The Death of Doctor Who (The Chase Episode 5)

The one where the Doctor battles his own robotic doppelganger...

Terry Nation loved jungles. There was the petrified forest of Skaro, then the screaming jungle of Marinus, and in stories yet to come we'll visit the jungles of Kembel, Mira and Spiridon. But for the time being we're on Mechanus, which is populated with giant living fungoids which look like shuffling toadstools. Let's be fair, the fungoids are pretty impressive props, and our unfolding introduction to Mechanus is directed well by Richard Martin, complete with throbbing vegetation and a burbling soundscape which sounds like my stomach after a curry!

I've not been Richard Martin's greatest fan in the past, but I've got to hand it to him: he handles this episode really well, making the most of Ray Cusick and John Wood's design for the strange planet of Mechanus by using painted gauze drapes (as he did in The Web Planet) to add depth and texture to the picture.

In fact, The Death of Doctor Who is a vast improvement on the preceding two episodes because it has a story to it and doesn't simply involve our heroes arsing around in different locales. The Daleks have manufactured a (not entirely accurate) robot doppelganger of the Doctor (played in a mannered style by Edmund Warwick, who was so memorably awful as Darrius in The Screaming Jungle) and instruct it to infiltrate the enemy group and kill. It's a pretty dastardly plan, and due to the fact the robot is supposed to look exactly like the Doctor, means Richard Martin has his work cut out trying to sell the idea convincingly.

Sonia Markham's make-up tries its best, and Martin wisely keeps full face shots of Warwick to a minimum, but it's still impossible to get the viewer on side (especially with the one lapse in sanity when Martin allows a whacking great close-up of Warwick which reveals the robot's inadequacies in stark detail. There's also a baffling moment where Warwick has to stand in for Hartnell when the Doctor and Ian discover Vicki). What is impressive is the frightening violence programmed into this robot. When it attacks Barbara, it swipes at her viciously with its walking stick, and then tries to force the stick into her chest before Ian leaps to the rescue. It then elbows Ian in the stomach before making off.

However, the robot's violent streak is nothing compared to the real Doctor's, and it's a joy to see William Hartnell and Edmund Warwick sword fighting with their walking sticks, and the triumphantly contemptuous face he pulls once he's deactivated the robot by pulling out its wire innards. Hartnell also manages to portray a chillingly cold and impassive robot Doctor when reporting Ian's "death" to poor Barbara. Hartnell makes a better Doctor than Warwick, obviously, but he also makes a better robot Doctor!

Which reminds me, this episode's title - The Death of Doctor Who - is the first instance of the series pulling a fast one in naming stories. The title itself is a form of publicity, an attention-seeking headline which promises something it ultimately doesn't (and cannot) deliver. Decades later, both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat would be guilty of similar fan-baiting story titles (The Doctor's Daughter, The Next Doctor, The Doctor's Wife, The Name of the Doctor), but it's interesting to find it all began way back in 1965.

The episode does have a few faults: the jungle of Mechanus plays host to a stray Dalek in the background at one point (as did the House of Horrors last episode), as well as managing to get Camera 5 in shot too. When the Daleks find our heroes in the cave, they advance on the entrance accompanied by a jazzy pop soundtrack as if they've left the radio on, and they seem to take an absolute age to get their act together and into attack formation!

There's also another example of Maureen O'Brien over-egging the pudding when she clutches her hands to her head and screams in unconvincing terror/ frustration (she does this quite regularly when required to "scream in horror"!).

At the end of the episode we get another pencil-dropping WTF moment when a doorway crashes open and a huge robotic 'something' appears, speaking in a bizarre electronic voice and looking for all the world like a giant Christmas bauble. It's a Mechanoid (or is it a Mechonoid?) and it looks damn impressive. Can't wait to visit the Planet of Decision next week!

First broadcast: June 19th, 1965

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The realisation of Mechanus and the fungoids is superb.
The Bad: It's that robot Dr Who again, of course!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Planet of Decision...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Executioners (episode 1); The Death of Time (episode 2); Flight Through Eternity (episode 3); Journey into Terror (episode 4); The Planet of Decision (episode 6)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-chase.html

The Chase is available on DVD in a box set with The Space Museum. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Space-Museum-Chase/dp/B0033PRJWQ