The Space Museum [2.1]

Team TARDIS are sucked down to a peculiar and spooky museum planet where nobody can see them and they leave no footprints. The Doctor’s explains that they have slipped forward in their own timestream and are temporarily no more than ghosts getting a glimpse of their own future. Alarmingly, this future appears that it will result in them being turned into wax dummies and exhibited in the museum.

Returning to real time, the team are presented with a dilemma. Should they stay or should they go? Which is more likely to ‘change the future’ and foil their destiny? Inevitably, they are dragged into bigger conflicts as the militant museum staff deal with an uprising of angry young men.

The Majesty
The first episode is delightfully mysterious. Appearing in different clothes, time re-winding, the crew leaving no footprints, the enigma is unravelled until at last the Doctor makes his conclusion “We are not really here.” It’s very engaging.

So far the time-travel aspect of “Doctor Who” has only been used to get the TARDIS and the crew to different time periods. There has been little exploration of the complexity of the fourth dimension itself. To be fair, Vicki’s explanation is bizarre: “Time – like space – although a dimension in itself, also has dimensions of its own.” But the story gets kudos for at least trying to explore some of the paradoxes of time travel.

Even though the main story – guards v rebels – is an underdeveloped cliché, this main hook for the story continues to work – by and large. Are all their choices made freely? Are they moving towards escape? Or inevitably predestined to end up in a museum case?

The Misery
The guest cast are pretty appalling in this episode. The museum staff are older men; they wear white and have hedgehog haircuts. The rebels are younger men; they wear black and have huge hairy eyebrows. These visual differences aside, all of them are equally wooden. To some extent the rebels can be forgiven. They are written as faceless, spineless boys unable to take any initiative until Vicki implausibly turns up to lead them to victory. But the museum staff are dreadful. The curator is written with a certain characterisation, but acted completely flat. The man shows no surprise, anger, pride or even any interest in what’s going on around him. His depute is even worse – he ruins every scene he turns up in. He totally misinterprets his lines, delivering them without thought, care or conviction. He has only turned up to collect his BBC paycheck and thinks if he stands in the right space and says the right words in the right order that that somehow counts as acting.

Magical Moments

• Ian: “Doctor, we’ve got our clothes on!” - Doctor: “Well I should hope so, dear boy!” 
• Barbara: “Oh look – spaceships!” Is that what they are supposed to me? They looked to me like upturned dustbins with extra knobs on. 
• The doors of the museum swing open and some guards are walking towards the crew. After two or three seconds standing in full view, the Doctor cries “Hide” and they all move about a metre to the side of the doorway. Even the Voord in ‘Keys of Marinus’ tried a little harder! 
• There’s a Dalek on display. Later, the Doctor hides inside it, to emerge giggling hysterically at the trouble he is causing. 
• As the time-streams converge and the crew move into the proper present, we get some really epic orchestral music and some footprints appear in the sand. It’s a fantastic climax to the ‘good’ section of the story, before everything goes downhill. 
• There’s a lot of comic banter about whether you go left or right and which way you are facing when you do so. It’s not only fun, but it highlights that if you are trying to evade destiny, then every decision – left or right – is important. 
• The curator laments that nobody comes to the museum any more. “Have you tried reducing the admission fee?” asks the Doctor. 
• Ian tried to unravel Barbara’s cardigan as a handy marker through the maze of museum corridors. “Hey,” she protests, “That’s a good cardigan!” Meanwhile, Ian is literally trying to bite through it... 
• Asked where he has come from, the Doctor shows the curator a walrus colony on his ‘Mind-screen’ device. “What are these creatures?” growls the curator. “Oh just some friends of mine” replies the Doctor. 
• “What are you here for?” the computerised armoury guard asks Vicki. “Revolution!” she replies, and the door opens. It’s a moment that makes no sense logically, but it pretty impressive as a moment in itself. 
• “There are no tricks in science – only facts.” It’s a good line from the curator. A shame he has the charisma of an anaemic jellyfish. 
• “Thanks to you,” the Doctor congratulates Ian, “I’m now de-iced.” Good to see the process didn’t alter his sense of humour! 

In Summary
‘The Space Museum’ has got one good idea, which is explored in the first episode and referred back to in the remainder. But the overall plot is nowhere near strong enough to keep up with this idea, and the story as a whole feels like an intellectual exercise rather than an adventure story. Even at this level, however, it fails: there is no great thought about destiny and free will; there is no clear sequence of decisions that is shown to go one way or the other; in fact, most of the story shows our protagonists as being passive or merely reacting to events. Ultimately the explanation given is a superficial ‘Edge of Destruction’-style stuck switch, which demonstrates the flimsy nature of this whole story. Good ideas, but no development and really poor production.

Overall: 2.1