The Chase

If you think about children playing at Dr Who and the Daleks in playgrounds during the 60s, it might be possible to imagine them improvising a story in which the Daleks chase after the Doctor and his companions involving meetings with horror film figures, and perhaps invading the Mary Celeste if they've just been learning about that in one lesson. You could perhaps also imagine them having a robot Doctor made by the Daleks, a slow-witted Dalek that can't count easily, and another race of mechanical creatures to pit against them in a big battle at the end.

It's been said that one of the aims of some comedies is to recapture a state of primal bliss from early childhood, and I think there's a case for saying that that is the kind of spirit being aimed at in The Chase. Both the conception and realisation are touched by an unrepentantly naive innocence almost all the way through. There are several occasions, for example, where one of the regulars does a silly impression of their adversaries - Vicki doing a Mechanoid, Ian's pinched-nose "You will be exterminated!", and Barbara's "Prmm! Bwgh! Bwgh!" imitating a machine gun, which seem to me, direct attempts at recognising the potential for playground games. In the haunted house section a Dalek announces "I am a Dalek!" which is more the sort of phrase that comedians impersonating them have used than a common Dalek phrase. It suggests a series that apparently feels confident or relaxed enough to play up its sillier aspects, although how the viewer feels about that might be another matter.

The overall tone is a very marked departure from the previous two Dalek stories though, as if the makers of the series were basking in the aftermath of commercial Dalekmania, which had rendered the creatures iconic staples of popular culture at the time, and having some fun with them. There's the example already mentioned of the Dalek deliberating over its maths in a comedy voice, and perhaps the most explicit case is Peter Purves' Morton Dill laughing hysterically on seeing one, and sending it up in front of it ("They-just-left!"). The Dalek doesn't kill him as it would spoil the tone of the scene, it's there to play the stooge in this case.

Having said that, it is clearly impressed on the audience that the threat they pose to the regulars is a real one, and they are seen to exterminate two Aridians at one point. We are also reminded several times that the time gap between both vehicles is lessening, from twelve to eight minutes and so on. The comedy bits are there but they aren't the whole story where the Daleks are concerned. Indeed, there is even a section of Episode 2 where they are shown to have forced an agonising dilemma on the Aridians - surrender the travellers or be exterminated - giving the latter no choice but to become captors of the same people they had been trying to help, a clever and effective psychological trap.

Perhaps the main problems, other than the comedy often feeling over trivial and not really being strong or funny enough to work in its own right, is that the narrative is a very bitty one, packed with fairly short sketches that don't serve much purpose other than a quick punch line at the end, whether it be the tourists at the Empire State Building thinking Dill is "nuts" or the supposed revelation that the crew and passengers all dived off the Mary Celeste out of fear of the Daleks. There's also the scenes observed on the Space Time Visualiser, which add to this sense of throwing in various bits and bobs from here and there to fill out the content, even though they do little to enhance the story.

I've always tended to find the Aridius segment a little dull, although the concept of the TARDIS being buried under sand with the whole landscape changed is quite a strong bit of jeopardy for the crew (very good of the Daleks to dig it out really...). The Aridians themselves come across as a rather fey and weak lot, although I like the costume design. The glittery seaweed look and sea-horse type frills do suggest a sort of aquatic species. Terry Nation's habit of naming planets or creatures after specific characteristics (see also the Syther) means that the name Aridius, although fitting now, would have been extremely inappropriate for when the planet was formerly covered with water. The Mire Beast is pretty unthreatening, and there's the familiar shadows on backdrops problem, although I do like the way in which night is shown to fall incredibly quickly. The production values are frequently tatty in the extreme throughout, for that matter.

The Morton Dill segment is vaguely amusing, although how anyone watching Peter Purves hot-diggetying it up could think "Ah yes, he'd make an excellent companion!" I don't know. Arne Gordon's tour guide has quite an interesting rasping voice, but the scenes contain little else of note, and mostly feel forced and underdeveloped.

The Mary Celeste scenes are actually relatively well made, with a certain attention to detail evident. I particularly like the creaking that we can hear after the ship has been abandoned and is sailing on alone, and the Captain's "That's ungodly superstition" response to the mention of the white Barbary terror seems, to me anyway, to strike the right note for the period and location. William Russell's comedy knocked-out acting is rather silly though.

I actually feel the story starts moving up a gear or two when the haunted house sequence starts. Although these scenes are blighted by more directorial slip-ups than usual - production people and a boom mike occasionally visible, a Dalek shell lurking in the background when, in narrative terms the Daleks haven't arrived yet (there's also a blatant howler in the Dalek ship when a console readout remains superimposed in front of a Dalek as it moves past the panel) - they do still possess much more atmosphere than there has been hitherto, with a wholehearted employment of horror conventions - thunder, darkness, ghosts, bats, Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, secret stone tunnels with chains, and creepy music. The Doctor's theory about the place being a mental landscape is actually quite an intriguing one, even though a final shot shows it all up as a joke (and the implication that human beings have managed to build mechanical creatures capable of resisting the Daleks' extermination rays and destroying them gives one pause - they would have come in very useful during the invasion of Earth...). Incidentally, if Vicki's idea of lightening the mood is to tell you your hair's turned white she has a very strange sense of humour.

The concept of a robot Doctor is pure pulp really, although the story does manage to play up the more menacing aspects of it, with William Hartnell giving a particularly stone-faced impassivity and coldness to the scenes where he tells Barbara that the others are dead. Edmund Warwick does not really resemble him closely enough for them to get away with using him for mid shots (apparently the role was given to Warwick as a thank you for his doubling for Hartnell on an episode of Dalek Invasion), but most of the close ups are of Hartnell, and he does a fine job with it. The simple but effective technique of filming Hartnell from opposite sides for the confrontation between the Doctor and his double works rather well, and it's not even a bad fight between them, with Warwick mostly facing away from the camera.

The Mechanoids (looking to me a bit like giant Christmas Tree baubles) and their city manage to give a vaguely surreal feel to the story's climax. The design of the latter is pleasingly alien and distinctive, and the backstory given to Steven Taylor is quite interesting too. Peter Purves' ecstatic reaction on finding new company, chattering enthusiastically to them at length, is believable enough after two years as an imprisoned castaway. There's also a sense of urgency and panic in the scenes where they make their desperate escape, and I can actually believe that Steven would dive back in to rescue his panda mascot Hi-Fi, as in all that time he probably would have formed an abnormally strong bond with it.

The Doctor's indignant initial refusal to let Ian and Barbara go home in the abandoned Dalek ship helps show that he doesn't really want to part company with them. As Barbara says of their first meeting "We've all been through a lot since then" and his and Vicki's mournful body language after their departure further confirms it. It's rather nice that not only the audience, but also the Doctor and Vicki (via the ST Visualiser) get to see Ian and Barbara's joyful return home, even if the latters' larking about some well known London locations (some of them having only recently been used in the last Dalek story) is a decidedly acquired taste.

The Chase is probably one of the least polished productions in the series, its narrative is all over the place, and the comedy is variable at best, but it is ultimately an uplifting, affirming story in one way at least . After the high drama of Ian and Barbara's life changing predicament, as depicted in the first season, it's good to see it being resolved with such a reasonably happy ending.