat, it’s made up for by the fact that the place goes up in flames while they’re escaping (from the Daleks and the Mechanoids fighting, plus the travelers’ anti-Dalek explosive) and Vicki’s quite compellingly-acted extreme fear of heights. I feel her. I get it.

Steven is a fun guy! I was a little afraid, because I didn’t know shit about him going into it and sometimes companions are...not compelling (Mike Yates did not have the best first scene in The Mind of Evil), but he’s a nice guy! He’s even got the rugged adventurer look going with his stubble, which is really funny. I’m looking forward to seeing more of him!

At the end of the episode, though, we have maybe a more important milestone: Ian and Barbara leaving the TARDIS. They take the Daleks’ time machine back to London, 1965 (and then blow it up in a parking garage). This sequence easily takes up maybe a third of the episode, from them making the decision to leave to the last shot we get of them, on the London bus, and the whole farewell sequence is frankly some of the best character acting we’ve had on this show so far. It’s emotional! It got me!! The Doctor and Vicki are so sad to see them go—but they’ve got to get home. And, perhaps for fear of the episode coming off too depressingly, we’re shown a whole montage of Ian and Barbara enjoying themselves in London, 1965 (only two years out! “What’s two years among friends?”), complete with Trafalgar Square and double-decker buses and everything. Then it's revealed that the Doctor and Vicki are watching them enjoy themselves on the Space-Time Visualizer. It’s a really sweet and compelling sendoff for the last two of the original TARDIS crew. Man. I’m gonna miss them.

One last note is that, while Steven does evidently make it down off the city, we’re not actually shown him entering the TARDIS before it leaves! Presumably he stowed away? I don’t know, because I haven’t seen the next episode (Steven’s first as full companion duty), but it’s kind of a weird lack of resolution. Oh well.

Overall Thoughts:

I really enjoyed The Chase. A strong high concept and snappy pace keep up the tension even despite a rather slow middle, and Ian and Barbara’s sendoff is as strong (or stronger!) than any of the companion departures in the new show, which feels like a powerful feat. Overall, I’m inclined to rate this one higher than even The Dalek Invasion of Earth, because (while that one was at least a little more subdued and dramatic as far as I recall) this one has two points above it. Firstly, it is pacier, despite lasting the same amount of time. And secondly, its companion-departure storyline is so much better than Susan’s. Poor Susan never really got a chance to shine in the same way Vicki or Ian and Barbara have, which is a damn shame. But that aside, The Chase is decidedly enjoyable. Watch it if you want a nice light-hearted romp—in fact, this was originally bundled on DVD and VHS with The Space Museum, so why not watch them back-to-back, for an encapsulation of some of the best of this TARDIS crew?

Next up, we finally get to see Steven do some stuff, and meet the first other member of the Doctor’s species in The Time Meddler.