N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

If you thought that dimension-slipping, non-linear story-telling didn’t arrive in Doctor Who until the twenty-first century, you’d be wrong!

The Space Museum begins with an extraordinary first episode in which our travellers arrive before (or is that after) they’ve arrived, leaving no footprints and apparently destined to die. It’s a genuinely odd and innovative episode, one to which my initial reaction some twenty years ago was simply ‘Wow!’. Unfortunately, the received wisdom, including my own memory of the serial, is that, after this first episode, The Space Museum settles down into three episodes of deadly dull runaround.

“The least important things, my dear boy, sometimes lead to the greatest discoveries.”

The Doctor, The Dimensions of Time

Yet, that’s not the whole story. In the subsequent episodes, there’s some musing by our protagonists whether their fate will be a product of self-determination or pre-determinism, there’s also some musing on our part as to why the Xerons look so permanently startled or why the Moroks look like the universe’s worst Liberace tribute act … and yes, there is some deadly dull running around.

But the Doctor is rather marvellous in this, as are all the regulars. Vicki helps foment a revolution, Ian reckons he might enjoy killing the Moroks, and Barbara ruins a perfectly good cardie.

There’s also a lovely moment in the opening episode where Ian realises the comment he makes about not seeing the Daleks again might bring back painful memories for the Doctor of the last time they encountered them – it’s something I’ve missed on previous viewings, but watching the stories in order puts that moment into context. Given what happens after they leave the museum, it also acts as a nice bit of dramatic irony. Yes, all things considered, that first episode really is great!

And the rest? Not as bad as I’d remembered.