Doctor Who: The Chase

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The Chase is the eighth serial of Season 2 of the classic Doctor Who television series. It was originally broadcast on BBC in six weekly parts from 22 May to 26 June 1965. It was written by Terry Nation and directed by Richard Martin. It stars William Hartnell as the Doctor, William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright, and Maureen O’Brien as Vicki.

The Daleks build their own time machine and hunt the TARDIS across history and space. This takes them from the desert world of Aridius to New York’s Empire State Building, the doomed Mary Celeste, a creepy “haunted house,” and finally the jungle city of Mechanus, where Mechonoids patrol towering cages.

Episode 1: The Executioners

The Doctor fits the TARDIS with a Time-Space Visualiser. He, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki watch scenes from Earth’s past, including Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare, and the Beatles performing, amazed that the machine can summon moments on command.

They land on a barren world with two suns and drifting sand. Exploring, a sudden sandstorm separates the group. The Doctor and Barbara look for shelter among strange rock shapes while calling for their friends.

Back in the ship, the Visualiser picks up a chilling broadcast: in their control room on Skaro, the Daleks prepare a time machine and vow to hunt down and exterminate the Doctor and his companions. The chase has begun.

Out on the wastes, Ian and Vicki follow a half-buried path toward ancient ruins. The ground heaves. Tentacled creatures, Mire Beasts, surge from the sand and coil around them. Ian hacks at the limbs as Vicki struggles to breathe, but the creatures drag them toward a pit.

Unaware of the attack, the Doctor and Barbara fight the wind and set off to find their friends before night falls. Far away, Daleks roll into their time machine and launch after the TARDIS. The hunt across time and space begins with deadly intent.

Episode 2: The Death of Time

Ian and Vicki struggle in the coils of the Mire Beasts. Aridians, thin, robed people, drive the creatures back and carry the pair into tunnels below the sand. They explain their world, Aridius, was once an ocean world. As the seas dried, the Mire Beasts bred in the caves and began to overrun the last city. On the surface, shifting dunes bury the TARDIS. It sinks through into a cavern.

The Doctor and Barbara search the ruins and are also taken to the Aridian shelters. The leaders promise to help the travellers find their ship after they burn the Mire Beasts’ egg chambers. Then a new terror arrives: the Daleks land in their own time machine and demand the strangers at once. If the Aridians refuse, the Daleks will destroy the city. Under threat, the Aridians set an ambush. Vicki slips away and warns the others.

The four friends fight through the tunnels while Daleks sweep the passages with fire. An Aridian who aids them is killed by falling rock as the caves collapse. Guided by echoes of the sandfall, the Doctor finds the cavern where the TARDIS lies. They scramble inside and dematerialise as Dalek guns blaze. Above, the Daleks lock onto the time trace and launch the chase across history.

Episode 3: Flight Through Eternity

The TARDIS flees through time with the Daleks close behind. The Doctor says they must keep moving to shake the pursuit. The ship lands on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in 1966. Tourists stare. The travellers take one look at the crowds and the risk, warn a talkative visitor to stand back, and hurry away. Moments later the Daleks arrive, question the baffled man, and then race off after the TARDIS.

The next stop is the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. The TARDIS materialises on the deck of a sailing ship. Sailors and passengers cry out in shock at the sudden “ghosts.” The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki retreat at once and dematerialise. The Daleks land seconds later. Their harsh orders and strange shape turn fear into panic. Crew and passengers leap overboard to escape, leaving the vessel deserted. One Dalek rolls into the sea and sinks. The chase continues. The ship is revealed to be the Mary Celeste.

Back in flight, the Doctor warns they cannot run forever. They must find a place to make a stand. The TARDIS lands again: in a dark, eerie house full of shadows and cobwebs. The team steps out to explore. Behind them, the Dalek time machine locks onto the trace and descends after them, relentless as ever.

Episode 4: Journey into Terror

The TARDIS lands in a dark, eerie house. Cobwebs hang from the ceiling, a bat swoops, and a suit of armour creaks. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki explore separate corridors. A cloaked figure glides by. A door slams. Thunder shakes the rooms. Dracula smiles with sharp teeth. Frankenstein’s monster lumbers from a table and reaches out with heavy hands.

The friends scatter and try to find each other. Vicki trips and hides behind curtains. The Doctor and Ian spot machinery behind a wall and begin to suspect the “ghosts” are tricks. Barbara runs into Dracula and flees down stairs into a cellar of coffins. The monster follows, smashing doors.

Outside, the Daleks arrive in their time machine and roll into the house. Frankenstein grabs one Dalek and crushes it. The survivors fire wildly. The Doctor pulls Barbara to safety and says the place is a future fun-fair exhibit, not real magic. They race back to the TARDIS and take off: believing everyone is aboard.

Vicki is left behind but slips into the Dalek time machine and hides. In flight, the Doctor decides to stop running and make a stand on the planet Mechanus. The Daleks set their course too. The chase heads for a final showdown.

Episode 5: The Death of Doctor Who

The TARDIS lands on the jungle world Mechanus. Strange plants glow and hiss, and tall fungus sways as if alive. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki prepare to make a stand, but they soon realise the Daleks have arrived with their own time machine and are closing in through the trees.

In the Dalek camp, a plan takes shape: a robot double of the Doctor is built to infiltrate the group and kill his friends. The duplicate walks into the jungle and finds the travellers. It looks right and speaks like the Doctor, but its words are flat and cold. It tries to separate the others, steering Ian toward a trap and turning on Barbara when she grows suspicious.

The real Doctor returns, and two “Doctors” face each other in the shadows. Ian watches their movements and challenges them with quick questions. A fight breaks out among the vines. The false Doctor strikes without care for his friends, giving himself away. Ian knocks the double back and smashes its head: the thing sparks and lies still.

Before they can breathe, vast metal spheres, Mechonoids, descend on cables from above. Grids snap shut around the humans. The Mechonoids announce they will take the captives for “research” and lift them toward a towering city as the Daleks push through the jungle below.

Episode 6: The Planet of Decision

The Mechonoids carry the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki into their high metal city on Mechanus. In a cell garden they meet Steven Taylor, an Earth astronaut held here for two years. The Mechonoids keep humans for “research” until orders come from Earth that never arrive. Steven shows them food stores and a service hatch. Together they plan an escape.

Daleks climb the jungle and attack the city. Sirens blare. Mechonoids descend on cables to fight. While the robots battle below, the Doctor and friends set a fire in the cell to trigger alarms. Smoke rises. They force open a hatch, throw a cable over a balcony, and slide down the outside of the tower. Behind them, Daleks and Mechonoids blast each other as the city burns.

On the ground they reach the clearing. The Dalek time machine stands intact. Ian and Barbara beg to use it to go home. The Doctor warns it is dangerous but, moved by their wish, sets the controls for London, 1965. They depart and land safely, laughing in the streets they know.

Back in the jungle, the Doctor and Vicki return to the TARDIS, sad but proud. Steven has run back for his mascot “Hi-Fi.” Smoke chokes the trees. He staggers into the TARDIS unseen as it dematerialises toward the next adventure.

Themes

As a six-part chase comedy. The Chase is baggy, brazen, and often very funny. It doesn’t reach the dramatic heights of “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” or the craft of The Crusade, and it’s less conceptually sharp than the opener of The Space Museum.

But its jukebox of settings (Aridius, the Mary Celeste, a haunted house, Mechanus) and the sheer cheek of Daleks on tour make it a lively mid-tier Hartnell serial. What finally lifts it is heart: Ian and Barbara’s farewell (joyful, homebound, and bittersweet) lands with real feeling.

Its links stitch the era together. The Dalek pursuit pays off their earlier menace from The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, while that museum-case Dalek in The Space Museum feels like a sly omen. The Mechonoids’ debut and Steven Taylor’s rescue at Mechanus set the board for the next phase, as Steven stows away toward The Time Meddler.

Ian and Barbara’s return to 1965 via the Dalek time machine closes the loop opened in An Unearthly Child, letting the show pivot from a sprawling Nation romp to the sly historical play of The Time Meddler with a refreshed team and a world still full of surprises.

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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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