The Chase by Terry Nation
22 May - 26 June 1965
I've been planning for ages to go back and re-review this story. Long-time readers may recall that I stalled out around The Chase and The Time Meddler and did not write full reviews for either, instead relegating them to a section of my Season 2 roundup.
I was a little hard on it the first time that I watched it, finding it fun but somewhat incoherent. In the five and a half years (Jesus!) since I watched it, a lot of things have changed, including my opinion of the story. It was my intention to rectify this once I reached the end of the Classic era as a sort of victory lap.
After yesterday's sad news, however, I decided that my plans would change, and I dropped everything else to sit down and watch The Chase again, not only to fulfill that old promise, but to pay tribute with what I hope will be a nice review.
With that preamble squared away, let's hop aboard the TARDIS and begin The Chase. I have a ticket to ride, after all.
Before I get started in earnest, let me tell you about a rare detour I made into the world of Target novels. After watching, I decided to scope out the novelization of The Chase, written in 1989 by Nation's favored novelist, John Peel. It was out of curiosity more than anything else, to see just what, if anything, was different. In his foreword, Peel says that as The Chase was known to still exist in 1989, though it hadn't yet received a home release, he wanted his novelization not to be an exact copy of the televised version in an attempt to present something a little different for fans.
He says he based the novelization off of Nation's original scripts, not the final version that went to screen, which was significantly modified by then-current script editor Dennis Spooner. Accordingly, it does feel quite different to the serial that I've watched. While the book is solid enough, I couldn't help saying to myself as I read it: "God, how much poorer would we have been if this is what we got on screen?"
I can only speak for myself, but I'm glad that The Chase is silly. I'm glad that it meanders. I'm glad that it's hard to take seriously for 90% of its runtime before gut punching you in the last episode. Although it makes the story much weirder, I think it also makes it more brilliant.
Granted, I'm not sure if being high satire was actually intended. The fact that Nation's original scripts were so much less funny (according to the eternally dour John Peel, anyway) suggests it wasn't, but it doesn't have to be intentional in order for it to work out that way. This feels like a parody of the first two Dalek serials welded onto the basic structure of The Keys of Marinus, something which I think fits wonderfully into this season full of stories both humorous and bizarre.
Its metatextual elements lend to this as well. The time-space visualizer sees the TARDIS crew sitting around it and enjoying the programs playing, sort of like the families who might have been waiting around their TV sets to see the latest return of the Daleks back in 1965 England. The Doctor's much-derided body double later in the serial might have been a little harder to tell apart from Bill Hartnell over a terrestrial signal on an ancient television, but I feel like there's no mistake about the moment where he's gleefully encouraging Ian to wallop the real article, which feels like a wink at the audience.
So too are there are moments like the Dalek grunting and gasping as it rises laboriously from the sand in a clear prod at the famous cliffhanger from the first episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, or the Doctor cheerfully guessing that they've arrived in The Mind Robber a few years early, only for the camera to pan out and inform us that they were just in a carnival haunted house. And of course there's the greatest character in televisual history, Mr. Morton Dill of Alabama. There are many things in this story which just don't make loads of sense, but when it's so delightfully light-spirited and entertaining, how can I possibly care about that?
Aside from the serial as a self-contained unit, this also helps the Hartnell era in the long run, if only in a small way. If this was just a mini version of The Daleks' Master Plan (which had its own silly moments, of course, but we can all agree it's far more serious on the whole) then neither story would really be unique within the Who canon. Both would be poorer for it, as far as I'm concerned.
The novelization of The Chase is there for those who prefer it. Heck, I like it. But if I was forced to choose, I'd pick the original every time.
Watching The Chase again after so long away from this team (having not really rewatched any First Doctor stories since I moved on to Troughton for the marathon a few years ago), I was struck again by just how wonderful their chemistry was. Ian and the Doctor are great foils for each other, Barbara complements each of them, and Vicki's dynamic with the Doctor is one I've extolled at length before.
Before this rewatch, I never really took notice of just how much Barbara and Ian look after Vicki. I think they probably see her like she's one of their students, despite the fact that she doesn't have a whole lot to learn from them! Vicki, who lost her father on Dido, seems to view the both of them as surrogate parental figures, or at the very least an aunt and uncle, or elder cousins she badly wants to impress.
Considering the age of this season, it's amazing just how naturalistic all the characters' relationships feel, how much they each feel like fully-figured people with their own thoughts, desires, and perceptions of each other. This serial was a good pick for reacquainting myself with this team, not just because it's their last outing together, but because they all get their own things to do in the story and show off what makes them so great as characters. The humor gives way to gut-wrenching pathos at the very end as we're forced to finally say goodbye to half of the team.
This time, watching the two of them fade from the time-space visualizer screen feels a little more final than it did before, my time together with them all the more distant. That's the thing about television in the modern age, though; you can always go back and experience it again, and the experience still feels a little bit new every time.
I shall miss them. Yes, I shall miss them. But they're still out there, somewhere, on some greater adventure. Barbara and Ian. Ian and Barbara. Traveling together, forever and ever.
William Russell — 1924 - 2024
The Chase - 9.17
The Executioners - 10.00
The Death of Time - 9.00
Flight Through Eternity - 10.00
Journey into Terror - 8.00
The Death of Doctor Who - 8.00
The Planet of Decision - 10.00
Once I dry my eyes, our 1986 music post will be up next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 6 June 2024.)
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