2.7: The Space Museum
- Doctor: William Hartnell
- Companions: Vicki, Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton
- Creators: Verity Lambert (Producer), Glyn Jones (Writer), Mervyn Pinfield (Director)
- Season 2
What's the rating?
1/4 Worth Watching.
What's interesting about it?
The time travelers begin their dematerialization in the time of The Crusades, wearing period-appropriate clothing. Yet when they materialize they are wearing their normal clothes. Over the next few minutes several other strange and inexplicable events occur, culminating in coming across themselves displayed as museum exhibits -- not wax copies but their actual bodies.
The first episode is a perfect science fiction mystery, presenting an intriguing puzzle and exploring the ramifications while only slowly letting us in on what is happening. The cliffhanger is quite good, and my rating is pretty much based on the strength of this episode alone.
The remaining episodes fail to live up to the initial promise (an understatement) and are mostly composed of running through corridors avoiding guards and getting hooked up with the obligatory rebels. The most interesting item here is Vicki's youthful excitement at making a plan for the rebels to arm themselves and fight back. When she gets resistance to the idea of stealing weapons she says, "But you're supposed to be planning a revolution...That is a revolution!"
How many children's shows feature a teenager advocating violent overthrow of the government? And in this case it results in quite a lot of death.
To the credit of the writer, Vicki gets a chance to shine here...if Carole Ann Ford had ever gotten half as much to do, she'd have been the teenager in this story.
In addition to the extra mentioned below, it's worth watching My Grandfather, The Doctor, a mini-documentary of Hartnell's grand-daughter's recollections of the first Doctor.
What are others saying about it?
Everyone, including the BBC, understands that this was a brilliant episode followed by three duds. So much so that they include a special feature, Defending the Museum, in which writer Rob Shearer makes the case for why those episodes are actually smart comedy rather than badly-executed serious stories. You should definitely watch it and make up your own mind...
- Wife in Space (score: 6/10; it was 3/10 before she watched the defense)
- Tin Dog podcast #114