Review of The Chase (#16)
DVD Release Date: 29 Jul 20
Original Air Date: 22 May – 26 Jun 1965
Doctors/Companions: One, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Vicki
Stars: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Maureen O’Brien
Preceding Story: The Space Museum (One, Ian, Barbara, Vicki)
Succeeding Story: The Time Meddler (One, Vicki, Steven)
Who really ever talks about The Chase? It’s one of those early-era stories that neither gets fans excited nor makes them cringe, so there is once again no surprise at finding it here in the ranks of Everything Else. Sure, it’s technically a Dalek story, but it barely feels like one to me. But perhaps I’ve simply missed its hidden charms over the years.
Truth be told, it’s been long enough since I last watched this one that I had barely any recollections of it at all. Before I sat down to view the six-episode adventure this time, all I could remember was broad strokes: Daleks pursuing the TARDIS, Peter Purves as not-Steven at the top of some tower in NYC (that would be the Empire State Building; thanks, brain), the (proper) introduction of Steven, the departure of Ian & Barbara, and—last but not least—the iconic photo of producer Verity Lambert at least pretending to try to light her cigarette with a Mechonoid’s flame-thrower arm.
After watching again, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot more of import to add to that list. The first two episodes are more setup than anything. The TARDIS crew finds themselves on a sand-covered planet where they promptly get separated just as some of them realize the Daleks are on their way to find them and destroy the TARDIS (and the crew with it). It’s a bog-standard storyline that’s only of any interest because it sets the eponymous chase in motion.
During the third and fourth episodes, the crew attempts to shake off the Daleks by landing in different spots before taking off in a new direction. All are, conveniently, on Earth (though there is more plot aboard the Dalek ship) until the last one, where the TARDIS lands on a planet called Mechanus.
The final two episodes, then, are where the Daleks finally catch up and begin their dastardly plan to eliminate not only the TARDIS but also “the humans” (remember that this is before it has been decided established that the Doctor is from another species). We meet Steven, a spaceship pilot who has crashed, and realize the Mechonoids, who seemed friendly enough when the Doctor and his friends were trying to escape the Daleks, just want them all as zoological specimens.
While it’s not quite the fan service as the modern series’s Daleks-v-Cybermen extravaganza (after all, there were only three years’ worth of the show from which to draw), we do get some solid Dalek-on-Mechonoid action that had to have been pretty exciting when it first aired. Thus do our friends escape, allowing Ian and Barbara the opportunity to go home for real.
Looking at the adventure in overview, it feels like three different storylines stuck together rather than a single story. Given that this was the era in which individual episodes still had names (e.g., “Journey Into Terror” for the fourth episode), I suppose that’s only to be expected. Every story blended neatly into the next, and really the only thing keeping these six episodes together as a single adventure is the fact that the Daleks were following our heroes.
Somehow, though, it works. I can’t honestly say I find it to be any sort of scintillating storytelling, but it’s workmanlike enough to suffice (as one would expect from Terry Nation). It’s got enough interesting twists to keep my attention, but has the low-key flavor of 1960s Doctor Who that makes for relatively relaxing viewing, even during the more tense moments.
The Chase also serves as the last hurrah for Ian and Barbara. So many other Companions have had worse departures; that factor alone is enough to bump The Chase up in the standings. This re-watch has definitely put a formerly glossed-over adventure back on my radar. Hopefully it won’t be nearly so long until I revisit it again.
You’re a lot more generous than I am about this story. I know that Terry Nation gets a lot of flak in the Pertwee era for repeated memes, such as Doctor and Companion(s) are separated early on etc but, as an example, for me, having a Dalek dig itself out of the sand is a lazy rehash of the spectacularly iconic Dalek appears out the Thames from Dalek Invasion of Earth, and the less said about the Haunted House episode the better.
I’d be very interested to hear what Americans make of the Morton Dill character. Is it an offensive take of what appears to be a country person as a fish out of water in a big city?
However, given the hype of Dalekmania that was probably at one of its peaks at the time, perhaps a story like this is not that surprising, it’s just that too much of it doesn’t appeal to me, maybe it’s one of those Six Episode stories that would have been better as a four parter (although I take your point about the fact that there were individual episode titles at the time).
I don’t know what Alabamans think of that character (since he talked about not having anything like the TARDIS “back in Alabama”), but it fits the overall stereotype of a “country hick” here, too. I can’t imagine anyone finding it complimentary, but that’s not saying much.
I think I was able to enjoy it more because it came across as three linked stories instead of one longer one. Who knows. I might view it very differently on a different day, too!
I did read that one of the reasons Peter Purves was cast as Steven was that Hartnell had got on very well with him in his appearance as Morton Dill.
I wonder what the internet would have to say if RTD2 cast someone who had only appeared in the same story about a month earlier in a totally different role?
I also genuinely wonder if the technical issues of much poorer image resolution compared to the 4K etc that we have today and the smaller TV screens in use then, made the use of the same actor in a different role less of an issue as it would have been less obvious?
Getting along with Hartnell must have been a pretty important requisite at that stage. Everything I’ve read/heard suggests he was… difficult.