WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:23.600 Poor old space museum. No one likes the space museum very much. I quite like the space museum. 00:23.600 --> 00:28.360 No one really wants it. It's sort of this cheap, unloved thing right in the middle of 00:28.360 --> 00:32.920 the William Hartnell years. And it hasn't even got a decency to have been wiped, which 00:32.920 --> 00:36.280 would mean it would have some sort of, you know, people would actually at least be wondering 00:36.280 --> 00:41.240 what it was like. We can all see it and we don't want it. And yet it's actually, although 00:41.240 --> 00:46.720 it doesn't quite work in many places, it's full of ideas and I think it's actually, I 00:46.720 --> 00:51.160 think it's something which deserves a lot more attention. It does have its problems. 00:51.160 --> 00:57.600 Well three problems really, which are episodes two, three and four, principally. But even 00:57.600 --> 01:03.120 there you can see that there's actually something interesting going on. Episode one is pretty 01:03.120 --> 01:10.800 much extraordinary because it's just so odd. It's a story in which the TARDIS jumps a time 01:10.800 --> 01:15.320 track and they're not really where they're supposed to be at all. They leave no footprints 01:15.320 --> 01:21.560 in the sand. Glasses of water will jump back up into people's hands for no real reason. 01:21.560 --> 01:26.320 And it ends upon a genuinely chilling five minutes with a fantastic cliffhanger in which 01:26.320 --> 01:33.320 they find themselves dead in a museum, stuffed and in a box, and waiting for time to catch 01:33.320 --> 01:38.200 up with them so they actually can enter the story properly. It's actually superb. When 01:38.200 --> 01:44.080 I first saw it with my sister, she said to me, only as a casual viewer, my word, this 01:44.080 --> 01:48.120 is absolutely brilliant. Is it as good as this all the time? And I said, no, it goes 01:48.120 --> 01:54.140 downhill now. Because even by that stage, fan repute was so bad that we knew it would 01:54.140 --> 02:00.580 fall apart within seconds of episode two starting. And yet, and yet, there is such a strange 02:00.580 --> 02:05.880 philosophy to it. It's a comedy, but it's done, I think it's directed as if it isn't. 02:05.880 --> 02:11.160 And I think that that is its biggest failing. People don't realise it's actually funny. 02:11.160 --> 02:16.400 It's a parody of what a William Hartnell, Doctor Who story at this stage is. We've already 02:16.400 --> 02:22.160 seen several stories which are about the Doctor and his crew arriving, finding some rebels, 02:22.160 --> 02:26.720 helping them against some aggressors and flying off again. You have these aggressors and they're 02:26.720 --> 02:31.960 rubbish. They're called Morrocks. Morroc, it's, there's a clue in the word that the 02:31.960 --> 02:37.640 Morrocks are morons. These are, these are people who, who like the Decaynum IV, the 02:37.640 --> 02:43.040 Roman Empire, as the Doctor points out, had a civilisation once, were really good, attacked 02:43.040 --> 02:49.320 planets and now pretty much have done it all and sit in a museum wishing that they were 02:49.320 --> 02:54.720 once good again, but are never going to be. In a series which has already done the Darks 02:54.720 --> 02:58.560 invading Earth and you go to the Earth seven years later and you see what it's like to 02:58.560 --> 03:03.000 have Britain under the rule of the Nazis. Here we have an idea of colonisation as something 03:03.000 --> 03:08.120 which actually is just sort of overstuffed, that you invade a planet and you turn it into 03:08.120 --> 03:14.240 a museum of your past achievements. And that's really actually in some ways a rather more 03:14.240 --> 03:20.160 accurate, I would say, analysis of where you go. It's, it's about decadence. It's about 03:20.160 --> 03:24.200 the idea that if you invade somewhere, you've actually got nothing to do with it and you 03:24.200 --> 03:30.520 end up just getting stale and sterile. The lead Morroc, Lobos, his first scene where 03:30.520 --> 03:35.920 he talks in episode two is either brilliantly badly written or just brilliantly written. 03:35.920 --> 03:40.000 It depends how you look at it. All he can do is talk in exposition about things everyone 03:40.000 --> 03:45.240 already knows and moans a lot. I've got two more millions before I can go home. Yes, I 03:45.240 --> 03:53.400 say it often enough, but it's still 2000 Xeron days. It sounds more in days. Yeah, I know. 03:53.400 --> 03:58.560 I volunteered, you were ordered. Truth of the matter, I was just as bored on Morroc. 03:58.560 --> 04:02.360 In the book, it becomes very obvious from the way that all the other Morrocs keep on 04:02.360 --> 04:07.120 standing around looking at the ceiling whenever he talks, that that is a deliberate joke. 04:07.120 --> 04:12.080 These are terrible alien aggressors. The only thing which is worse than the Morrocs are 04:12.080 --> 04:16.280 the rebels who are trying to fight them, who are so rubbish, they can't even be bothered 04:16.280 --> 04:21.720 to stop them. The rebels dress in black polo neck sweaters, stand around looking a bit 04:21.720 --> 04:27.000 like students in a coffee bar, and their leader, Tor, is so awful that the only thing he actually 04:27.000 --> 04:30.720 can do with any authority is put his hands on his hips, which he does for most of the 04:30.720 --> 04:36.200 story. What's great about this is a story about inaction, and the rather deeper meaning 04:36.200 --> 04:42.880 behind the tale is how can you prevent something, once you know the future, coming to pass? 04:42.880 --> 04:48.520 By taking action in the story, are the TARDIS regulars making themselves end up in the box, 04:48.520 --> 04:54.680 or are they going to prevent it? It means that for three episodes, Ian and Barbara and 04:54.680 --> 04:58.240 Vicky and the Doctor spend their time arguing whether they should just stand around the 04:58.240 --> 05:03.880 museum or not. That's quite funny. It means that ultimately, that certain scenes which 05:03.880 --> 05:08.320 I think deliberately parody earlier scenes in the series, so for example, you've got 05:08.320 --> 05:13.600 that wonderful scene in the Daleks, where Ian persuades the Tharls to go and attack 05:13.600 --> 05:20.160 the Dalek city, selfishly, so they can get their TARDIS component back, is echoed again 05:20.160 --> 05:25.400 when Vicky makes all the rebels start a revolution, just almost because she's quite bored and 05:25.400 --> 05:29.880 wants something to happen. And it's done very, very amusingly. These are rebels so 05:29.880 --> 05:35.320 naff, that they only think which starts a revolution is if they can get the armoury 05:35.320 --> 05:40.440 door open. They don't really need Robespierre, they don't need some great revolutionary, 05:40.440 --> 05:47.920 they need a locksmith. Do you understand that all questions are to be fully answered? Even 05:47.920 --> 05:52.440 the computer sounds bored. The computer can't quite understand why no one's overthrown 05:52.440 --> 05:58.560 it yet. Come on, pick up the guns and go to war. Very few Doctor Who stories ever tackle 05:58.560 --> 06:03.240 time travel properly. This is one of the few ones that really does it. The problem with 06:03.240 --> 06:07.600 the Space Museum, if you watch it, is it seems it does it so subtly in parts two, three and 06:07.600 --> 06:12.000 four that you forget it and you think you're watching another bog standard running around 06:12.000 --> 06:17.920 trying to beat some aliens in bad costumes. But because it's really a story about whether 06:17.920 --> 06:23.760 doing anything really matters, it's almost quite nihilistic about it. Oh, it's a use. 06:23.760 --> 06:28.640 And it ends up with a very, very new serious solution which is quite unusual, which is 06:28.640 --> 06:34.200 that ultimately everything that Doctor and Vicky and Barbara and Ian do still gets them 06:34.200 --> 06:37.800 into the same situation where they're going to be killed. But because they have taken 06:37.800 --> 06:42.520 some action, other people around them have altered events for them so that as they're 06:42.520 --> 06:47.280 about to be frozen, someone else bursts in and saves them. That is actually quite an 06:47.280 --> 06:51.840 interesting little study about the way that time works in a way as well. It's quite 06:51.840 --> 06:55.840 Brink-like. It's quite Stephen Moffat-like, I think. The future doesn't look too bad 06:55.840 --> 07:02.500 after all, does it? The Doctor here is genuinely eccentric. He's a man who will take interest 07:02.500 --> 07:07.920 in the trivial and dismiss the genuinely bizarre because it just doesn't really seem very, 07:07.920 --> 07:13.000 very important to him. There's that great bit in episode one where they've changed all 07:13.000 --> 07:18.560 their costumes and he utterly dismisses that as being important. Doctor, we've got our 07:18.560 --> 07:23.160 clothes on. Well, I should hope so, dear boy, I should hope so. And yet in episode two, 07:23.160 --> 07:29.160 he'll spend ages worrying about Ian having lost a button. Lost a button? Hmm, that's 07:29.160 --> 07:36.680 interesting. Yes, it's very interesting. Doctor, why do you always show the greatest interest 07:36.680 --> 07:41.480 in the least important things, eh? The least important things sometimes, my dear boy, lead 07:41.480 --> 07:44.960 to the greatest discoveries. And you think watching the story that will be important 07:44.960 --> 07:50.080 later, and it isn't. It's brilliant. It never gets mentioned again. Vicki is great in this 07:50.080 --> 07:56.680 story. Maureen O'Brien seizes this. She's very, very funny. She becomes a revolutionary. 07:56.680 --> 08:02.280 She's somebody who decides that she can be the most dynamic person on this entire planet 08:02.280 --> 08:08.240 and she's great at that. Ian is terrific because he gets to fight a lot of people and yet angst 08:08.240 --> 08:12.360 about it at the same time. And he has some great moments where he's actually approaching 08:12.360 --> 08:16.280 all these Zerons and treating it, bless his heart, with great seriousness, which actually 08:16.280 --> 08:21.160 makes the comedy work better. Barbara's left out a bit. She gets gassed. But you can't 08:21.160 --> 08:26.520 have it all. But I think that the best idea about the Space Museum, really, is that there 08:26.520 --> 08:32.720 is a Space Museum. But it isn't something full of lots of alien tourists. It isn't very 08:32.720 --> 08:39.160 exciting. No one goes. It's just there because it represents something which was once better 08:39.160 --> 08:45.560 for the civilisation and trading off past glories. You see a Dalek there from the planet 08:45.560 --> 08:50.480 Skaro and you can hide inside it and it's already become a prop. We are now at the end 08:50.480 --> 08:56.220 of the second series and actually it's already become part of a museum itself. It's a little 08:56.220 --> 09:01.260 bit of a comment, I think, upon the fact that Doctor Who has now reached its hundredth episode 09:01.260 --> 09:09.240 and it's already getting a little bit conscious of its own foibles and its faults.