The Chase
Previous: The Space Museum
The Chase
The Dalek's ominous words followed by and the titles accompanied by...upbeat jazz music. For some reason, I approve of this.
"What are you reading?"
*holds up book entitled Monsters From Outer Space*
"Is it good?"
"It's a bit far-fetched."
Now this is interesting: we open with Vicki being unusually unwanted and messing things up. When did THIS start?
Is it just me, or are we about to get our first glimpse of America in Classic Who?
Oh cool! They can use that thing to watch Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address!
Wait...Shakespeare? Is that you?
I know it's kinda weird to be watching TV of people watching TV, but this is surprisingly entertaining.
"This is BBC1..." YES. META.
Things that are made of win: The Beatles playing "Ticket to Ride," and Ian dancing along to it.
Also, for some reason I LOVE the absolutely horror-stricken look Barbara gives him when Vicki says she's "been to their memorial theater."
"Well, what do you think of them, Vicki?"
"Oh they're marvelous, but...I didn't know they played classical music!"
A desert planet with two suns? THEY'VE LANDED ON TATOOINE. #whoopswrongfandom
A TARDIS magnet? And this presumably handy little device has never been mentioned before...why?
The sand sprouts a tail and comes alive. Cut to One and Barbara sunbathing together.
"Good gracious me, can't I even relax for five...THE DALEKS!" I really love these perfect little descriptions of the Doctor's life.
I know the Daleks have a habit of repeating themselves, but I can't help but feel like they're overdoing it a bit this episode.
And suddenly...NIGHT.
Ian and Vicki discover a Dark Mysterious Cave. I wonder where this could POSSIBLY be going.
And now you're trapped down there with a giant tentacle monster and One and Barbara are lost wandering in the...desert...*snow*...
Huh, kinda sounds like a dog growling OH WAIT THAT'S A DALEK.
So this is the second Dalek story in a row where the first episode ends with one emerging from the depths. First the Thames, now the sand.
Even the Dalek rising from the sand has an upbeat jazz score to it. Is that going to be a prevailing theme in this story?
Oh cool, yet another rare occasion where the Dalek plunger actually has a practical use. Today's feature: seismic detector.
Ian, throwing a rock at that thing was a very stupid idea. If you don't want it to FOLLOW YOU, you don't GIVE IT A REASON TO.
Oh wait, that's not the plunger, that's something completely different.
I'm confused by the continued existence of fish-like people if the oceans have been dried up for centuries, even if they lived underground.
And then there was a s'plosion!
"WE. WILL. TAKE. SOME A-RI-DI-ANS. PRI-SO-NER. AND. USE. THEM. TO. DIG. THE. SHIP. FREE."
"YES."
"......WELL, SEE. TO. IT."
That's the problem with Dalek ultimatums: they tend to turn everybody into potential enemies.
So Vicki finally emerges from the sand to discover just how fast Dalek slaves can dig TARDISs out of the ground.
And of COURSE the TARDIS is Dalek-proof. Wow, I think one of them even said the Dalek equivalent of "fail."
Hey guys, general rule of thumb: when the Daleks say that they'll leave your city unharmed if you cooperate, THEY ARE LYING. ALWAYS.
Vicki reunited! Now we just need to get Ian...
TENTACLE MONSTERS AND FALLING BRICKS AND RUNNING AND SCREAMING AND GRABBING AND
Wait. That thing looks like a giant walking ballsac. I'm not even kidding.
Holy crap. Either Ian just has mud smeared on his face, or he's bleeding from the head a LOT right now.
Apparently I was right about the bleeding o_o
"Oh, Barbara, could I, ah, have your cardigan?"
"Oh, not again."
"It's for the Dalek, not for me!"
One must have some crazy trust in Ian's m@d sk1llz if he's willing to lend him his jacket on request like that...
Apparently Dalek shots move a LOT slower than usual now if One and Ian are having such an easy time dodging them.
Wow. The Daleks are so powerful, they magically turn the background into daytime when they're about to die.
Back into the TARDIS, aaaaand weee'rrrre OFF!
"Next Episode: Flight Through Eternity." PLEASE let this be as epic as it sounds...
"It's been in the ship ever since I constructed it." ...Totally not going to discuss continuity here, it would be stupid and futile...
Yup, there's that jazz strain over the episode title again.
Why are so many people wearing bright clothes in this episode?
"That means we can land."
"But where, Doctor? WHERE?"
NEW YORK! THEY'RE GOING TO NEW YORK CITY! HOOOOOME!
Aaaaaaaaaand CUE HEAVILY EXAGGERATED BROOKLYN ACCENTS.
To be totally honest, NYC supposedly has a gagillion different accents that I can't tell apart, so I don't know what they're trying here.
(And I don't mean a gagillion different accents in terms of all the ethnicities we have, I mean like Long Island, Brooklyn, Bronx, etc...)
(Actually, I might just do a voice post on the Blog sometime and ask what accent you guys think I have.)
Inside, I'm smiling forever at how delightfully tourist-y that crowd looks.
"We sure don't have anything like that in Alabama, no sir!" Wait...is this the weird Not-Steven Peter Purves character I was warned about?
"I coulda sworn that thing wasn't there just now. I guess that's New York for ya." ...I love my city so much. #maybejustatadhomesick
"You're from Earth!"
"No ma'am, I'm from Alabama."
If I'm not careful, I'm going to wind up quoting half this scene, but Vicki just looked out and called it "Ancient New York."
Oh, did I mention yet that they're on top of the Empire State Building?
"There are pictures of it in our history book! It was destroyed in the Dalek invasion!" I REALLY hope that doesn't mean they've caused it...
...oh balls...no Daleks, not here...
Oooooohhhhh duuuuuuuude, you're just asking to diiiieeeeee...
...Wow. I think that's the closest we'll ever get to a Dalek stopping and asking for directions. Also, THEY LET HIM LIVE.
"Will you get my screwdriver, child? The big one." You know, that could be a bit more sonic...
Vicki does not approve of Barbara-grabbing! Now to put an end to these shenanigans.
That...didn't go completely as planned. Although I kinda love the face Ian made when he got whacked.
So, considering this was mid-'60s Who, how were they able to pull off a budget for a story that jumped sets every 10 minutes?
Huh. The howlaround effect on the Daleks' screen almost looks like the prototype graphic for Two's opening titles.
Daleks: A legit reason to literally abandon ship.
Wait. Wait. A woman with a baby just jumped overboard. I am really seriously not okay with this. Honestly, for real. No, guys. Just...no.
Screaming's stopped...sea's gone silent...Jesus Christ, guys, that was one of the most genuinely unsettling things I've seen on this show.
On the other hand, the sound of a Dalek yelling right before it falls overboard is actually quite interesting. Almost...human...
And then, for added creepy, they have a silent pan over the empty ship. "Mary Celeste"...*checks Wikipedia*...Aaaahaaaaaaa...
So apparently the Time Vortex in this era is half-black, half-kaleidoscope.
Alright, let's see, where have we landed this time? Empty, run-down, rumbling, dishes with smoke...looks quite lovely to me!
"Probably vampires, if you ask me."
"Oh, rubbish, my child. Vampire bats are only to be found in South America."
I need to commend the ladies forever for looking straight at a fireplace with HUGE MOVING GLOWING EYES and NOT screaming.
Jeez, did this episode air on Halloween or something? They're playing up a lot of the classic Haunted House tropes here.
"Where's your spirit of adventure, hmm?"
"It died a slow, painful death when those bats flew out of the rafters."
WHY HELLO, FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER.
AND DRACULA (although this one looks like it's supposed to be an animatronic).
I'm going to assume that yelling woman is a banshee. And WOW I've never seen Barbara's eyes go that wide before.
"This house is exactly what you would expect in a nightmare!" It's actually been kind of a fun thrill, really. Like Ian said, "familiar."
Um, guys I think you're missing a major point: if this is a land made of monsters from the human mind, of COURSE there could be Daleks here.
I mean, if lots of people were afraid of Daleks, they'd totally show up in a literal world of nightmares.
"THEY. ON-LY. CHANGED. THEIR. GE-O-GRA-PHI-CAL. AND. TIME. LO-CA-TION." ONLY changed their geographical and time location??
Wait, we had DALEK VS. FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER and you CUT AWAY from that? But that battle sounds AWESOME!
"LOOK OUT! IT'LL KILL YOU! YOU'LL BE KILLED!" Um...Vicki...he's a VAMPIRE. He's kinda ALREADY DEAD. TO AN EXTENT.
SO THAT'S WHERE THE DALEK-THROWING CAME FROM. HOLY CRAP THANK YOU THAT WAS AWESOME.
Aaaaand Vicki has been left behind. This is extremely very not good.
Looks like I was right about the they-were-really-in-an-amusement-park theory I hinted at earlier, but...what happens to Vicki now?
So she DID stow away on the Dalek ship. Clever sneaky girl, Vicki.
"I shall never forgive myself." Oh. Doctor. You just wait. You'll have PLENTY of things to never forgive yourself for in your next 10 lives.
"AC-TI-VATE. THE RO-BOT." THERE HE IS. ROBO-ONE.
"Next Episode: The Death of Doctor Who." Anyone know how they kept calling him that only in the credits but still "the Doctor" in the show?
"I am to infiltrate and kill." Hearing Hartnell saying that sounds really weird, in the creepy way.
So now I have to wonder if that bubbling popping sound is coming from the local plant life or if it's the soundtrack.
That's one of the nice things about the black-and-white era: the video quality lessens the cheesiness of the effects. Sometimes.
"What do you make of it, Doctor?" Wow. That kinda looks like the locator for the Key to Time, but four times as big.
Vicki has found the TARDIS! But first...FUNGUS.
"Barbara, my dear, Chesterton is dead." And Robo-One finally makes his move. Wow. That's quite a way to start.
So Vicki's already back and being Miss Exposition, so now everybody knows about Robo-One except Barbara...who's alone with him...uh oh...
That...that was actually kind of epic. Robo-One gets Barbara with his cane, Ian tries to strangle him but gets nailed in the crotch...
Okay, it was his stomach not his crotch. But still, low blow.
Oh. Oh YES. THIS. BRILLIANT. Both Ones come out at the same time so now we REALLY have no idea which one is which.
This is the moment I've been waiting all serial for: ONE VS. ONE.
...That was over REALLY fast. And I MUST know how they pulled that effect off. *checks Wikipedia*
Wikipedia has failed me. Oh well, on with the show...
Im in ur jungul, nommin ur dalekz
City on stilts! And I'm somehow only JUST noticing how very distinctly old-sci-fi-movie this soundtrack is.
You must be a Mechanoid! I wonder if I'll be able to understand ANY of your speech in this story.
Obvious model city is obvious, but kinda cool-looking.
"I don't like it."
"But why not? It's clean, it's comfortable, the robot seems quite friendly..."
No animal life, and then right on cue, animal life. WAIT. COULD THIS BE...
"Look, I'm Steven Taylor, Flight Red Fifty!" STEVEN! AT LAST! Wow, I've only seen you in one thing before and it was a complete recon...
Now that I'm seeing you properly, you really look like you could use a shave.
"That's my mascot, Hi-Fi." *tosses stuffed panda* BRB, shamelessly squeeing forever.
Daleks vs. Mechanoids. Any minute now...
"DIS-PATCH. A SEC-TION. TO THE ROOF. A-RE-A." ...But they're CLASSIC-DALEKS. How are they even going to get up there?
*s'plosion* "AM EX-TER-MIN-A-TED! AM EX-TER-MIN-A-TED! AAAH! AAAAHHH!" Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE the sound of Daleks screaming?
Awwww, poor Vicki's afraid of heights...
And Steven ran back into a potentially flaming base just to get his stuffed panda? Kind of a dick move, man.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT oh crap I think the Daleks are winning.
Actually, I'm not sure anybody really won that because the ENTIRE CITY basically just went up in flames. Pretty epic, actually.
And we get Dalek!Ian again! Sort of!
Daleks defeated again! Hugtiems all around! But then..."Ian, do you realize we could get home?"
STEVEN'S ALIVE! AND HE RESCUED HI-FI!
"Aimless? I tried for TWO YEARS to get you both home!" Holy crap, I honestly had no idea they'd been doing this in real-time.
Wow. I don't think I've EVER seen One this furious before. Seriously, he's just blown a gasket.
C'mon Vicki, work your charm. Maybe you can talk some sense back into the Doctor.
"Barbara, we made it!"
"I don't believe it!"
"London 1965!"
"We're two years out!"
"Oh, what's two years amongst friends? We're HOME!"
And he totally just kissed her on the check just now. Awwww...
"Goodbye, Doctor! Thanks for the ride!"
"It was fun, Doctor! Goodbye!"
Aaaaaand CUE MONTAGE.
"Where've you been, on the moon?"
"No, but you're getting warm."
*gigglesnort* *laughing tiems nao*
"Doctor, they made it! They made it!"
Vicki is a happy squeegirl. But One is very srys-faced. Our very first complete companion turn-over...
The TARDIS takes off for the next great leg of adventure, and another era ends. Goodbye, Ian and Barbara. You were great, and it was fun.
Next: The Time Meddler