The Chase (Doctor Who)

In the TARDIS, the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are huddling around the Time-Space Visualiser, a television-like souvenir from their recent adventure at the Space Museum, which can pick up on any past event in the whole of time and space. The TARDIS then lands. Ian and Vicki leave to explore the desert wilderness. They find an ancient trap door in the sand. Inside, they are trapped — and become hunted by hostile tentacle creatures called Mire Beasts.

The Doctor and Barbara see on the 'Visualiser' a "broadcast" of the Daleks preparing to give a report. The Daleks' plan to follow "the enemy time machine" (the TARDIS) to the Sagarro Desert on the planet Aridius. The Daleks plan to take the TARDIS and exterminate the Doctor and his companions. The Doctor and Barbara watch the Incursion Squad embark and dematerialise. The Doctor immediately realises that these events happened in the past — the Daleks may already be here. They must find Ian and Vicki and leave immediately.

After a sandstormy night the Doctor and Barbara see the Daleks emerging from the sands. The Daleks cannot find the time travellers, but they locate the TARDIS under the sand and begin to have it dug out by a group of native Aridians, whom they have enslaved. The slave force is exterminated when they are of no further value. The Doctor and Barbara are saved by other amphibious humanoid Aridians. The Aridians also find Vicki and Ian, who were injured when a wall collapsed in an explosion used to kill the Mire Beasts that were threatening them. The Mire Beasts reappear, killing the Aridian Malsan who was holding the party prisoner in preparation for the handover. The Doctor and his friends flee in the confusion, evading a Dalek scout, and get back to the TARDIS.

There now follows a chase through time and space, with the Dalek vessel determined to track down and exterminate the Doctor and his friends. The Daleks are fifteen minutes behind and the gap is closing. The first stop is the top of the Empire State Building in New York City in 1966. The Doctor then reaches the Atlantic Ocean and boards the sailing ship Mary Celeste. The crew ventures outside and are mistaken for stowaways. They sneak away in the TARDIS as the crew searches for them. Soon the Daleks arrive and the frightened crew abandons ship, all jumping overboard. The next point of landing is a mysterious old house where both Dracula and Frankenstein's monster have come alive. These terrors stalk the building but also attack the Incursion Squad when they arrive. In the confusion, the Doctor, Ian and Barbara leave Vicki behind, never realising they have simply been visiting a futuristic theme attraction called the Festival of Ghana, in 1996. The Daleks are repelled back into their vessel by the monsters (who are in fact robots), and Vicki stows away aboard the Dalek ship. She travels in it to the jungle world of Mechanus, where the TARDIS has already landed.

On the Dalek ship, Vicki witnesses the Daleks' Replicator machine in action: an android replica of the Doctor is produced and is programmed to kill the original Doctor and his companions. When the Dalek ship arrives on Mechanus, the robot killer is dispatched. The jungle is hostile, with large fungoid plants, which attack humans and only retreat when exposed to light. After a while the four travellers are reunited but the robot Doctor also appears. Both Doctors claim to be real one and a fight ensues between Ian and the real Doctor. The robot Doctor mistakenly calls Vicki by the name of Susan. Barbara realises the mistake and yells at Ian that this is the robot. The real Doctor disables it with his stick.

The next morning, the Doctor notices that there is a vast metal city over the jungle, and they all decide to venture into the structure. Within moments, robot Mechonoids arrive and capture them, taking them to the city. There they are locked in a cage-like room with a dishevelled man named Steven Taylor, an astronaut from Earth who crash-landed on the planet two years earlier and has been kept as a prisoner by the Mechonoids since then. The Daleks now attack the city. The Doctor and his party and Steven escape down some cables, while the Mechonoids and Daleks become involved in a pitched battle, which devastates both sides as well as the building. The four companions flee to safety but are separated from Steven, whom they presume to have been killed.

They find the deserted Dalek time machine and persuade the Doctor to show Ian how to operate it. After a tearful farewell, Ian and Barbara return to their own planet at last in London, 1965 — almost to their own time, being two years away from 1963. The machine is destroyed using the auto-destruct mechanism once Barbara and Ian are out of it.

Terry Nation's original title for this story was The Pursuers.[2] There were several changes made from his original proposal in the finished serial. In the original storyline, the TARDIS crew would witness on the visualiser Shakespeare discussing with his wife the possibility of allowing Francis Bacon to use his name on Bacon's plays, as well as a speech by Winston Churchill; Ian and Vicki would see through the sands the vast underground Aridian city; and Ian and Barbara would not return home to Earth at the end of the serial.[3]

Some of the Daleks appearing in this serial were created by Shawcraft Models for the Dr. Who and the Daleks film in 1965. Although the plan had been to refurbish them to resemble the television Daleks, this proved to be impractical, and the three hired Daleks were used only in the background of shots.[4] As The Chase was broadcast before the movie was released, this marks the first appearance of the movie Daleks.

The shots of Ian and Barbara on Earth in the final episode were made during shooting for the next story, The Time Meddler, and were directed by that serial's director, Douglas Camfield.[5]

According to the BBC's Audience Research Report, contemporary reception of this serial was mostly positive. Though a significant minority found the "haunted house" action of the episode "Journey into Terror" ludicrous, most reported finding the episode very entertaining. The battle between the Daleks and Mechonoids in the final episode of the serial, "The Planet of Decision", was particularly well-received, with viewers describing it as "dramatic" and "full of adventure".[15]

This is one of the few Dalek stories to incorporate humour, and is the only story to attempt comical performances from the Daleks, including a Dalek coughing as it emerges from the sand on Aridius, a stammering Dalek who cannot do simple mental arithmetic, three Daleks using their eyestalks to nod in agreement, a Dalek shouting 'Yarrgh!' as it tumbles off the Mary Celeste, and a Dalek getting annoyed with its subordinate.[5] In 2009, Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern described The Chase as "unashamedly childish and comic-strip in tone and pace", finding that the various contents of the episode were a mixed bag. He praised the Daleks and the first, second, and sixth episodes, but felt middle episodes were mixed, with "Journey into Terror" particularly disappointing.[16] Nick Setchfield of SFX was critical of the serial, finding it better than The Space Museum "only because it's powered by a demented, ramshackle energy that never allows for boredom... or much in the way of logic or good taste". He acknowledged the "tacky entertainment" but wrote that "it's crushing to realise that this is the show that gave us the masterly 'An Unearthly Child' a mere two years before."[17] Writing for Doctor Who Magazine, Graham Kibble-White disagreed with Mulkern's opinion of the Daleks, believing that the comedy undermined them. He also wrote that the serial "suffers from structural oddities", as well as the unconvincing double Doctor. However, Kibble-White praised the Mechonoids and the TARDIS crew, feeling that Ian and Barbara's departure "positively negates the preceding six episodes of tom-guffery".[18] Both the premise of "Journey into Terror" and the Doctor duplicate were listed in SFX's "Doctor Who's 25 Silliest Moments".[19]

The Chase has received some positive reviews. DVD Talk's John Sinnott praised the serial, writing that the story's unusual structure was to its benefit.[20] Jonathan Wilkins of Dreamwatch likened the serial to pop art and felt that "only an utter grouch could dislike a Doctor Who story as zany and iconic as The Chase". He highlighted the character work concerning Ian and Barbara and the "sense of epic science fiction that is only slightly betrayed by the ever-present problems of budget".[21] In 2012, SFX's Will Salmon listed the departure of Ian and Barbara as the eighth best companion departure.[22]

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• The Chase at BBC Online
• Doctor Who Locations – The Chase