The opening moments of The Space Museum are very strange. The TARDIS crew are frozen around the console, after which a series of space craft are shown, with well chosen stock music in the background. Things continue in this strange manner - the TARDIS crew change costume suddenly; a glass breaks, then reforms; the TARDIS crew leave no footprints in the dust, they hear no sounds and the temperature is strangely cool. The planet that they have landed on houses a museum, and in a unsettling moment, the TARDIS crew come across themselves as exhibits.

Vicki theorises that they could be in another dimension of time (an interesting character point that will hopefully be followed up at some point), and the Doctor decides that they have jumped a time track. In order to avoid the possible future being showed to them they need to tackle events head on - an opportunity they will get quite soon; the TARDIS has finally properly arrrived on the planet, and so have they... The episode plays out quite well, with excellent acting from the regulars and some good acting on show from the guest cast. The effect used to show that the TARDIS crew can't touch anything works quite well, once more showing what could be achieved on Doctor Who's limited budget and the stock music used is well chosen, adding an eerie note to the episode.

In The Dimensions of Time we are introduced to two alien species. One group, the Moroks, appear to be a bunch of old men who belong to a large empire. They have conquered the planet and turned it into a musuem of their triumphs. They come across as a rather dull and boring lot, sitting out their rotation of duty on the planet. The Xerons are a bunch of teenagers, looking to free their planet from the Moroks. Apart from the makeup used on the eyebrows, the Xerons wouldn't look out of place on a university campus, most likely with one of the more extreme, yet useless left wing groups.

As for the regulars, the one thing on all their minds is how to prevent the future that they just saw, so the Doctor decides that they should all return to the TARDIS and leave. The Doctor manages to get captured by the Xerons, so Vicki has to lead Ian and Barbara out of the museum. Cleverly, the Doctor manages to escape from the Xerons, only to be captured by the Moroks. The next sequence is quite amusing, as the Doctor turns the Moroks' own mental imaging device for is own ends, displaying rediculous images in response to his interrogation - it's quite obvious that William Hartnell enjoyed this scene, as the Doctor uses his wit to deflect the questioning. The rest of the TARDIS crew find their way to the outside, only to see the TARDIS being man-handled into the museum, and the Doctor learns that he is to be turned into an exhibit... It's quite obvious at this stage that the storyline of The Space Museum is rather stretched, as we get scene upon scene of Vicki, Ian and Barbara wandering through the different rooms of the museum, trying to find their way out.

At the beginning of The Search the remainder of the TARDIS crew separate after a fight with the Moroks - Ian outside, and Vicki and Barbara into different parts of the museum. Vicki soon falls in with the Xerons, Ian makes his way back inside and Barbara gets trapped in a store room, as Governor Lobos prepares to deploy paralysing gas. Scenes here get very dull and boring - scenes of Ian fighting various Morok guard extras, though well choreographed by Peter Diamond, don't do much to progress the plot; and as for the scenes of Barbara sneaking through one small storeroom...

One of the Xerons arrives to find Barbara, but both he and her end up getting caught up in the gas. Vicki sees the Xerons useless attempts at revolution, and lends her skills to turn into a proper overthrow of power, but rewiring the machine in charge of the Morok's weapons vault. It's good to see that Vicki is more than just a Susan-substitute; here she gets to take charge of a situation and use her skills to advantage others. Ian breaks into Lobos' office and demands to see the Doctor, and is shocked by what he finds....

While the Xerons finally get on with their revolution, the Moroks continue to muck around with the TARDIS in the opening moments of The Final Phase. Ian has managed to get the Doctor's processing halted and reversed, but it may be too late for him. Barbara and the Xeron Dako manage to escape the gas and get caught right away; as the Doctor recovers he and Ian are captured once more. Vicki arrives with a Xeron, and she too is captured - now all four members of the TARDIS crew are together once more, and seems that they can't escape their fate, apart from Vicki's hope that her revolution will change the future.

For once Vicki is right; the revolution takes place rather quickly, and the TARDIS crew are freed; they are even given a souvenir for their trouble - a Space/Time Visualiser. It seems that the cause of their trouble was another faulty componant of the TARDIS - something that seems to continually plague the First Doctor - shouldn't this sort of thing have been ruled out by the writer's guide by now; it's a convention for getting the TARDIS into an adventure that's been used too many time now, although this time it made for an interesting first episode. As the TARDIS leaves Xeros, it seems that an old enemy has been observing their movements and is now ready to strike...

As a four part story, The Space Museum is a very long, dull and boring story. Discounting the excellent first episode, the plot is still stretched at three episodes - it would make a nice two parter though. The TARDIS crew all get some reasonable material, the Doctor and Vicki especially; but the Moroks and Xerons are all very one note - the Moroks are old and want to leave the planet, the Xerons are young and want to reclaim their planet. Spencer Chapman's designs for the museum sets work very well to create the impression of a large, extensive maze of a building, with secondary designs for other Morok and Xeron sets also adding interest to the story. At a stretch you could argue that The Space Museum is an analogy - the Moroks=conservatism, the Xerons=progress and the TARDIS crew=catalyst. For progress to occur in the face of conservatism, a catalyst is need to make progress occur. As it stands, The Space Museum is a well written first episode, followed by two episodes stretched out to make three.

6.4/10

Next time: The Daleks decide to hunt down the TARDIS crew and do away with them once and for all...