Doctor Who: The Space Museum

Received wisdom would suggest that The Space Museum consists of an excellent opening episode followed by three deeply lacklustre episodes. And while this won't be the case with all of the stories I'll be watching as part of the clunkers, in this case I feel little reason to argue with received wisdom. That said, the difference between the first episode and the remaining three is not as vast as I remembered it to be.

The first episode does what many Doctor Who stories have done well - it sets up an intriguing mystery at the same time as setting up a story that it was always going to be next to impossible to resolve satisfactorily. There is much to enjoy, including the ongoing revelations that the four time travellers might not actually be where they think they are (or perhaps when they think they are). It all builds to a satisfying cliffhanger as the TARDIS crew actually arrive and begin their desperate struggle to avoid becoming embalmed exhibits in the space museum.

Well, I say "desperate struggle", but what actually happens here is a sort of tepid, muted adventure that barely sees the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki breaking a sweat in their attempts to survive. Hell, at one point Barbara even complains that she, Ian and Vicki should stop standing around and complaining and actually do something. She's absolutely right, of course, but it is a bit of a problem when your characters start pointing out the flaws with the script - a bit like the moment at the beginning of the second episode when the corpulent oaf leading the planet complains about how boring his life is. I mean, that's our introduction to the planet, for God's sake, and it is a complaint about how boring it is. Still, at least it is accurate.

Because the planet Xeros has to be one of the dullest the Doctor has ever and will ever visit. The ruling elite are all slightly overweight colonial types dressed in the brightest of whites (a Daz commercial if ever there was one) while the rebels, if we can call the insipid bunch of black clothed weasels with stupid eyebrows rebels, just don't deserve the help of the regular cast. It is like planet of the Ken Clarkes against the planet of the Ed Milibands. By the time we see Daleks for the second time in this story at the very end, the revolution is over and very sadly it has been televised.

Don't get me wrong, the first episode isn't perfect. The scene where Vicki is stopped from sneezing is the sort of thing that an eight year old would write if they had watched too many crap cartoons. And, in part because it is never really explored properly, the talk of jumping a time track is never quite convincing (especially given the lame explanation for the events of the first episode right at the end of the story), even if it does lead to the story's most interesting and unsettling moments. Likewise, the following three episodes, for all the endless capture/escape/recapture padding and dreadful, childish lines about "ray guns" are not all bad. In particular, the scenes where the Doctor mocks his captor in the second episode are excellent and very Doctorish - and I say that as a fan who really does not rate Hartnell. In fact, Hartnell is on form throughout this story, making it a shame that he doesn't really appear in the third episode at all.

I guess The Space Museum couldn't really happen in today's Doctor Who. At some point, someone would make the writer tone down the first episode and raise his game with the final three. As a result, we'd have a bland, inoffensive and yet watchable Doctor Who story. Which is both a blessing and a curse, since we'd miss out on the boredom that makes up three quarters of The Space Museum, at the same time as never getting to see the really rather innovative and interesting first episode. And as a result The Space Museum is actually a good microcosm of the Hartnell era, which was experimental and therefore scaled some great heights at the same plumbing some terrible depths. And it has Daleks, the Hartnell era - it's all right here, in The Space Museum.