On this edition of Tales From The TARDIS, we're looking at part two of the Doctor Who story 'The Space Museum' titled 'The Dimensions of Time' and see why The Space Museum isn't considered memorable beyond one great moment in this episode involving a Dalek.
Time and Relative Dimensions
Doctor Who
The Space Museum
Part 2
“The Dimensions of
Time”
Original Air Date:
May 1, 1965
Viewers: 9.2
Millions (Down 1.3 Million from previous week)
Picking up right
from where part 1 ended, The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki are in
the museum and must figure out how to proceed in order to avoid
ending up in the cases, do they stay put or try to make it back to
the TARDIS, which is what they try to do with Ian taking a ray gun
that is on display as a possible way to bluff their way out of
trouble… however the museum is very much like a maze with every
corridor looking the same. Vicki takes charge in terms of suggesting
which way to go because neither Ian, Barbara or The Doctor have a
clue and it’s just hopeful thinking they can make their way out…
however The Doctor ends up getting separated from the others when he
is abducted by the rebels on this planet.
Yes that’s right I
said rebels, which means its time to talk about the inhabitants of
this museum. First there is the Museum’s curator / planet Govenor
Lobos, who is a bored official just eager for the day to go home, he
represents the Moroks empire who by his own admission is an empire
that is basically resting on its laurels (The Doctor compares it to
the fall of the Roman Empire… being so large that it declines due
to being complacent) , and when he learns of the sudden arrival of a
ship, he’s rather pleased and sends out his mend to find the TARDIS
crew before the rebels does… and from what’s said (and seen)
there is a quite an age gap, as it’s the ‘Children’ who are
rebelling, and who also learn of the visitors who hope to find them
and ask them for help against Lobos and those in charge… but it’s
not really made clear as to how they are being oppressed… and with
this being only a 4-part story, it’s really not a lot of time to
get invested in this little civil skirmish that is happening.
Now as I said, the
rebels capture the Doctor, who plays possum, which makes them think
they killed him… and when two go off to search for away to ‘help
him’, The Doctor hog-ties the one that remains (Named Darko…
wonder if his first name is Donnie) and hides inside a Dalek casing
in this stories one major iconic moment. When Darko’s allies
return, they ask him what happened and he says ‘it was like a whirl
wind’… they go on to try and find the other members of the TARDIS
crew, following a trail they left behind using Barbara’s cardigan
(inspired by Ian remembering the myth of Minotaur labyrinth)
.
Obviously, Ian,
Barbara and Vicki became aware of The Doctor being missing, and after
a surprising bit of arguing with Barbara and Ian, they figure the
best course of action is to try and find him while also searching for
The exit, which they eventually do and see that the locals have The
TARDIS.
And speaking of
captured, The Doctor himself is captured and interrogated by Lobos,
who explains the history of the Museum and the details about the
Moroks I mentioned earlier. The Doctor doesn’t answer any of Lobos’
questions, but due to a mind-scanner, Lobos gets the answers he wants
anyway, but this leads to the Doctor having some fun, using his mind
to fool the scanner… this irritates Lobos who declares that the
Doctor will become an exhibit and orders him to be taken away.
It’s with this
episode we see a lot of the major problems with the Space Museum is
mainly with the rebellion story line that doesn’t quite work
because it feels like its forced in there, and the only dynamic one
could see is that the rebels are young and Lobos is old. Lobos is
established well as the main antagonist, but given the set up of the
story in part one, I don’t think him being a villain governing a
planet is necessary, since he’s basically just runs the museum and
could’ve been just someone who ‘collects’ whatever new oddities
lands on the world.
Anyway, we’ll be
back on Friday to go over Part 3 of the Space Museum, which is titled
‘The Search’
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