The Chase - The Death of Doctor Who

The rubbish idea of getting someone else to play to duplicate Doctor is thrown at us as we get the reprise. The title is called ‘The Death of Doctor Who’ and its one of the most intriguing titles in the series so far. The action takes place on Mecanous and we get to the dark side of the planet where we only encounter the huge broccoli-like creatures. They are somewhat silly in design and they show their weakness quite quickly when the sunlight appears and they go running. There is another silly moment when they attack the Daleks.

One of the reasons why this whole plan of the two Doctors fails so miserably is that for most of the time its clear that someone else is playing the Doctor. It’s hard to suspend my disbelief to this extent and every time I see this episode I ask myself the question ‘Why didn’t they film the good Doctor’s stuff first and the duplicate Doctor’s stuff second?’ It might be a bit time consuming but it would have worked a lot better.

There is a funny moment where the Ian fights what he thinks is the duplicate Doctor but is in fact the real Doctor. Again disbelief is hard to suspend when you can see the fake Doctor trying to mime William Hartnell’s lines. It is also quite fun to see both Doctors fighting each other. Thankfully they don’t drag this silliness out for too long and its quickly defeated. Now we can get back to the seriousness of the Daleks trying to kill the Doctor.

There’s a moment where the Doctor pretends to be the fake Doctor infront of the Daleks and it doesn’t work. I like it because its another example of how the Doctor has developed since Ian and Barbara first joined the show. It’s a selfless act and I think its one of the strongest moments for the Doctor.

It’s not until quite late in the episode that we discover the huge (and I do mean huge) city that stands above them. They decide that its where they have to get to and its where the final battle will take place. The cliffhanger is quite good as the regulars have to go with a giant robot. Normally they wouldn’t but with the Daleks about to attack them they have little choice. This is the first time that see them and they do look quite impressive.

With the exception of the fake Doctor and the Daleks, there aren’t any supporting artists. This means that the four regulars have to drive the story and they do it very well. I think that this episode is an improvement on the previous one and that’s a surprising statement considering for a good chunk of the story we had the fake Doctor storyline. It’s all shaping up for a great cliffhanger and I think that the departure of Ian and Barbara (and introduction of Steven Taylor) is going to be an enjoyable episode.