The Space Museum [Classic Doctor Who] – Blue Towel Productions

Doctor Who has long been my favorite show, but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve actually watched anything but the newest episodes. Before that, I was making a respectable run at getting through the original series, most of which I haven’t seen for decades. For various reasons, lately it has felt like it’s time to get back into it. 

The Space Museum

Starring William Hartnell as the First Doctor.
Companions:  William Russell as Ian Chester, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright and Maureen O’Brien as Vicki.

Written by Glyn Jones.  Directed by Mervyn Pinfield. Produced by Verity Lambert. Script Edited by Dennis Spooner.

Format:  4 episodes, each about 25 minutes long (individually named The Space Museum, Dimensions in Time, The Search and The Final Phase)
Originally Aired:  April – May 1965 (Episodes 26-29 of Season 2)

There aren’t that many people that would call The Space Museum a great story, but there are still some interesting things about it. It’s arguably the first time in the series that time travel is really used as a plot point, and not just a means of getting the characters to their location. Previous examples of this that one might consider are The Edge of Destruction (which has a few similarities with this story) and The Aztecs, but I’d say The Space Museum goes further with this.

Spoilers Ahead!

I’ve always been a fan of the original version of Doctor Who, with the original Doctor, Ian, Barbara and either Susan or Vicki. There’s something you’d get at this point in the series that doesn’t come up nearly as much later, which is long sections of story focusing on the main characters wandering around deserted or nearly deserted places, talking (or arguing) with each other. The characters get tons of space to breathe in moments like this, and it makes me feel like I’m looking around and exploring more than almost anything else in the show. You get this in An Unearthly Child, in The Daleks, in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and you get it in the first episode here.

The first episode, which is actually called The Space Museum, has got a bit of a Twilight Zone-esque vibe to it–not as much as The Edge of Destruction, but along those lines. We have the travelers mysteriously skipping a period of time, we have a glass unbreaking and unfailing into Vicki’s hands, we have the travelers inability to interact with anyone or anything in the museum, and of course ultimately we have the highly disturbing image of the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki discovering themselves as exhibits in the museum. This leads to the interesting though nonsensical idea that the TARDIS has “skipped a time track” and somehow shown the travelers a glimpse of their personal, albeit doomed, future.

This creates a shadow hanging over our heroes’ heads, as they try to avoid this fate and find themselves wracked with confusion over every decision–is this choice what will avoid their horrible destiny, or is it what will lead them straight to it? It’s an idea that runs through the rest of the story but one feels that the script never really takes full advantage of it. It’s more lightly peppered throughout a forgettable storyline. The final reveal that the whole thing has been caused some component of the TARDIS acting up (another similarity to The Edge of Tomorrow) feels like an afterthought.

Still there is the attempt to create thematic meaning out of the question of whether one really has any control over one’s own destiny. In the final episode, when everyone has been captured again, there is the chance for the characters to ruminate over whether anything they’ve done has made any difference at all. Their ultimate thought that they may have changed their own destinies by changing that of others is actually pretty interesting, albeit clumsily given.

The bigger failure of The Space Museum is that the plot that is running through all this is an unremarkable “rebels vs. oppressors” story. It’s bland, largely because neither the rebels nor the oppressors are very interesting. They’ve got pretty minimal makeup so there’s nothing memorable in their designs, and there’s no real personalities on display other than “mean” or “angry.” All the Moroks (the oppressors) are older guys and all the Xerons (the oppressed) are youths, so the show might have had something to say there, but it’s not on the page so it’s not on the screen. And the world all this is happening in, the Space Museum itself, never pops from a design standpoint–it looks like kind of a boring place. Maybe like some real museums.

The story also meanders, especially in the second episode where the companions literally water around the museum looking for something to do, while the Doctor has his little face off with the Governor. That provides the cute moment of the Doctor cheekily putting all sorts of goofy images on the Governor’s thought-monitor as he’s being questioned–like a penny farthing bicycle or swimming walruses–but it’s not enough to hold the episode together.

Still, I was surprised that in the midst of the unspectacular drama, our main cast had some pretty cool moments. Ian, for instance, is to be pretty awesome.

He’s here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and he’s all out of bubblegum, as he beats up multiple Morok guards, steals weapons, threatens to kill people, and generally shows why he is one of my favorite companions. Barbara doesn’t have as much to do but she still gets to threaten to knock a guy out with a stick and is the one to persevere through deadly gas while the Xeron is overcome like a chump.

Vicki has got probably the best role. She’s the one who really gets involved in the revolution–inspiring the Xerons to act, rewiring a security computer so they can all get guns, and generally speaking being at the centre of the action.

She’s got a good scene with Tor, the leader of the rebels, particularly when she insists on going back to the museum during the rebellion in order to find her friends. “I won’t let you go,” says Tor–“I won’t let you stop me,” she replies. And then when she realises her gun might give away their rebellion, she gives it up–it’s one of the best moments with Vicki that I’ve seen. It would also have been believable if the script had included a Vicki / Tor romance subplot.

One definitely feels like it’s there on Tor’s side–but alas the show back then hardly ever gave room for things like that.

As for the Doctor, there’s an effort to give him some good moments in his face-off with Governor Lobos, and in his awareness of everything that’s going on when Ian rescues him from his near-embalming. But alas William Hartnell has so much difficulty with some of his dialogue from time to time that it definitely undercuts some of those moments. He’s still got the twinkling charm and energy that made him so good–particularly when he’s gleefully chuckling away at his own cleverness–but it’s not consistent.

In the final analysis, The Space Museum is not a great story. It ranked last or next-to-last in various polls from Doctor Who Magazine as far as First Doctor stories goes. But it’s not without merit. There are interesting ideas stated or implied by the script, and some genuinely good character moments. It’s just a pity that the story they were all in wasn’t tighter, and the overall production more interesting.

Other Thoughts

• According to the internet, the novelisation of The Space Museum, also by Glyn Jones, reveals that the guard that Ian takes captive (played by Peter Diamond) is named Pluton. It provides him with a whole subplot whereby he seems to sympathise with the rebels, saving some of their lives, and is himself spared by them in the final battle. This kind of extra story detail is exactly what the televised adventure needed to make it more interesting.

• There’s a peculiar moment in the second episode when it’s pointed out that Ian has lost a button, and no one is sure if the “Museum exhibit Ian” had that button or not. There is talk here about how the most trivial things can lead to great discoveries. This is never followed up on or mentioned again.

• The story also features Ian completely unravelling Barbara’s cardigan in order to keep track of where they are in the museum. This leads to the amusing image of Ian trying to pull the wool loose by biting it.

Nobody comments on the fact that this definitely does something to change their future, at least in a minor way, since Barbara was wearing this cardigan when she was in the exhibit!

• Tor is played by Jeremy Bulloch, who was also in The Time Warrior which I watched recently. He’s better known for playing Edward of Wickham in a whole bunch of episodes of Robin of Sherwood, and even better than that for playing the body of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

• Glyn Jones, who wrote this story, will return to Doctor Who as an actor in The Sontaran Experiment, and is thus one of the few people to both write for the show and appear in it as an actor.

• This episode features an empty Dalek casing in the museum, and a funny scene of the Doctor hiding inside it to avoid capture.

We also get Vicki’s comments that she has heard of them from their invasion of earth, but never seen one. Ian believes that meeting them is very unlikely–of course the surprise appearance by a Dalek at the end of this episode, setting up what is coming next, will prove him wrong!

I haven’t gotten to The Chase yet in my rewatching, but I’m getting closer. As of now, there are 154 episodes left for me to revisit (out of those easily available on streaming) representing 36 serials. Still a lot, but a lot less than when I started!