Synopsis:
The TARDIS has left Aridius but the Doctor has detected that there is another time machine on the same course. The Daleks are pursuing them, intent on their extermination...
The Doctor has calculated that they have a lead of only some twelve minutes.
New York City, 1966, and the TARDIS materialises on the uppermost viewing platform of the Empire State Building. A tour group has just passed round to the opposite side of the building, leaving only young Morton Dill of Alabama to witness the arrival of the Doctor and his companions.
He assumes that they are actors making a Hollywood movie, using special effects. Vicki recognises the city as "ancient" New York, which was destroyed in the Dalek invasion of the 22nd Century.
The travellers return to the ship and depart, but Morton is then confronted by another strange object which has materialised on the same spot. A Dalek emerges and questions him about the TARDIS.
He attempts to take a photograph but the Dalek retreats and the other time machine vanishes. When the rest of his tour group return, they are convinced that the young tourist has gone mad as he manically seeks the panel he thinks must be hidden in the floor...
The Doctor begins to build a device which can be used against the Daleks.
The TARDIS next materialises on a sailing ship at sea. This is the Atlantic Ocean in 1872, in the vicinity of the Azores.
Barbara and Vicki emerge and look around, but the History teacher is spotted by Richardson, one of the senior crew. He suspects her to be a stowaway. Vicki knocks the man out. Ian approaches, heard but not seen by Vicki and, thinking it is another crewman, she hits him over the head as well - stunning him. They help him back into the TARDIS and the ship moves on.
Richardson informs Captain Briggs of what has happened, and a search is ordered. The Dalek craft arrives and they emerge and begin searching the vessel. The superstitious crew panic when they see them and leap overboard. One Dalek is destroyed attempting to stop them, tumbling into the sea after them. The rest return to their ship and dematerialise - leaving the vessel deserted.
In the TARDIS, Ian tells Barbara that he spotted the ship's name - the Mary Celeste.
The Doctor informs his companions that they have a lead over their pursuers of only eight minutes now, and this will be reduced even further after their next landing...
Next episode: Journey Into Terror
Written by: Terry Nation
Recorded: Friday 14th May, 1965 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:45pm, Saturday 5th June 1965
Ratings: 9 million / AI 55
Designers: Raymond P Cusick and John Wood
Director: Richard Martin
Additional cast: Peter Purves (Morton Dill), Arne Gordon (Tour Guide), Dennis Chinnery (Richardson), David Blake Kelly (Capt. Briggs), Jack Pitt (Ship's Steward)
Critique:
The inside of the Dalek time machine makes its first full appearance in this episode, after the exterior had been seen in The Executioners.
There is a central console as with the TARDIS, and large circular panels on the walls, with a geometric pattern, spin when the ship is in flight. These also act as scanner screens.
There is at least one other level (a lower one) as an elevator is seen rising at the rear of the control room.
Dalek numbers are swelled in two ways - photographic blow-ups, as previously seen in their first two stories, and a trio of props from the new Dalek movie - Dr Who and the Daleks, starring Peter Cushing and Roy Castle - which was about to be released to cinemas.
Producer Milton Subotsky offered Richard Martin 8 of his props. However, the cinema Daleks were of a different size and design to their TV cousins. Much larger, with higher bases, they also had the horizontal bands around the central section instead of the new vertical slats. Even in B&W, the different colour scheme is noticeable, due to them having a darker dome.
Martin realised immediately that he couldn't use them, other than to adapt them to act as background "extras". The base was removed entirely to reduce their height, and the cinema props were relegated to the background of a few shots only.
Publicity for the film was gearing up during the second half of The Chase's broadcast, and each was used to help promote the other.
The photographic blow-up features on the time machine's elevator. The monochrome image was taken during the recording of The Executioners.
Peter Purves had been a dancer at the London Palladium, amongst some small TV roles, when he auditioned to play a Menoptra (apparently Hilio) in The Web Planet. Martin had rejected him for the part - but suggested that he might be considered for a more suitable role later on. He was then cast as the comedic Alabama tourist Morton Dill in Flight Through Eternity.
William Russell and Jacqueline Hill had announced their decision to leave the series at the end of the third Dalek story, and a single male character was being prepared to replace them. This would be another figure from the future - a space pilot initially named Roger Bruck. This was amended to Michael Taylor.
The cast found Purves a pleasure to work with, especially getting on well with the often volatile William Hartnell. During the day, Maureen O'Brien and Hartnell mentioned their happiness with the young actor to Verity Lambert. She and Dennis Spooner took him to the nearby pub (nicknamed "Studio 3") after recording that night and asked if he would be interested in a regular role on the programme. He accepted, knowing he would be brought back within the same story as a different character. He decided to grow a beard in the interim.
On Monday 17th May, Purves had a meeting with Spooner to discuss the new character, during which the name was changed to Steven Taylor and the idea of him having a toy panda mascot was introduced.
This episode marks the debut of a different form of story-telling which would become a regular feature of Doctor Who - the "pseudo-historical". The Mary Celeste segment sees the Daleks visit a genuine historical event - the mysterious abandonment of the sailing ship, found drifting near Santa Maria in the Atlantic in December 1872. It is the sudden arrival of the aliens which prompts the superstitious crew to leap overboard - thinking it is an attack by the "White Terror of Barbary".
Other historical events will later be put down to alien intervention, and whole stories will be built around this concept, but this is where it all starts.
Too much is made of the fact that the ship is the famous mystery one. We see the name plate long before the camera moves in to view it in close-up - and then we have Ian tell Barbara about it after this. One or the other would have sufficed, not both.
Lambert was unhappy with the quality of one of the sets, and lodged a complaint with the design department. This was the observation deck of the Empire State Building. The head of department had seen the episode on broadcast and felt that the set looked fine. Martin had actually been forced to reposition the TARDIS prop due to the poor workmanship of the set wall.
A Dalek is seen on an upper deck of the Mary Celeste, implying that they are able to conquer stairs after all, though this is never actually witnessed on screen.
Richard Martin was unhappy with the filming of the model ship as the scale looked wrong.
Trivia:
- The ratings see another half million drop on the previous week, and a one point decrease in the appreciation figure.
- The episode aired 5 minutes later than usual due to an extended Grandstand, which included golf, tennis and athletics.
- The action was supposed to have moved on to the "Haunted House" within this episode, with the cliff-hanger falling when Barbara is caught up in a revolving wall panel.
- Some of the Mary Celeste scenes were filmed at Ealing on Tuesday 13th April, making use of the studio's huge water tank - its first use in the series.
- Arne Gordon had previously appeared as Hrostar in The Web Planet. His tour guide character had a name in the draft scripts - Henry de Voort.
- Dennis Chinnery would face the Daleks again, in the more prominent role of Gharman in Genesis of the Daleks. He also appeared in the first episode of The Twin Dilemma as Professor Sylvest.
- David Blake Kelly returned to the series to play inn-keeper Jacob Kewper in The Smugglers.
- Morton Dill refers to the Keystone Kops as well as Cheyenne Bodie. The latter was the main character of the US Western series Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker, which had been broadcast on ITV between 1958 - 1964.
- Morton also confirms on screen that the Dalek skirt hemispheres are indeed blue within the narrative of the series (unlike, say, the TARDIS console which is light green in real life but white in the narrative).
- The TARDIS crew are seen to eat guava flavoured food bars. These were simply Mars Bars.
- Below, a rare rehearsal shot, colourised, of the Dalek time machine. The adapted cinema Daleks are noticeable in the background due to their colour scheme as well as the lack of base and vertical slats:
- William Hartnell and his wife Heather were featured in this week's Reveille magazine, shown enjoying their country cottage home:
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