Doctor Who: The Space Museum

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The Space Museum is the seventh serial of Season 2 of the classic Doctor Who television series. It was originally broadcast on BBC1 in four weekly parts from 24 April to 15 May 1965. It was written by Glyn Jones and directed by Mervyn Pinfield. It stars William Hartnell as the Doctor, William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright, and Maureen O’Brien as Vicki.

The TARDIS skips a “time track” and lands on the planet Xeros, where the travellers wander unseen through a silent museum and glimpse a chilling future: themselves preserved as exhibits. To avoid this fate, they must work out what actions change outcomes and which ones trap them, while the occupying Moroks guard their trophies and the young Xerons dream of rebellion.

The story plays with ideas of time and choice in a clear, simple way, as the team split up, make risky moves, and Vicki sparks a revolt that could free Xeros, and rewrite the future the museum has already shown.

Episode 1: The Space Museum

The TARDIS lands silently in a vast building on the planet Xeros. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki step out and notice strange things. Their shoes leave no footprints in the dust. A glass the Doctor drops does not break. When Barbara touches a display, her hand passes through it. They speak, but their voices make no echo. The Doctor says the ship has “jumped a time track.” For now they are out of step with events.

They wander a Space Museum filled with trophies from the Morok Empire: ships, weapons, and alien relics. Guards walk past but cannot see them. The travellers split up to explore, uneasy and curious. In a side hall they find a row of cases. Inside are four figures, frozen and staring. The light shifts. They see the truth: the figures are themselves, turned into exhibits. If time follows this path, the museum will capture them and put them on display forever.

A moment later the spell ends. Footprints appear. A dropped glass shatters. Sound returns. Time has caught up. The Doctor says their vision shows only one possible future, not a fate. They must act to change it. Footsteps approach through the galleries, and hostile voices echo among the cases.

Episode 2: The Dimensions of Time

Time catches up. Footprints and echoes return. Alarms ring through the Space Museum. Morok guards begin a search for intruders. The Doctor tells the others they must change the future they saw (becoming exhibits) by acting differently. They split up.

The Doctor slips through galleries and hides inside a Dalek shell to fool a patrol, but he is seized and taken before Governor Lobos. Lobos uses a mind-reading screen to test him. The Doctor smiles and thinks of jokes and nonsense to confuse the images. Lobos grows annoyed, yet decides the stranger will make a fine display. He orders the Doctor prepared for exhibit.

Ian and Barbara try to track the Doctor. Patrols block every corridor. Ian dodges through storage rooms and listens for the sound of boots and lifts. Barbara is driven into a hall of cases and locks a door behind her, then looks for another way out.

Vicki meets young Xerons, Tor and his friends, who hate the Moroks but have no weapons. They tell her their elders were killed and the museum’s machines are controlled by the occupiers. Vicki refuses to give up. She says there must be a way to beat a machine with thought and questions. A plan begins to form. By nightfall the Doctor is in custody, Ian and Barbara are hunted, and Vicki chooses to help the Xerons fight back.

Episode 3: The Search

Morok patrols search the museum. Ian and Barbara slip through storerooms, calling softly for the Doctor. Guards block routes and set traps. Barbara is herded into a preparation room. Doors seal. A preservation gas begins to hiss inside. She wraps cloth over her mouth, bangs on the walls, and looks for ducts or switches as the mist thickens.

Vicki has met young Xerons (Tor, Sita, and Dako) who want to fight but lack weapons. She studies a control desk that runs the armoury. The Morok computer denies access, saying the boys are too young and not cleared. Vicki argues with it, then opens the panel and rewires the logic, changing the age and status registers. The printer stamps permits. The armoury doors slide open. The Xerons take ray guns at last.

Ian ambushes a guard, learns the Doctor is to be “prepared for display,” and heads for the processing area. Vicki leads the armed Xerons toward the galleries to free prisoners. They blast a lock and pull Barbara from the gas-filled room just in time.

Governor Lobos reviews the Doctor’s case and orders the final phase to begin. Ian closes on the control centre. Vicki and the Xerons spread through corridors, striking quickly and vanishing. The balance of power starts to shift, but the Doctor is moments from becoming a museum exhibit.

Episode 4: The Final Phase

Morok guards wheel the Doctor into the preparation chamber to turn him into a museum exhibit. He lies under the freezing dome as Governor Lobos orders the “final phase.” Ian fights his way to Control, seizes a rifle, and forces Lobos at gunpoint to reverse the process. The Doctor steps free, smiling, and they lock Lobos in his own chair while they plan their escape.

Elsewhere, Vicki leads Tor, Sita, and Dako through the galleries with weapons taken from the armoury she unlocked. She uses the re-wired computer to open cell doors and jam Morok alarms. Barbara guides freed prisoners into cover and helps the Xerons hold stairwells and corridors. Skirmishes flare across the museum; Morok patrols fall back.

Lobos is dragged before the Xeron leaders. He blusters, then tries to flee, but the rebels surround him. The Doctor warns the Xerons to think of ruling, not revenge. Tor declares the occupation over and promises fair trials. Vicki grins: their future has changed.

In the trophy halls, the travellers see the glass cases where they once glimpsed their own fate, now empty. The Xerons give the Doctor a device that shows scenes from history as a gift. The friends say goodbye, return to the TARDIS, and depart Xeros, free of the museum and the future that almost trapped them.

Themes

As a high-concept pivot, “The Space Museum” opens brilliantly: eerie footprints, frozen exhibits, and the shock of seeing the TARDIS crew as future relics. Then it eases into a simpler rebellion tale. Across its four parts, the first episode is upper-tier Hartnell for mood and idea, while the subsequent chapters settle into mid-tier cat-and-mouse against the Moroks.

Taken as a whole, it sits between the sharp drama of The Crusade and the exuberant sweep of The Chase: less polished than either, but memorable for its unsettling premise and a few sly, funny grace notes.

Its threads bind neatly across the era. Coming straight after The Crusade, it pushes the team from courtly intrigue into a playful meditation on fate versus choice, foreshadowing later temporal mischief in The Time Meddler. Vicki’s decisive role in arming the Xerons consolidates her post-The Rescue agency and previews the companion-as-catalyst energy that will matter in The Chase.

Even the sight of a Dalek in a display case feels like an omen for what’s next. The story earns a solid, mid-table rating for marrying one great, chilly idea to a breezy revolution: and for pointing the TARDIS directly toward the chaos of The Chase.

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This is a chapter from Craig Hill’s book “Doctor Who – The First Doctor”, chronicling every episode featuring the First Doctor. It is available on Amazon.

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To view the list of other Doctor Who serials, please click this link

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