Review for all 6 parts:
The Chase
This 6 part story beginning with The Executioners divides opinions. Some fans, maybe people who love broad farce type comedy and Doctor Who that doesn't take itself seriously, love The Chase. Fans who dislike that kind of stuff tend to not be too keen on this adventure. I am caught somewhere in between the two divided opinions, as I often am in life and fandom 😂
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 for the first 4 episodes. Among other things this adventure 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 involves some silliness in how it is executed on screen.
This adventure starts badly, in my opinion, with a very silly first episode featuring ideas like the 'Time Space Visualiser' (or 'Time TV') invention which implausibly allows them to view historic events as they happened. I am really not a fan of the pointless and silly ideas. I don't really find them fun and find the first episode isn't very well done.
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 goes back to being a bit more silly and is not hugely impressive but it has good moments and is not bad overall.
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 far too much for my liking. It is more like a Comic Relief parody episode but isn't very well done I have to say.
I think the problems in the first 4 episodes of this story exemplify this period when Dennis Spooner was script editor, it has too much silly humour and not enough quality. 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 standards.
Thankfully things get much better and more serious in the last two episodes of this story:
Part 5 is a very good, thoroughly enjoyable episode and episode 6 is an excellent concluding part of the story.
Part 6 also 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 their farewell is nicely handled and the arrival of another really good companion Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) softens the blow.
The quality of the last 2 episodes rescue this from being a disappointing and overly silly story. It ends up being a reasonably fun adventure overall with a classic finale.
My Ratings: Episode 1 - 4/10, Episode 2 - 8/10, Episode 3 - 7/10, Episode 4 - 4.5/10, Episode 5 - 8.5/10, Episode 6 - 10/10, Average - 7/10.
