Not only does the opening episode of Terry Nation's six-part anthology epic include some rare scenes of life inside the TARDIS, but it also includes an extended sequence with the Time-Space Visualizer (never to be seen again!), allowing the TARDIS crew to watch such historical events as The Beatles playing on Top of the Pops (the only surviving clip of that gig), Shakespeare talking with Queen Victoria (both to be seen again!) or the Gettysburg address - scenes that are completely irrelevant to the rest of the plot but somehow very fascinating nonetheless.
The last two episodes on Mechanus provide some good sci-fi adventure. Granted, these episodes are a rehash of the far superior story The Daleks (1963-1964), but there's some nice production design here and the concept of the imposter Doctor is good on paper, as is the futuristic city of the Mechanoids and the battle between them and the Daleks.
CHARACTERS & ACTING: 11
If there is one thing that truly works with The Chase, it is the naturally warm character relations between the main cast members. Vicki feels like a full-fledged part of the team by now and Barbara and Ian are so closely knitted to the Doctor's world that their departure by the end of the story truly hits all the feels.
The Doctor taking offence to Barbara apparently calling his singing awful or him running scared from a Frankenstein's monster robot, not to speak of Morton Dill's doofus dialogue or the stuttering Dalek - whether by design or accidentally, Terry Nation provides a script that occasionally makes me giggle (mostly out of spite, but anyway).
Crammed into the final few minutes of the last episode, Ian and Barbara's departure feels very sudden, but it's filled with genuine emotion from a heartbroken William Hartnell bidding his farewell (in what is a top-three acting moment from the man on this show). Seeing these two close friends get the happy ending they deserve still makes their exit one of the best the show has ever done.
Morton Dill is so bad he's good. The unnecessary supporting role in Part Three landed Peter Purves the new companion role three episodes later and that terrible accent and goofy persona is something to remember, for better and for worse.
New companion Steven (played by the aforementioned Purves in the fastest return of a guest actor in the history of television) is energetic and likeable, making the last episode of this serial worth the watch. Yes, he's shoehorned in just to introduce him as the new series regular, but Purves seems to put his heart into the performance.
There's something clever about the impostor Doctor. He is antagonistic and selfish, much like the Doctor was when we first met him in An Unearthly Child (1963); a clever callback to how much the character has developed in just two seasons. How no one noticed the difference between him and the real Doctor is a real mystery though.
ATMOSPHERE: 2
The narrative remains fresh and unexpecting in its silliness, which makes this one of the better flowing six-parters in Doctor Who history.
This is also known as the time Doctor Who decided to start parodying itself. Nation's intention was probably to provide a fun-time lighthearted adventure featuring the Daleks, but the blend of a nonsensical plot, very tongue-in-cheek performances, silly concepts and that strange, jazzy circus score makes this feel more of a spoof than an actual, serious adventure within the show's canon.
Terry Nation is a lazy writer. With The Chase, Nation yet again repeats himself by essentially copy-pasting elements from his previous scripts: the idea of changing settings for each episode is taken from The Keys of Marinus (1964), while the cliffhanger to Part One is a shameless copy of the cliffhanger to Part One of The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and the Mechanus episodes are like a compressed version of The Daleks. Add to that his decision to include another secondary monster of little value (the Slyther vs the Mire Beasts, or, perhaps worse, the Fungoids!) and his biggest selling point, the "new Daleks" also known as the Mechonoids. And what is up with all these cringeworthy episode titles (The Death of Time! The Death of Doctor Who!)?
The problem with anthology stories is that we visit so many times and places throughout the six episodes that none of the settings come truly alive or feels particularly important to the story (with the possible exception of Mechanus).
Part Three is a mess of an episode, featuring additions to canon (the Doctor built the TARDIS??!), the making of history (the disappearance of the Mary Celeste), a nonsensical plot, non-sonic screwdrivers, a Dalek screaming like a human as it plunges into the water (sigh!) and terrible American accents (brought to you by Peter Purves). This is probably one of the weirdest, messiest and "funniest" episodes in Doctor Who history.
What is Part Four supposed to achieve? This trek through a house of horrors is ... interesting to say the least, and proves to be a low point for the Daleks. This entire episode is, in fact, a low point for the series up to his point.
CHARACTERS & ACTING: -5
Vicki's characterization is all over the place. One second she is eerily close to Susan, the other she's more of the seemingly intelligent kind she is meant to be. It's as if Terry Nation wasn't told about the fact that Carole Ann Ford wasn't on the show anymore (despite, you know, writing her out in his previous story!).
The Daleks in The Chase are made ridiculous for no reason. Gone are the Nazi allegories, larger-than-life plots and cold-blooded murders. What's left are hopeless shells of stuttering and one-liner-dropping dustbins.
The Mechanoids are a concept that works only on paper. They are big and clumsy, with terribly annoying voices and lack any of the character or authority of the Daleks. It's no wonder they ended up being another failed attempt at recreating the success of the Daleks.
ATMOSPHERE: -2
The first two episodes are dull and go nowhere, the middle two episodes are laughable and pointless and the final two are trying too hard to recreate The Daleks on a smaller scale. None of it truly amazes me the way the best Doctor Who episodes do.
There are no real stakes at play. The Daleks are so hopelessly lost in their pursuit of the Doctor and the other dangers faced by the TARDIS crew are so stupid that there's not an inch of tension in the plot.
PRODUCTION: -3
Most ideas fall flat due to bad execution. The Visualizer is a concept never used for anything substantial; the action direction on Mary Celeste and in the house of horrors is messy and sloppy and the Doctors robot clone doesn't look like Hartnell and falls on amateurish sound design and editing. The way they edit between Hartnell and his stand-in is so jarringly bad that a three-year-old would have done a better job using nothing but MS Paint!
Richard Martin's direction simply isn't good enough. The house of horrors sequence is made worse by Martin's directorial decisions and the frankly impressive set used for Mechanus is likewise made less impressive by the fact that Martin doesn't know how to direct the characters acting on it.
Review by Theo KallströmVIP 6BlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-15T18:28:53Z
:pray_tone2:57% :thumbsup:15 :thumbsdown:20
STORY: 2
Not only does the opening episode of Terry Nation's six-part anthology epic include some rare scenes of life inside the TARDIS, but it also includes an extended sequence with the Time-Space Visualizer (never to be seen again!), allowing the TARDIS crew to watch such historical events as The Beatles playing on Top of the Pops (the only surviving clip of that gig), Shakespeare talking with Queen Victoria (both to be seen again!) or the Gettysburg address - scenes that are completely irrelevant to the rest of the plot but somehow very fascinating nonetheless.
The last two episodes on Mechanus provide some good sci-fi adventure. Granted, these episodes are a rehash of the far superior story The Daleks (1963-1964), but there's some nice production design here and the concept of the imposter Doctor is good on paper, as is the futuristic city of the Mechanoids and the battle between them and the Daleks.
CHARACTERS & ACTING: 11
If there is one thing that truly works with The Chase, it is the naturally warm character relations between the main cast members. Vicki feels like a full-fledged part of the team by now and Barbara and Ian are so closely knitted to the Doctor's world that their departure by the end of the story truly hits all the feels.
The Doctor taking offence to Barbara apparently calling his singing awful or him running scared from a Frankenstein's monster robot, not to speak of Morton Dill's doofus dialogue or the stuttering Dalek - whether by design or accidentally, Terry Nation provides a script that occasionally makes me giggle (mostly out of spite, but anyway).
Crammed into the final few minutes of the last episode, Ian and Barbara's departure feels very sudden, but it's filled with genuine emotion from a heartbroken William Hartnell bidding his farewell (in what is a top-three acting moment from the man on this show). Seeing these two close friends get the happy ending they deserve still makes their exit one of the best the show has ever done.
Morton Dill is so bad he's good. The unnecessary supporting role in Part Three landed Peter Purves the new companion role three episodes later and that terrible accent and goofy persona is something to remember, for better and for worse.
New companion Steven (played by the aforementioned Purves in the fastest return of a guest actor in the history of television) is energetic and likeable, making the last episode of this serial worth the watch. Yes, he's shoehorned in just to introduce him as the new series regular, but Purves seems to put his heart into the performance.
There's something clever about the impostor Doctor. He is antagonistic and selfish, much like the Doctor was when we first met him in An Unearthly Child (1963); a clever callback to how much the character has developed in just two seasons. How no one noticed the difference between him and the real Doctor is a real mystery though.
ATMOSPHERE: 2
The narrative remains fresh and unexpecting in its silliness, which makes this one of the better flowing six-parters in Doctor Who history.
:thumbsup::thumbsdown::thumbsup::thumbsdown::thumbsup::thumbsdown::thumbsup::thumbsdown::thumbsup::thumbsdown::thumbsup::thumbsdown::thumbsup:
STORY: -10
This is also known as the time Doctor Who decided to start parodying itself. Nation's intention was probably to provide a fun-time lighthearted adventure featuring the Daleks, but the blend of a nonsensical plot, very tongue-in-cheek performances, silly concepts and that strange, jazzy circus score makes this feel more of a spoof than an actual, serious adventure within the show's canon.
Terry Nation is a lazy writer. With The Chase, Nation yet again repeats himself by essentially copy-pasting elements from his previous scripts: the idea of changing settings for each episode is taken from The Keys of Marinus (1964), while the cliffhanger to Part One is a shameless copy of the cliffhanger to Part One of The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and the Mechanus episodes are like a compressed version of The Daleks. Add to that his decision to include another secondary monster of little value (the Slyther vs the Mire Beasts, or, perhaps worse, the Fungoids!) and his biggest selling point, the "new Daleks" also known as the Mechonoids. And what is up with all these cringeworthy episode titles (The Death of Time! The Death of Doctor Who!)?
The problem with anthology stories is that we visit so many times and places throughout the six episodes that none of the settings come truly alive or feels particularly important to the story (with the possible exception of Mechanus).
Part Three is a mess of an episode, featuring additions to canon (the Doctor built the TARDIS??!), the making of history (the disappearance of the Mary Celeste), a nonsensical plot, non-sonic screwdrivers, a Dalek screaming like a human as it plunges into the water (sigh!) and terrible American accents (brought to you by Peter Purves). This is probably one of the weirdest, messiest and "funniest" episodes in Doctor Who history.
What is Part Four supposed to achieve? This trek through a house of horrors is ... interesting to say the least, and proves to be a low point for the Daleks. This entire episode is, in fact, a low point for the series up to his point.
CHARACTERS & ACTING: -5
Vicki's characterization is all over the place. One second she is eerily close to Susan, the other she's more of the seemingly intelligent kind she is meant to be. It's as if Terry Nation wasn't told about the fact that Carole Ann Ford wasn't on the show anymore (despite, you know, writing her out in his previous story!).
The Daleks in The Chase are made ridiculous for no reason. Gone are the Nazi allegories, larger-than-life plots and cold-blooded murders. What's left are hopeless shells of stuttering and one-liner-dropping dustbins.
The Mechanoids are a concept that works only on paper. They are big and clumsy, with terribly annoying voices and lack any of the character or authority of the Daleks. It's no wonder they ended up being another failed attempt at recreating the success of the Daleks.
ATMOSPHERE: -2
The first two episodes are dull and go nowhere, the middle two episodes are laughable and pointless and the final two are trying too hard to recreate The Daleks on a smaller scale. None of it truly amazes me the way the best Doctor Who episodes do.
There are no real stakes at play. The Daleks are so hopelessly lost in their pursuit of the Doctor and the other dangers faced by the TARDIS crew are so stupid that there's not an inch of tension in the plot.
PRODUCTION: -3
Most ideas fall flat due to bad execution. The Visualizer is a concept never used for anything substantial; the action direction on Mary Celeste and in the house of horrors is messy and sloppy and the Doctors robot clone doesn't look like Hartnell and falls on amateurish sound design and editing. The way they edit between Hartnell and his stand-in is so jarringly bad that a three-year-old would have done a better job using nothing but MS Paint!
Richard Martin's direction simply isn't good enough. The house of horrors sequence is made worse by Martin's directorial decisions and the frankly impressive set used for Mechanus is likewise made less impressive by the fact that Martin doesn't know how to direct the characters acting on it.