The Final Phase (The Space Museum Episode 4)

The one where the Xerons finally rise up against their Morok oppressors...

The Doctor must have one hell of a constitution if he can recover from the Moroks' embalming machine as easily as he does. We've seen the Doctor exhausted by the gentlest of jogs in the past, but here he seems to recover from a majorly debilitating procedure with some ease. He is two-thirds of the way through what we're told may well be an irreversible process which plunges his body temperature to several hundred degrees below freezing - but all he suffers upon coming round is a spot of rheumatism!

His body might have been frozen but his thoughts never stopped ticking over: "My brain was working with the speed of a mechanical computer!" he boasts. The Doctor says that his conscience will not allow him to take revenge and place Lobos in the embalming machine, but William Hartnell delivers this with just enough fire to make it a regrettable mercy for the traveller.

The Search (The Space Museum Episode 3)

The one where Vicki becomes an unlikely revolutionary...

"It didn't take them long to find it," says Ian at the start of this episode when he sees the Moroks capture the TARDIS. Well, it doesn't exactly blend in, does it Ian? We're then treated to some more bickering and some more oohing and aaahing about how best to avoid their glass-fronted fates, and it's all so dull and repetitive. Never have Ian and Barbara been written so poorly. They've had their spats in the past, but they've rarely been as argumentative as this.

Got to commend Barbara for calling Ian out on his moaning though: "All we do is stand around saying 'this whole thing is a nightmare'. Why don't we do something?" Ask Glyn Jones, Babs! The prevaricating gets worse when a Morok guard happens across them and points a gun at them. Our heroes then spend ages chatting among themselves about fate-avoidance yet again while the morose Morok looks on like a goon, waiting for them to finish. A combination of poor writing and direction. "I've had enough of this," says Ian. I know the feeling.

The Dimensions of Time (The Space Museum Episode 2)

The one where Ian tries to unravel a cardigan with his teeth...

Plinky-plonky sci-fi B-movie music accompanies the opening scenes of this episode, which introduces us to the Morok race... and boy, are they dull! No wonder the space museum decor is so tediously drab if these guys designed it. Their leader, Governor Lobos, even admits he's bored, and furthermore that he's just as bored here on Xeros as he was on their home planet, Morok. This man, played with about as much enthusiasm as a breeze block by Richard Shaw, is the sort who insists people knock when they enter his office, which is about as much characterisation as we get for him.

It's a poor start after such a promising opening, but it's sadly indicative of the entire 25 minutes. After presenting such a tantalising and potentially exciting premise for our heroes to get mixed up in last week (time tracks etc), writer Glyn Jones falls into a crushingly dull runaround with one-dimensional characters and virtually no plot development. After blowing his load in episode 1, it seems Jones has little else to give except Flash Gordon Saturday serial cliche (but without the flash).

The Space Museum (Episode 1)

The one where the TARDIS jumps a time track and our heroes become intangible...

Now, if I drifted off into a daydream for a moment, and then came to, only to realise my clothes had completely changed, I'd be pretty shocked, not to mention confused. This is precisely what happens to the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki, whose attire changes from their crusading clothes to their "normal, everyday clothes" of plain, dull cardigans, blazers and knee socks in the blink of an eye (you can tell Ian isn't the history teacher, as he refers to their crusading clothes as 13th century). But the oddest thing is that the Doctor doesn't seem remotely puzzled or fazed by it, and puts it down to "time and relativity". What bunkum is he spouting this time?

It's the first in a series of strange incidents which marks this episode out as a real departure for the series. It feels odd and unsettling, rather like Inside the Spaceship did, but without the scissor attacks and blaring horns. Opening with an eerie pan across a planet surface seemingly covered with abandoned spaceships of different designs (great modelwork too!), it sets the scene for 25 minutes of existential surrealism which we don't usually see in early Doctor Who.