Doctor Who: The Chase

Also called "Goodbye Ian and Barbara!"

The Chase is the second-to-last serial of Season Two of Doctor Who. It's also the third in the series to feature the Daleks and the last serial in which Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright appear as characters. This serial also debuts Peter Purves as Steven Taylor, the Doctor's newest companion. This also will change the dynamics in the TARDIS from two females and two males to two males and a young adult female. That will be an interesting change, I think.

So, I'm somewhat looking forward to and dreading this episode. On one hand, Daleks seem to have developed time travel technology and view the Doctor as their "greatest enemy"... well, the Doctor and the TARDIS crew. On the other hand, it's still early in the series so I doubt they'll show any knowledge of what's to come in the future. That's somewhat anticlimactic. If they referred to things to come it would show the creators had some sort of plan. However, it's rather obvious that most of Doctor Who thus far is "make it up as we go along" which is fun, but it doesn't tie everything together nicely at all. Only time will tell what will happen, however.

Oh yeah, this serial is six episodes long and originally aired between May 22 and June 26 1965.

Three Hours Later...

This serial wasn't just a good serial , but it was also a good send-off for Ian and Barbara though they do sort of approach the idea of Ian and Barbara leaving in the last five minutes. Literally. The minute the two humans realize that they have this time machine that has the ability to send them home accurately, they dive at the chance to go home without giving it much thought. It's seen more as a decision of opportunity rather than a plan which makes sense because the Doctor has tried to take them home a number of times and it always ended up very badly.

Anyhow, the serial, obviously, doesn't begin with Ian and Barbara wanting to go home. No, the TARDIS is travelling through time and space while the Doctor is tinkering with the toy he got from the Space Museum in the last serial called a Time-Space Visualizer. It basically can show you any moment in time and space that you want to see. They use it to watch the Gettysburg Address, the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and a performance by the Beatles (Vicki didn't know they performed "Classical Music").

Then the TARDIS lands on a desert planet with two suns that used to be an oceanic planet before the suns started moving closer and closer to it. In other words,the gravity of the two suns are drawing the planet in. So, you've got a desert planet where the main life forms are fish-creatures. I know it doesn't make any sense, but let's go with it. We only spend an hour there. Long enough for the Doctor and Barbara to get captured by the fish people who are going to give them over to the Daleks in exchange for their lives. Vicki and Ian rescue them and we're off through time and space while the Daleks chase them.

We visit the Empire State Building in New York, 1966 (in three years River Song's going to dive off of it). We visit the Mary Celeste where Barbara nearly gets molested by a seaman. The Daleks come and scare everyone off the ship, causing it to become a famous Ghost Ship. Then they end up at a haunted house called the Festival of Ghana in which all the monsters are very life-like robots. It's supposed to take place in 1996, but I don't thing we had realistic life-like robots back then. I could be wrong though.

At this point Vicki ends up on the Dalek time-travel ship while the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are in the TARDIS. En route to the next destination, the Daleks plan the downfall of the TARDIS crew by creating a robot duplicate of the Doctor programmed to divide, separate, and kill. Then we end up on the planet, Mechanus. This is where the rest of the plot takes place.

The Daleks chase our characters around while Vicki looks for the rest of her group. The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara find a cave to hide in and wait for the Daleks to attack. During this time, Vicki finds them and then the trio defeat the robot after no small amount of trouble. In short, it almost kills Barbara and then almost convinces Ian to kill the real Doctor.

Then the TARDIS crew are captured by the Mechanoids, machines that were programmed by humans to set up a city on Mechanus and then await humans with the appropriate codes. Those humans would populate the city, and anyone else is captured and watched. While in captivity, the meet Steve Taylor who explains the situation. Then the five of them plot their escape from the city while the Daleks attack the city. The Daleks and the Mechanoids destroy each other. Everyone escapes back to the TARDIS and realize that the Dalek time-traveling ship has been left unattended.

Ian and Barbara convince the Doctor to show them how to pilot it home to their time and planet. After a tearful farewell, they depart. Then the Doctor and Vicki watch as they arrive in England in the year 1965. The Doctor comments that he will miss them and then we're off to time and space!

I will miss Ian and Barbara too. They were a fun couple of character who held their own with the Doctor despite the fact that he was an old man. Barbara was more likely to give into him, but Ian would fight to keep everyone safe even when the Doctor was the reason they weren't safe. I'm not sure how the new dynamic will be with Steve Taylor because we only just met him and there was no indication in this episode that he managed to get on the TARDIS.

We shall see in the next episode, The Time Meddler!