Episode 3 (Review for all 6 parts):
I don't mind this story, it is fun and has some nice scenes but I am not a fan of broad farcical humour in the show as it takes me out of my immersion and makes it feel too much like just a kids tv show so the more flippant comedy in this story isn't really to my taste.
The adventure, from writer Terry Nation, features The Daleks chasing the TARDIS through time and space landing up in all sorts of adventures in different times and places.
It is basically a comedic story without too much concentration on plot or serious realism, especially for the first 4 episodes.
The adventure doesn't start particularly well, in my opinion, with a quite silly first episode featuring very lightweight humour and ideas like the 'Time Space Visualiser' (or 'Time TV') invention which implausibly allows them to view historic events as they happened. It can almost work as a concept but the way it is done just didn't work for me. It was too obviously a plot device to enable aspects of the story but it was also actually totally unnecessary and too hard to swallow. I think a much simpler way of them realising the Daleks were chasing them such as them observing that the Daleks arrived in locations following them would have been better.
Episode 2 is much better, not exceptional but good fun. I enjoy fun and humour when it doesn't go too far or confuse serious storytelling which is going on at the same time. So part 2 is fine in my view.
Episode 3 is not hugely impressive and has some silly humour but it has good moments and is not bad overall. Among other things this episode explains the mystery of the Mary Celeste by landing the TARDIS and Daleks on board the sailing ship causing the disappearance of the crew. This is a nice idea but is done more for laughs than I would have liked.
Then there is the rather less satisfying episode 4 where the TARDIS and Daleks are in a 'haunted house' setting interacting with Dracula, Frankenstein's monster etc. (I kid you not). This is camp fun in a way but goes over the line into silliness too much for my liking. It is more like a Comic Relief parody episode and was a bit too pantomime style.
This period when Dennis Spooner was script editor, it has too much broad humour and not enough quality for my taste. This was the last story before the superior Donald Tosh took over that role and the next 6 stories with Tosh as script editor had much better general standards in my opinion.
Thankfully things get better and more serious in the last two episodes of this story:
Part 5 is a good, enjoyable episode and episode 6 is a strong concluding part of the story which features the poignant exit of Ian and Barbara (William Russell and Jacqueline Hill). It is very sad to see them go as they were great companions but after a rather overly unpleasant argument between them and the Doctor their farewell scenes back in London are quite nicely handled and the Doctor saying he will miss them was a nice moment. I think it would have been better if he had said that to them personally though. The arrival of another really good companion Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) softens the blow of them leaving.
My Ratings:
Episode 1 - 5/10,
Episode 2 - 7/10,
Episode 3 - 6.5/10,
Episode 4 - 4/10,
Episode 5 - 7/10,
Episode 6 - 8/10.
Overall average rating - 6.25/10.
