The Randomiser: The Space Museum

[louisedennis]

My impression, going into The Space Museum was that it was a story with an interesting premise in its first episode which it then failed to really use, reverting to a fairly standard rebels-fighting-an-evil-empire story in the last three episodes. That doesn't really do the story justice. While the plot in the last three episodes is, indeed,

Comments

[daniel_saunders]

This is one of those stories I adore more than most people. That's partly for nostalgic reasons (it was one of the first novelisations I read) and it certainly benefited from being the first 'rebels vs. oppressors' story I encountered, rather than just another one, but I do think it has a lot going for it. About Time points out that this is the first SF story where the villains are bored bureaucrats rather than Evil Fascists, imperialists or psychopaths; it's also the first story where the Doctor runs rings around his interrogator. So that's two Doctor Who staples introduced here, reasonably well.

Other things going for it: eerie stock music, a particularly well-written TARDIS crew (Vicki is so much better than Susan), the scene of them finding their own corpses (how morbid is that?) and Vicki leading a revolution. Particularly the bit when she tells the computer that she wants arms for "Revolution!" (like I said, so much better than Susan). I also like the fact that sixties Who is so technobabble-lite. From the seventies

[louisedennis]

Vicki is so much better than Susan one wonders if it was a deliberate retooling of the crew dynamic. I don't think I've ever seen it expressed as such but it's a very striking contrast.