Synopsis:
The TARDIS has been plunged into darkness, and the Doctor and his companions frozen in time...
Moments later, the lights come up and the travellers return to normal - but discover that they are no longer wearing their 12th Century clothing. They are in their usual contemporary dress.
The Doctor does not seem unduly concerned about this - going so far as to comment on how this has saved them time changing, but his companions want to know what has happened. He puts it down to one of the quirks of time travel, and suggests that Vicki check the wardrobe where their Crusading clothes will be hanging. He also asks her to fetch him a glass of water. The clothes are there.
Vicki drops the glass which smashes on the floor - and is shocked to see it suddenly leap back up into her hand, undamaged, as though time has wound backwards.
She informs the others. On the scanner, they see a number of strange spaceships of different design.
The Doctor notes that they seem to derive from different time periods. They then see a large circular building, and he realises where they are. This is some sort of museum.
They go outside to explore and notice how quiet it is. The ground is covered in dust, yet they aren't leaving any footprints.
They reach the museum building and are pondering how to get in when the doors open and some men in white militaristic uniform emerge. They fail to notice the TARDIS crew - even when Vicki sneezes only a few feet away.
Inside, they find the building to be much larger than expected. In one room they are confronted by a Dalek - only to discover that it is just an empty casing, one of the exhibits.
They see other people - young men dressed in black - but are unable to hide in time to avoid detection.
However, the men act as though they are invisible, and they cannot hear what they are saying to each other, despite being a couple of feet away.
Vicki then discovers that she cannot touch the exhibits. Her hand passes straight through.
The Doctor's suspicions are confirmed when they pass into another chamber and see the TARDIS there. It too proves insubstantial. Opposite, in a quartet of display cabinets, they are horrified to see themselves.
The Doctor explains that the ship must have jumped a time track - travelling forward a set period of time ahead of itself. They are glimpsing their own future. The process should correct itself and time will catch up. This should be very soon, as the Doctor points out they are wearing the same clothes as in the cases. Once they arrive in real time, the displays will disappear - but they will now be seen and heard by whoever controls this museum, and who will seek to make them a permanent fixture of it.
They feel a strange sensation as time corrects itself.
The figures in their cases disappear, and the Doctor announces that they have now arrived...
Next episode: The Dimensions of Time
Written by: Glyn Jones
Recorded: Friday 2nd April 1965 - Television Centre Studio 4
First Broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 24th April 1965
Ratings: 10.5 million / AI 51
Designer: Spencer Chapman
Director: Mervyn Pinfield
Critique:
Like the opening instalment of The Daleks - The Dead Planet - this episode focuses solely on the Doctor and his companions.
Once again, the time-travellers come across a complex on an alien world which they wish to explore, and in so doing come across a mystery to be solved, and a potential horror to be avoided.
The mystery is a good one. The travellers first experience the strange blackout / time jump in the TARDIS, and Vicki witnesses the glass breakage reverse itself.
They then discover that they are leaving no footprints on the dusty ground. When they encounter people, they appear to neither see nor hear them - as though they aren't really here.
Then they come upon the exhibits of themselves, and the Doctor's mounting suspicions are confirmed. That the Doctor hasn't explained his concerns sooner is to the benefit of the episode, as the viewers are left to ponder what might be going on. Once the mysterious events are explained, the remainder of the story will suffer for it...
Unlike The Dead Planet, we actually get to see a Dalek fully in this episode.
This is the last time we see the original design of Dalek from that first story, with the two broad metal bands around the mid-section. The heightened base and energy collection disc, added for the benefit of location filming on The Dalek Invasion of Earth, have been removed, taking it back to its original state.
Some other characters are seen briefly in the museum, but they are never heard to speak and don't interact with the TARDIS crew. They do not feature in the credits for the episode, either on screen or in Radio Times.
Glyn Jones was South African by birth, but moved to the UK in the 1950's. He worked as an actor, and wrote scripts for theatre and radio as a side-line. It was one of his stage productions which David Whitaker saw and enjoyed, and he met Jones soon after at a party. From this came a request to submit a storyline for Doctor Who. Jones had never seen the show, and had no real interest in science fiction. This commission coincided with Whitaker's departure, and the arrival of Dennis Spooner as story editor. Jones did not get on so well with him as he had with Whitaker.
He was particularly unhappy with the changes Spooner made to his scripts. He had included a lot more humour - something which Spooner usually appreciated - but this was removed. Apparently Spooner simply wanted the story to take itself seriously as a piece of science fiction. Jones had a different reason for the TARDIS jumping the time-track, which we'll get to once we reach the fourth episode. Again, he didn't like the change Spooner made to this.
Jones attended the studio days for his story.
This episode saw the series move away from its established home at Riverside - returning to Television Centre once again.
To offset the costs of The Web Planet and the higher budget allocated to the forthcoming The Chase, The Space Museum was intended from the outset as a cheap production, with few sets and a small cast, and involving no location filming.
Another saving Pinfield made was the use of library stock music. It is an extremely odd selection - in particular the piece known as World of Plants, by Jack Trombley, which accompanies the time-travellers' "arrival" at the end of the episode. Trombley was a pseudonym for composer Jan Stoekart.
Spencer Chapman reused items created by his colleague Ray Cusick for earlier Doctor Who stories to furnish the Museum - including the small round-topped tables seen in The Sensorites. Door panels from The Edge of Destruction also appear.
Maureen O'Brien did not enjoy working with Pinfield, thinking him more interested in the technicalities of directing whilst having little rapport with actors. He provided very little direction to the cast.
This is the only story wholly directed by Pinfield from start to finish.
At one point we see the Doctor, from the back, looking at himself in the glass case. This was achieved by employing Brian Proudfoot once again, dressed in a spare costume. Proudfoot had played the Doctor on location in The Reign of Terror, then later appeared as Tigilinus in The Romans.
The shots of the insubstantial museum exhibits were achieved by filming the piece of equipment, brightly lit, against black drapes, then superimposing it onto the empty museum room set. The TARDIS was actually the model version, rather than the real prop, for its scene. Unfortunately, the supposedly solid objects appear transparent on screen.
One nice effect achieved purely through performance is when the travellers emerge from the TARDIS. William Russell is seen on the console room set tapping his fists together, and he continues this as we switch to the external view of the ship on the neighbouring landscape set - suggesting continuity of movement.
There are one or two goofs.
The TARDIS crew cast shadows on the supposedly distant landscape outside the TARDIS.
William Hartnell overlaps the insubstantial TARDIS before he has reached out to try and touch it.
He also has a few problems pronouncing "fluorescent".
Ian describes their Crusading clothes as being 13th Century, when they've come from 1191.
Oddly, Vicki knows all about the Dalek invasion of Earth, having read about it in the history books - yet she doesn't recognise the Dalek when she sees it in the museum. Surely they would have had visual records in her time of such a momentous event in the planet's history? We'll see another example of the huge gaps in her education in the next story...
- The ratings improve all round - with one million more viewers than the final instalment of The Crusade, and the appreciation index moves above 50 once more.
- The working title of this episode was "The Four Dimensions of Time".
- This story has always been known as The Space Museum. In fact, it is the only story from the period when there were no overall titles to have never had an alternative name.
- The only live action filming for this story was the sequence with Vicki dropping the glass - partly to avoid having broken glass and water spilled in studio but also so that the sequence could be easily reversed. This was shot at Ealing on Thursday 11th March, without sound. The model shots were filmed on the same day.
- The Ealing filming saw the final appearance of the TARDIS food machine in the series - first seen in The Dead Planet. It had previously issued water in small plastic bags, but now dispenses it in glasses.
- Glyn Jones would go on to become the first person to both write a Doctor Who story and appear in the series as an actor. He featured as Galsec astronaut Krans in 1975's The Sontaran Experiment.
- It was during the rehearsals for this episode that the news broke that William Russell and Jacqueline Hill would be leaving at the end of the next Dalek story.
- Russell appeared on Junior Points of View that week, commenting on a creature called a Doodle which had been submitted by a young fan.
- On the eve of the 1965 University Boat Race, the Cambridge crew visited the studio and were pictured meeting the Dalek. Note the hinge which has been attached to the rear of the dome, so that Hartnell could emerge from it in the following week's instalment.
- The planet name Xeros derives from the Greek word for 'dry'.
- Radio Times gave the opening episode its usual photo feature - though the image actually came from the second instalment. Young Jeremy Bulloch was a big enough name to get a mention - having featured with Cliff Richard in 1963's Summer Holiday.
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