N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
The Beatles and Doctor Who: two of my favourite things! There’s something quite thrilling about seeing them together, however brief the appearance of the Fab Four on the Time-Space Visualiser is. There’s also something quite neat about the fact that, in what is his and Barbara’s final story, two years’ travel in the TARDIS hasn’t diminished Ian’s ear for a good pop tune.
“It certainly stimulates the phagocytes.”
Ian, Journey Through Terror
The Chase is a story of moments – some good, some bad – only very loosely held together by its titular pursuit through time and space: Barbara’s wardrobe takes another knock as she loses another cardie to one of Ian’s escape schemes (‘Not again’, she says in a nod to The Space Museum); the Doctor lets slip that he built the TARDIS – a comment that perhaps seems more important in hindsight than it was deemed at the time; the Daleks land (again or for the first time?) on the Empire State Building, clear the decks of the Mary Celeste and come a cropper in a very odd episode set in a haunted house.
But, in what (so far at least) must be my favourite moment of laugh-out-loud silliness, the Daleks construct a robot Doctor of which they proudly boast: “It is impossible to distinguish from the original”. Replace ‘impossible to distinguish’ with ‘completely and utterly different’ and you have some idea of the lack of resemblance the robot possesses for the Doctor.
Indeed the Daleks’ threat seems to have diminished considerably since their debut with their dialogue now repetitive and tedious and their seeming to have difficulty fending off the torpid giant mushrooms of Mechanus. To be fair, so do our travellers, especially Vicki, but still …
“Oh, what’s two years amongst friends? We’re home!”
Ian, The Planet of Decision
And yet, perhaps apt in a story that has its moments without ever really hanging together, it is the ending that stands out. I thought it’d be difficult for the show to pack a bigger punch than Susan’s leaving, but Ian and Barbara’s return to Earth, joyous for them, sad for the Doctor (although he tries to hide it behind bluster and anger), gives it a run for its money. I do wonder though what story they do end up giving to their friends and family to explain their two years’ absence.
As the camera pulls back to reveal the Doctor and Vicki have been watching them on the Time-Space Visualiser (a nice touch I thought given the story started with the travellers using it) the Doctor declares “I shall miss them.”
As indeed shall I.
