Day 35 — February 4th 2021
The Space Museum and The Dimensions of Time
The Space Museum (The Space Museum — Episode One)
The Space Museum is the reason that I give each episode an individual rating out of ten, and then use those scores to work out a story’s average. It’s because this one has a reputation that the first episode is brilliant, and the other three are not. So how do you work out a fair score to give it? Do you rate it higher on the basis of a great first episode? Or lower because the majority isn’t as good? The only way to do it fairly is to rate each part on its own merits, and go from there. It works for other stories, too; An Unearthly Child is in the same boat as this one with a great first episode and then the other three.
But today I’ve come to a crushing revelation… this first episode isn’t actually all that good. I know! I’m gutted! In my head it’s been a proper solid one which almost makes up for the next three. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad episode today by any means, but it’s just sort of all right.
It’s mostly filled with some really good ideas which don’t quite come across as well as you feel they should. For example; the implication is that this entire planet is the museum. That’s a great idea! A museum so big that it covers an entire world, and because it’s so big it’s almost entirely dead and deserted, because it’s impossible for the whole place to be busy. It just doesn’t help that the museum looks so boring. Flat blank walls in every room, and the most bog standard selection of exhibits possible.
I’m sure I’m probably missing the point a bit here — the implication in the next episode is that it’s supposed to be a bit rubbish and boring, and that even the people who work there find it dull. But that doesn’t stop it from being boring. You feel like it should be really exciting to see our heroes walking through the exhibits. There’s a great bit here where they find the shell of a Dalek and recoil in horror (more on that in a moment), but why don’t se get any other exhibits from previous adventures? Throw in a Thal cloak! A Key of Marinus! A Sensorite weapon and a Roboman helmet! Heck, throw in a full-size Zarbi so you can continue the series’ ant theme!
Part of what this episode is trying to do is be mysterious and unnerving for Doctor Who and his friends. So chuck in a few more bits from the store cupboard, and have them wonder if this might be a museum dedicated to their adventures (‘But it can’t be, Doctor! Look at that thing. I don’t recognise that at all!’ / ‘You’re forgetting, Chatterton, this museum is in our future! That object may well be from an adventure which we are yet to have!’), and then you get to do the ultimate reveal; the TARDIS team entombed in the glass display cases!
That’s a brilliant image, and it feels a little wasted being a revelation that comes five minutes before the end. It should be the cliffhanger! Vicki spots them, begs the others to come and look, but they’re too interested in something else. And then they turn around… and it’s them! Oh, that’s a great concept that just falls flat here.
I did some artwork a couple of years ago for the brilliant online Space Museum based on this moment, and I think it has the opportunity to be one of the truly iconic moments of the 1960s. And if you’ve never been to Christopher Hill’s online Space Museum, then write off the rest of your day, because you’ll spend hours gazing through.
Anyway, one final thought for this one; I love Vicki being so not bothered by the Dalek, while the other three are all terrified to see it. ‘It’s quite cute,’ she says. Vicki works so well at puncturing the Doctor Who format, and this might be my favourite example yet.
Some great ideas, but lacking the execution it needs; 5/10.
The Dimensions of Time (The Space Museum — Episode Two)
‘If the truth were known, I was just as bored on Morok,’ drawls Lobos, as he contemplates another day in the Space Museum. Or possibly drawls Will as he contemplates the next episode of The Space Museum.
I’ve been having a read of the script today, and I think it shows up where The Space Museum fails on screen; it’s being played too straight. It’s supposed to be a comedy. Take for example the entire line from Lobos which I’ve quoted from above;
Technician: ‘The clasps had broken, rotted.’
Lobos: ‘Like everything on this planet, including us. Well, I’ve got two more mimmians before I can go home. Yes, I say it often enough, but it’s still two thousand Xeron days and it sounds more in days. Yeah, I know, I volunteered, you were ordered. If the truth were known, I was just as bored on Morok. Still it was home, and youth never appreciates what it has. Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Still, let’s get on with it, shall we? I have to sign these reports. I don’t know.’
[a messenger enters]
Lobos: ‘I’m the governor of this planet. You’re supposed to show some respect and knock.’
Messenger: ‘I’m sorry, sir, the matter’s urgent.’
Lobos: ‘Nothing’s so urgent you can’t knock on my door.’
To me, that reads like you should play it far more broad. I keep wondering how that scene might have played out in Season 24, and picturing Richard Brier’s Chief Caretaker saying the lines. It’s delivered really flat and serious here, but I feel like it’s supposed to be filled with sarcasm (‘I know! I volunteered!’), and then pompousness (‘Nothing’s so urgent you can’t knock on my door!’).
The more I looked at it like this, the more I started to get the story. Even the basic concept of a load of bored museum guards being terrorised by a group of teenagers with funny eyebrows feels quite Season 24. The problem is that it doesn’t make me like the story much more — because now I’m watching and wondering what we could have had instead.
Once again the whole museum looks painfully flat and drab, but we do at least get some interesting lighting during Doctor Who’s interrogation scene, and that’s where the episode picks up. It’s also the one place the comedy really comes across, with the image of our hero in his bathing suit. I think that might be the missing Doctor Who photo I’d most like to see turn up — just for the fun of it!
I also can’t help but feel that everything being so dull lessens the impact of the Morok Empire. The implication is that they were once great explorers and conquerors, and they’ve clearly defeated the Daleks on at least on occasion based on the fact that there’s one in the museum. Lobos says that the museum used to be popular — ‘People tire of their heritage. Three hundred mimmians ago, sightseers filled this planet, marvelling at what they saw. Today, the occasional spaceship from Morok calls.’ — and based on a measurement of time he gives elsewhere in the episode we can deduce that the peak was 800 years ago. Once again it’s a great idea that feels lost in the translation to screen; a great empire which has fallen into decay and decline.
I sense that more than boring, my main memory of The Space Museum is going to be one of missed opportunities. 4/10.
Oh, and I know it’s one of the few moments that gets singled out for praise in this story, but I’m not a fan of Doctor Who hiding inside the Dalek. Somehow it feels like the programme making light of the creatures in a way they wouldn’t have before, and it lessens the impact a bit for me. Sorry!
