"Daleks don’t like stairs."
TECHNICAL SPECS: Part 4 of The Chase. First aired Jun.12 1965.
IN THIS ONE... The TARDIS lands in a haunted house, the Daleks follow and get a good scare. Vicki is left behind and stows away the Dalek time machine, where the Daleks are building a robot Doctor.
REVIEW: Director Richard Martin continues to plague the program with technical problems (I mean, why don't they happen on other directors' shifts?). There were hints of this in the previous episode, but it's official - the music is too loud and the actors can't be heard above it, or clearly stray outside the boom mike's range. There are staging problems as well, like the first confrontation between monsters where Frankenstein's Monster blocks our view of the Dalek (thankfully this pseudo-iconic match-up gets a better scene later), or to name another example, making it hard to believe Vicki got aboard the Dalek time machine unseen. And then there's the Doctor's robotic double that doesn't look like Hartnell except in a single, jarring close-up. It's not like Terry Nation's script is making the job any easier! The demands, both physical and financial, on the production team who have to come up with one or two entirely new environments each week is surely having a toll, and the realities of that kind of taped-as-a-play television means Hartnell can't play his double even when they're never in the same scene together. There's just no time to waste cutting camera and having Hartnell move from set to set. You can chalk it up to our all looking the same to the Daleks, but then a close-up of Hartnell ruins the notion.
Though there's only one destination in this episode, it's still built like Flight Through Eternity. There's a first story in the haunted, and then there's the last 10 minutes in which the Daleks work on the Doctor's double. Basically, we have a 15-minute story and 10 minutes of set-up for the next. When Barbara and Vicki tensely open a chest in the house and find it empty, only to be scared by a prop skeleton dropping from the ceiling, I couldn't help but see it as a metaphor for the entire serial. Each episode proposes a premise that could hold some intrigue or danger, but we never stick around long enough for anything to happen and every danger is an empty one (this episode especially, where the monsters are just tourist attractions) and then the real bogeymen fall from the ceiling (the Daleks) and we cut to something else. The haunted mansion has a ghost, Frankie and Count Dracula, and it's not clear how much autonomy they have. They're just there to scare the patrons, but actively fight or antagonize the Daleks. Just like in the previous episode, there's a reveal at the end of the sequence that this is part of a fairgrounds in far future 1996, but the Doctor doesn't know that and strangely continues to believe they landed in a dark corner of the human mind. Bizarre, but see Theories.
The Daleks are suddenly slow to fire when they see Vicki (maybe one of them wants a pet name), and it's hard to believe they don't see her stow aboard their craft, or at least detect her presence inside, especially after she starts using the communications equipment (I wonder if the Dalek Supreme got all those prank calls). Seeing as the TARDIS has never RECEIVED a call, I can't believe Vicki expects a response. And while we're on the subject of things I can't believe, there's the matter of the Doctor, Ian and Barbara not noticing they'd left Vicki behind before dematerializing. "I thought she was with you" is not a good answer when you must have all been in the control room at the start of the journey, even if you went to separate rooms later. Nation is not treating the characters right when he imbues them with this kind of irresponsible thoughtlessness. I do like that this loss becomes a call for action, and that a plan is finally hatched by the heroes, not only to get Vicki back, but to defeat the Daleks as well. And that on the Dalek side too, they're doing more than just locking on the TARDIS and following. Next episode: Something finally happens! (Let's hope.)
THEORIES: The Doctor's theory that the TARDIS has landed in a nightmare, an aggregation of dark dreams pooling together through some mechanism of the collective unconscious, is completely barmy, but later stories will more or less bear out the possibility. The Doctor is aware, even if we are not, of creatures like the Guardians and the Toymaker, who can create imaginary spaces like this. The MInd Robber postulates the Land of Fiction where characters from literature are given physical form. Human imagination is a force in the Whoniverse, one that certain beings can tap into, and that the TARDIS, on rare occasions, can access from the time vortex. This wasn't one of those times, but it serves as a promise.
REWATCHABILITY: Low - I really don't want these reviews to turn into a meeting of the Nitpickers' Guild, but when the story is this flimsy, the flaws are all that keep your interest.
TECHNICAL SPECS: Part 4 of The Chase. First aired Jun.12 1965.IN THIS ONE... The TARDIS lands in a haunted house, the Daleks follow and get a good scare. Vicki is left behind and stows away the Dalek time machine, where the Daleks are building a robot Doctor.
REVIEW: Director Richard Martin continues to plague the program with technical problems (I mean, why don't they happen on other directors' shifts?). There were hints of this in the previous episode, but it's official - the music is too loud and the actors can't be heard above it, or clearly stray outside the boom mike's range. There are staging problems as well, like the first confrontation between monsters where Frankenstein's Monster blocks our view of the Dalek (thankfully this pseudo-iconic match-up gets a better scene later), or to name another example, making it hard to believe Vicki got aboard the Dalek time machine unseen. And then there's the Doctor's robotic double that doesn't look like Hartnell except in a single, jarring close-up. It's not like Terry Nation's script is making the job any easier! The demands, both physical and financial, on the production team who have to come up with one or two entirely new environments each week is surely having a toll, and the realities of that kind of taped-as-a-play television means Hartnell can't play his double even when they're never in the same scene together. There's just no time to waste cutting camera and having Hartnell move from set to set. You can chalk it up to our all looking the same to the Daleks, but then a close-up of Hartnell ruins the notion.
Though there's only one destination in this episode, it's still built like Flight Through Eternity. There's a first story in the haunted, and then there's the last 10 minutes in which the Daleks work on the Doctor's double. Basically, we have a 15-minute story and 10 minutes of set-up for the next. When Barbara and Vicki tensely open a chest in the house and find it empty, only to be scared by a prop skeleton dropping from the ceiling, I couldn't help but see it as a metaphor for the entire serial. Each episode proposes a premise that could hold some intrigue or danger, but we never stick around long enough for anything to happen and every danger is an empty one (this episode especially, where the monsters are just tourist attractions) and then the real bogeymen fall from the ceiling (the Daleks) and we cut to something else. The haunted mansion has a ghost, Frankie and Count Dracula, and it's not clear how much autonomy they have. They're just there to scare the patrons, but actively fight or antagonize the Daleks. Just like in the previous episode, there's a reveal at the end of the sequence that this is part of a fairgrounds in far future 1996, but the Doctor doesn't know that and strangely continues to believe they landed in a dark corner of the human mind. Bizarre, but see Theories.
The Daleks are suddenly slow to fire when they see Vicki (maybe one of them wants a pet name), and it's hard to believe they don't see her stow aboard their craft, or at least detect her presence inside, especially after she starts using the communications equipment (I wonder if the Dalek Supreme got all those prank calls). Seeing as the TARDIS has never RECEIVED a call, I can't believe Vicki expects a response. And while we're on the subject of things I can't believe, there's the matter of the Doctor, Ian and Barbara not noticing they'd left Vicki behind before dematerializing. "I thought she was with you" is not a good answer when you must have all been in the control room at the start of the journey, even if you went to separate rooms later. Nation is not treating the characters right when he imbues them with this kind of irresponsible thoughtlessness. I do like that this loss becomes a call for action, and that a plan is finally hatched by the heroes, not only to get Vicki back, but to defeat the Daleks as well. And that on the Dalek side too, they're doing more than just locking on the TARDIS and following. Next episode: Something finally happens! (Let's hope.)
THEORIES: The Doctor's theory that the TARDIS has landed in a nightmare, an aggregation of dark dreams pooling together through some mechanism of the collective unconscious, is completely barmy, but later stories will more or less bear out the possibility. The Doctor is aware, even if we are not, of creatures like the Guardians and the Toymaker, who can create imaginary spaces like this. The MInd Robber postulates the Land of Fiction where characters from literature are given physical form. Human imagination is a force in the Whoniverse, one that certain beings can tap into, and that the TARDIS, on rare occasions, can access from the time vortex. This wasn't one of those times, but it serves as a promise.
REWATCHABILITY: Low - I really don't want these reviews to turn into a meeting of the Nitpickers' Guild, but when the story is this flimsy, the flaws are all that keep your interest.
Comments
So true. :D
I personally have no clue about the work process behind TV series, especially back then, but the Richard Martin episodes are always plagued by technical hiccups, poor picture framing, generally poor staging and even some irritating continuity. I really was surprised in the second episode when those fish people appeared. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention, but they came out of the blue for me.
But to be fair, I thought the outdoor location work in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" was really well done, like the escape sequence with Barbara, Jenny(?) and the guy in the wheelchair or the one where Barbara drives over some daleks.
That's definitely out-there. Daleks have certainly been souped-up over the years, or are they trapped in someone's fevered imagination-based construct and unaware of that?