CLASSIC Dr Who Essentials Discussion

[Antilles]

Wow, the weekend is upon us again and I forgot to add a poll a few days ago to see what we could watch this week, but I guess it would be The Chase which was equal with last weeks story. Ok, Ill just fill in the gaps of what the Tardis crew got up to since Susan left at the end of 'Dalek Invasion'.

 

Story 11 - The Rescue

 

Plot

 

Arriving on the planet Dido in the late 25th Century, the time travellers come upon a crashed spaceship from Earth. Its two occupants - a paralysed man named Bennett and a young girl, Vicki - are living in fear of a creature called Koquillion, a native whose people have apparently killed the other members of the human expedition.

 

However, the Doctor quickly deduces that Koquillion is in fact Bennett in disguise; it was he who killed the others in order to conceal an earlier murder he had committed on the ship.

 

Confronted by two of the humanoid Dido natives - whom he thought he had completely wiped out - Bennett falls from a high rock ledge to his death. As Vicki's father was amongst the murdered crewmen and she is now an orphan, the Doctor offers her a place aboard the TARDIS.

 

Story 12 - The Romans

 

Plot

 

The four time travellers are enjoying a rare holiday, staying at a villa not far from Rome in the year 64 AD. The Doctor soon becomes restless and sets off to visit the city, taking Vicki with him. In their absence, Ian and Barbara are kidnapped by slave traders.

 

Having been mistaken for the famous lyre player Maximus Pettulian and asked to perform at the Emperor Nero's Court, the Doctor has to devise ever more elaborate schemes to avoid revealing that he cannot actually play the instrument.

 

Ian meanwhile becomes a galley slave, while Barbara is sold to Nero's slave buyer Tavius at an auction in Rome. Ian and a fellow slave named Delos escape from the galley when it is wrecked in a storm and make their way to Rome to try to find and rescue Barbara.

 

There they are recaptured and forced to fight as gladiators in the arena. Events reach their climax when, by accidentally setting light to the Emperor's plans for the rebuilding of Rome, the Doctor gives him the idea of having the city razed to the ground. Nero plays the lyre while Rome burns, and the Doctor and Vicki and a reunited Ian and Barbara make their separate ways back to the villa.

 

Story 13 - The Web Planet

 

Plot

 

A strange power drain forces the TARDIS to materialise on the planet Vortis. There, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki become involved in the plans of the butterfly-like Menoptra to reclaim their planet from the parasitic Animus that is slowly enveloping it with its web-like domain, the Carsenome.

 

Joining forces with an advance party of Menoptra and the underground-dwelling Optra, the travellers manage to destroy the Animus, freeing the ant-like Zarbi and death-spitting larvae guns from its control and releasing the TARDIS from its influence.

 

Story 14 - The Crusade

 

Plot

 

The TARDIS arrives in 12th Century Palestine where a holy war is in progress between the forces of King Richard the Lionheart and the Saracen ruler Saladin. Barbara is abducted in a Saracen ambush and the Doctor, Ian and Vicki make their way to King Richard's palace in the city of Jaffa. Ian is granted permission to ride in search of Barbara - the King knighting him Sir Ian of Jaffa to fit him for the role - while the Doctor and Vicki stay behind and try to avoid getting involved in court politics.

 

King Richard secretly plans to marry his sister Joanna to Saladin's brother Saphadin in order to bring the war to an end, but Joanna finds out about this and refuses. The Doctor and his young ward are forced to flee after making an enemy of the King's adviser, the Earl of Leicester.

 

Ian has meanwhile rescued Barbara from the clutches of the vicious Saracen emir El Akir. All four meet up in the wood where the TARDIS materialised and narrowly manage to escape the Earl of Leicester's men.

 

Story 15 - The Space Museum

 

Plot

 

The TARDIS jumps a time track and the travellers arrive on the planet Xeros. There they discover their own future selves displayed as exhibits in a museum established as a monument to the galactic conquests of the warlike Morok invaders who now rule the planet. When time shifts back to normal, they realise that they must do everything they can to try to avert this potential future.

 

Vicki helps the native Xerons to obtain arms and thereby to revolt against the Moroks. The revolution succeeds and the travellers go on their way, confident that the future has been changed.

 

Story 16 - The Chase

 

Plot

 

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 robot 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.

 

I recently read a really bad review on 'The Chase', the reviewer really tore it to bits, saying it was one of the worst stories ever. I dunno who he was but I really enjoyed the story, again, a little long but not as long as others. I didnt care much for the first planet they arrived in, the Aridians were really badly designed and the acting a bit lame but hey, being chased through time was quite exciting even by todays story standards, the Daleks gaining on them at every stop and they knew theyd have to stop and fight at some point. Seeing Peter 'Blue Peter' Purves appear as a 'dumbed down' american tourist when they landed on top of the Empire State and then add him as a new companion at the end of the story was pretty bad casting IMHO, but I suppose thats the BBC budget for the day. Vicki I never really liked as a companion, I duinno why, maybe she reminds me of an annoying sister (of which I have 5). The mechanoids were pretty well designed, very large too, I thought theyd become a formidable enemy for the Daleks but we never saw em again unfortunately.

 

Sad to see Ian and Barbara leave but Ive always been intrigued as to how theyd explain their absence from normal life in London for 2-3 years, did they go back to school to teach, I wonder what their explanation was. Hehe! So, thats the original TARDIS crew all gone barring the Doc himself.

 

What are your thoughts on this story, are the Daleks more or less evil than normal? How did they acquire Time Technology and how/when did they stop using it in future stories. We dont see them again until the Doctor regenerates but well see the wonderful cybermen before that, looking forward to it! Next week, The Time Meddler or jump to The Tenth Planet & see The Doc change into Troughton? Its up to you!

 

PS I think this story is still available in the usual sci-fi sites, if you havent seen it yet....enjoy! See ya soon!

[coolcat13]

this story was magnificent for the time in which it was made .There were some gaps left in it like how the Daleks found out that the Dr was a time traveler and that he was traveling in the TARDIS . though they were aware of his superior intelligence this was something that was never brought up beforehand . It could have been a time travel thing though where his future incarnations led the Daleks to go after this Dr . So that can be solved in retrospect .

Yes it was sad to see the rest of the original cast leave and i was not particularly fond of the replacements .

At this point I think that the Dr had become the center stage of the show and really up to this point the show was as much about Ian and Barbara as it was about the Dr .

my favorite part about this show is the time chase and how the TARDIS was outgunned by the Dalek time machine .It really was the first time that the Dr was at a technological disadvantage to the Daleks and he was able to out smart and out luck them .

[coolcat13]

BTW would seriously consider just doing one or two Troughton shows then getting into the colored versions of Dr Who IE the Pertwee series

[Fenriswolf]

I think that will be a lot more interesting to newer fans as well cat, so I would go with that idea myself.

[Potato]

:rolleyes: Yeah, if the newer fans don't give a crap about the Black n White ones, Who says they'll care any more about pertwee or any of the others? They're in color...ooooohh, big freaking deal. I say we skip right to the horns of Nimon and show them exactly what crap looked like in the 70's so they can recognize it in the 2000's. Not every episode or Doctor is going to be interesting to every one. Besides other than the Auton stories what real interest is there for Pertwee. "I'm James Bond as the Doctor and just to out american the americans I have a massive vehicle chase in my swan song." If the minimalist chase scene in 96 drew so much flak why didn't that? (Takes tongue out of cheek to talk about the topic of this thread.) :p

 

The chase was a well written if not well realized story. The Daleks are cunning, thet make a duplicate of the Doctor (even if the actor didn't quite match up), smart, they have time travel with dimensional trancendentalism (obviously placing this story after Remembrance of the Daleks) and they are completely viscious, exterminating everything in sight (even the robots at the world's fair). Ian and Barbara finally get home and the companions that are traveling with the Doctor now actually want to be there (even if there're not quite as good). The mechanoids are a good idea if a bit clumsly designed and the Daleks finally meet a menace that could prove equal to the task of eliminating them. The mechanoids in this respect are a forerunner of the Movellans.

 

All in all a great time (if you can overlook the design flaws)!!!! B)

[Fenriswolf]

I was gonna say Potato, say how you really feel ;) - just kidding, I can see what you mean. I never really saw the Bond parellel until just now, thanks for pointing that one out.