The Space Museum

This adventure has a reputation for going downhill after its excellent first episode. I can see why as that is exactly what happens. It has the brilliantly interesting idea in part 1 of the time travelling crew questioning how their actions can alter a future they have glimpsed. Sadly episodes 2 to 4 are pretty poor in many ways.

The TARDIS crew debate whether to act one way or another or even to do nothing, not knowing what actions may save them from the fate they have seen ahead in their future. This creates much interest in Episode 1 whilst the rest of the episodes are more or less just a pretty boring adventure to see what their final fate will be. There are some decent elements in the later episodes but the standard is far below the first part of the story. This is largely due to the awful acting of the main villain and his fellow 'Moroks' who are all very wooden. The Moroks are truly embarrassing.

All in all the adventure has one very good idea which it set up really well in episode 1 but then being badly let down by the rest of the story.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 8.5, Episode 2 - 5.5, Episode 3 - 5.5, Episode 4 - 5.5

Overall: 6.25/10

The first episode is quite weird and interesting for it. Its the explanation that ruins it for me. There’s some technobabble The Doctor makes up on the fly but then at the end of part 4 it’s just another broken switch or something! (See Edge of destruction). There are also many elements that are never explained. This is the sort of timer Wimey plot that can be really good when it’s thought out and has some sense to it even if it’s made up sense. Here it’s all for effect, nothing really happens except because it sounds interesting. ‘They change their clothes’, ‘the glass thing breaks and reforms’. Theirs some atmoshpere to those early scenes and a great cliffhanger. But it drops all those elements to tell the most boring revolution on an alien planet story. I thought maybe I rated this harshly but I just found this a frustrating watch.

This story is criminally underrated in my opinion and doesn't deserve any where near the scorn that it gets. The first part is absolutely exceptional, a unique mystery, and a beautifully executed sci-fi script, a 10 / 10 on it's own. And then there's the next 3 parts which everyone seems to have an issue with. This is totally unfair, in my opinion, and is like judging a fish on it's ability to walk. The last 3 parts are a parody of a doctor who script whilst also being themselves a doctor who script which is just brilliant and humorous. Most people can't see this though as the first part took itself so seriously so they assume that the other parts do too and that they are just bad. It's like watching a terrible film that pokes fun at how bad it is making for some hilarious meta humor for the viewer, the 'it's so bad it's good' saying. The only differences is that the space museum has some brilliant concepts and story ideas so it isn't that bad even if you don't consider that it's meant to be poking fun at the show it's a part of. The reason people hate this story is that the first part made it out to be something it isn't. The first part had all the makings of a classic and the other 3 had all the makings of a comedic parody script. That fact doesn't make the other 3 parts bad, in fact it's like comparing a Simpsons script to a script by Shakespeare, totally different criteria. That concludes my defense of the space museum, I declare the defendant not guilty of crimes of being crap! Only joking! but this story really needs more people to defend it, me and Robert Sherman get it! An 8 / 10 for a master piece of a first part and a hilarious other 3!

The Space Museum starts out with one of the best opening episodes to any 1960s Doctor Who serial as the TARDIS crew land on a mysterious planet where the laws of physics and time don't work right and they can see everyone but no one can see and hear them. They find they've seen a future...a future they must prevent but can they even prevent it?

It's all fascinating stuff, yet the next three episodes are perfectly ordinary and typical Doctor Who story on a soundstage. The story's villains (the Moroks) are really hard to take seriously as alien invaders who conquered galaxies.

What makes the story worth watching is the TARDIS crew who are very likable and engaging throughout. Ian is very intimidating when the Morock's are insisting they can do nothing to reverse a process that will kill the Doctor. It shows how much that relationship has changed since an Unearthly Child. At the same time, Vicki has her best story on television as she exerts a huge influence over the young rebels and is the most important character in the story.

The story doesn't live up to a smashing first episode, but it's still worth a watch.