The Space Museum Review

The Space Museum: "The least important things, sometimes, my dear boy, lead to the greatest discoveries."

I came to this story having heard it had a good first episode and then it went downhill from there. It seems a lot of stories start of with a great first episode, I often find myself giving them 8s and 7s, and usually the quality does diminish after this in varying degrees. And The Space Museum was no exception, though it steadily gets worse rather than a sudden drop.

It does start with a great first episode, slowly building up the fact that the travelers are basically invisible to everything but themselves. Not even leaving footprints in the sand. This then accumulates when the TARDIS crew find themselves in glass cases, just another exhibit in the museum. The Doctor declares that this is their future unless they somehow prevent it. It's a great twist and idea, one that continues throughout the story. Sometimes it gets shoved down our throat a bit too much, but generally the idea works well and is a new element to the show.

The next episode is good as well. It introduces the Morox and the Xerons, both species supposedly alien. This is illustrated by the Morox's ridiculous hair line and hair colouring and the Xerons' weird bigger eyebrows. Drawn above their real and highly visible eyebrows. The design of  the aliens aren't great and neither are the stories of these aliens. The Morox invaded Xeron and took control of the planet. The Xeron went into hiding but have wanted to overthrow the Morox ever since. So far so good. But neither species are very well realised (bad ascetics aside); the Xerons haven't revolted yet because they lack any armaments to do so. That's really the only reason given. Whilst the Morox are supposed to be militaristic,  but aside from the leader Lobos (you might have noticed that the names in this story aren't very inventive either) they don't seem very oppressive. They are easily fought off at the end of the story and Ian is able to fight one and threaten him easily. As soon as Ian has the gun the Morox becomes a whimpering idiot.

As I mentioned before the leader of the Morox, Lobos, is a lot better developed. He seems quite cruel and cunning and the scenes in which he interrogates the Doctor are brilliant. If only because of the way the Doctor has fun with the visualising machine and we get to see an odd picture of him in a bathing suit and top hat...

The way the story concludes is good as well, with the Xerons finally revolting against the Morox due to the influence Vicki has left on them. It's nice to see after the travelers constant talking of how they need to change their own future that it's not how they change it but how others change it due to their impact.

Vicki gets some good scenes and even a hint of romance with a young Jeremy Bulloch. Vicki really is a much better character than Susan.

Episode scores:
1. The Space Museum: 8/10
2. The Dimensions of Time: 7/10
3. The Search: 6/10
4. The Final Phase: 4.5/10

Average score: 6/10

Next up The Chase.