A Bluffer’s Guide to Doctor Who: The Space Museum
The Doctor Who production team are unaware they’re making a parody… of Doctor Who.
Exhibit A:
Describe The Space Museum in six words:
Brilliant first part, standard stuff follows.
Exhibit B:
The one with… the frozen exhibits from the future.
Dated from:
Episodes: 68–71
First broadcast: 24 April — 15 May, 1965
Exhibit C:
Exhibit D
Behind the Scenes / Why Was This Made?
Story editor Dennis Spooner invited writer Glyn Jones to contribute a script. Producer Verity Lambert wanted to save money, so Mervyn Pinfield (director) reduced the amount of filming outside of the studio.
During the recording of this story, Lambert and Spooner, as well as actors Jacqueline Hill and William Russell decided to leave the series.
Exhibit E
Observations / Things to Say:
The Doctor’s actions are beginning to reflect the person Ian and Barbara keep describing him as: he wants to check out the building, explore the museum. Curious about the glass repairing itself (and believes Vicki: He never use to believe Susan — see the hand in The Daleks’ opening episode)
Why does Ian automatically assume the Moroks are guards? Doctor Who now knows it’s a sci-fi adventure series: Of course, the museum is full of guards rather than curators.
Vicki saying the Dalek looks “friendly” connects with her naming Sandy the Sand Beast and Zombo the Zarbi: This character quirk is endlessly adaptable.
Go Barbara: Recurring joke of the Doctor agreeing with Barbara continuously played sincerely.
Firsts: First “all these corridors look alike” joke. First villain confused about TARDIS dimensions (“Must be cramped”)
No female Xerons, Moroks? (Although, thematically it works: Middle-aged men Moroks v. very young rebels led by star-child Vicki). Although, is this the first story to have no female characters other than the female regulars?
The novelisation has some funny lines, and a nice robot. Also, Vicki has a crush of Dako. I love time-travellers crushing. (And, shockingly for something set pre-War Games, freely describes the Doctor as Time Lord)
Turns out the whole thing was caused by another TARDIS malfunction. Why can’t Doctor Who let this go yet?
Between You and Me:
It’s semi-fashionable now to consider The Space Museum as a piece of flawed postmodernism.
It’s clear from the Target novelisation that it’s meant to be a comedy. Why Dennis Spooner removed the comedic elements from Parts 2–4, leaving them to be generic ‘rebels versus guards’ storytelling is unclear as the high-concept science-fiction material really is only present in the first episode. He wanted each serial to have a distinct feel which is a sound reason, but it does leave the majority of this serial lacking something special. It’s hard to tell whether Hartnell’s absence in Part 3 adds to this, leaving Ian to spend the entire episode looking for the Doctor and Barbara getting gassed (although, it is a good story for Vicki).
Nevertheless, the first episode is a marvel and should be one of those episodes the BBC let’s the red-top tabloids brandish as a free gift.
Recommended / Further Reading: