2x07. The Space Museum
Writer: Glyn Jones
Director: Mervyn Pinfield
Script Editor: Dennis Spooner
Producer: Verity Lambert
Synopsis: A spacetime
distortion on the TARDIS results in the Doctor and his companions
journeying briefly into the future, where they are unable to interact
with their surroundings but discover their future selves frozen as
sculptures in an alien museum run by the Moroks. Restored to normal time,
they aid the native Xerons in their revolution against the Moroks while
trying to change their own futures.
Review: "The Space Museum" seems to take a lot of
criticism for reasons I don't quite understand. While it's not going to
make my list of all-time favorite Doctor Who
serials, I think it shows the second season continuing to find its
footing after the success of "The Crusade," and it boasts a creative
sci-fi twist that keeps the story from getting too formulaic.
I am referring, of course, to the fact that the TARDIS crew spend the
first episode walking around in their own future, at first confused by
the numerous anomalies (especially when they find that they can't hear
anyone speak or touch anything), then finally making the horrific
discovery of their future selves as museum exhibits. Granted, the
Doctor's pseudoscience doesn't really make any sense (what the hell is
a "time track"?), and there are obvious logical problems like the fact
that somehow they can't hear or touch anything but can see perfectly
well and don't just sink into the ground. Still, this is the first Doctor Who serial
to make the very concept of time travel essential to the plot, and the
setup adds an extra element of suspense to what follows. The
protagonists, instead of just taking their roles in a straightforward
"help the oppressed alien rebels" story (as they did in "The Web
Planet"), are forced to ask themselves at every turn, "Is this the
decision that could lead to our being captured and turned into museum
pieces? Or is this the very choice we must make to *avoid* that
outcome?"
It also helps that the Morok oppressors are not presented as a powerful
and efficient juggernaut (like the Daleks or the Animus, for example),
but rather as a bored occupation force doing the bidding of a
declining, decadent civilization. The Morok governor Lobos, even though
he eventually orders lethal force to stop the Xeron uprising, initially
seems to see the Doctor's presence and his scientific knowledge as a
respite from the monotony of his job, and it's correctly observed that
at least one of his soldiers doesn't really seem to care about the
outcome of the rebellion. The initial kidnapping of the Doctor by the
Xerons in order to get the companions' attention also shows how people
with good intentions can be pushed into aggression by desperate
circumstances: they only kidnapped him because they didn't know whether
they could trust the TARDIS crew and feared that the time travelers
might otherwise kill them at sight. Like "The Aztecs," this serial
seems heavily informed by the harsh lessons that Britain and other
European countries had recently learned about imperialism, a theme that
the Doctor indirectly references at one point by mentioning the
precedent of the Roman Empire.
Writer Glyn Jones also gives Maureen O'Brien the most engaging material
she's had to work with thus far. In previous episodes, Vicki has been a
rather bland presence with no particularly distinctive characteristics
other than a tendency to give pet names to large alien creatures. Here,
she's actually instrumental in aiding the Xeron revolution, winning
their trust and helping them to break into the Morok armory by
reprogramming the computer-controlled locking mechanism (though the way
she accomplishes this does seem a little too easy). Jones also
generally does a nice job of keeping the story moving at a good pace,
even in the moments when it does fall back on "alien rebellion"
formula. While I can't say that I found every single minute of "The
Space Museum" grippingly original, I was never particularly bored or
impatient either.
If there's one area in which "The Space Museum" falls short, it's that
the idea of knowing one's own future demise is never quite utilized to
full effect. This is a concept that turns up from time to time in
sci-fi, and when done really well (as in, for example, Star Trek: TNG's "Time Squared"),
it creates not only suspense but a sort of existential dread at the
possibility that the future is already written and that nothing we do
can change it. When Ian discovers that the Doctor has indeed been
captured and frozen at the end of Episode 3, I'd have expected him to
react with horror at the notion that the inevitable really is closing
in on them all, but instead he just launches into his action-hero
insistence that the process be reversed. The script comes closest to
touching upon this theme when Ian smashes one of the machines needed to
freeze them despite the fact that there are plenty of others just like
it, as if clinging to even the most inconsequential exercise of his
free will, but at that point it's too little and too late.
Still, this is an enjoyable and entertaining serial that benefits from
some clever plotting and solid characterization. I'd been feeling a
little less optimistic about the Hartnell era after the second season's
largely mediocre beginnings ("Dalek Invasion" excepted), but after "The
Crusade" and now "The Space Museum," I'd say things are back on track.
Other notes:
- The serial's funniest moment has to be the Doctor squaring off
against Lobos' mind-reading apparatus: when asked how he got to Xeros
and where he's from, he projects the images of a bicycle and then of a
small island inhabited by seals.
- Speaking of which, this is the first serial in a while to reference
the mystery of the Doctor's origins. Although he's initially
cooperative in his interrogation, that's the one question he refuses to
answer even before Lobos starts asking about his companions.
Rating: *** (out of four)
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