Doctor Who (TV Series) Journey Into Terror (1965) User Reviews

Every effort was made to stimulate the Phagocytes

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 28 May 2017]

Having fled the Marie Celeste The TARDIS crew land in a Haunted House, unfortunately the lead they had over the Daleks is diminishing, The Daleks, now only minutes behind them in The Chase.

The first four episodes to The Chase vary dramatically in quality, the opener is very solid, the next two fairly good, but the forth part is rather odd, it is so difficult to believe that this was written by Terry Nation. The opening few minutes are rather good, very different, but then as soon as Dracula and Frankenstein appear it totally loses the plot, you almost expect Batman and Robin to pop up.

Ian and Barbara are done somewhat of a disservice in their final adventure, Barbara having just seen Count Dracula asks Vicki 'do you think there's something strange going on around here?' isn't she a teacher, come on. Frankenstein decides to put a suit on to fight the Daleks.

The set is really rather good, I like the haunted house look of it, the music also in keeping, spooky and atmospheric. I also like the fact that the setting is a space in the recesses of the human mind, a concept ahead of its time. There is a lot of imagination on show here.

Festival of Ghana 1996 Cancelled by Peking. A rather interesting look to the future.

It's almost too easy to knock this episode, I'm not a huge fan of the execution of it, but I can appreciate the concepts and ideas that went into it, it certainly ends better then it begins, I really like the concept of the Daleks duplicating The Doctor. 7/10

I am.... Count Dracula

[guymannings · 6 March 2023]

Highlights of this spectacular mess include:

-The Doctor theorises that the crew have arrived in a physical manifestation of the human subconscious which means the Daleks cannot follow them(even though they themselves arrived there???)

-Count Dracula popping out and saying "I am Count Dracula"

-The audience being treated to a nice fat camera shadow all the way across Ian's body and a microphone sliding into frame at the same instant

-Count Dracula attacking the Daleks (for no reason)

-Terry Nation realising he didn't write enough plot to fill the episode so adding some nonsense about a robot duplicate of the doctor

-Said duplicate being conspicuously not played by William Hartnell except it is dubbed by William Hartnell and is sometimes William Hartnell in closeup shots(?????)

Journey Into Terror

[guswhovian · 5/10 · 11 September 2020]

The TARDIS arrives at a haunted house. The Daleks soon arrive, but Vicki gets left behind and stows away on the Dalek time machine.

Not quite as stupid as "Flight Through Eternity", but it's still pretty bad. But while nothing happened in "Flight Through Eternity", at least the plot gets moving here, including the Daleks building a robot duplicate of the Doctor.

The haunted house scenes are dumb and astoundingly badly directed by Richard Martin. It's amazing how badly Terry Nation writes the leads. William Hartnell's performance is once again the only thing worth watching the episode for.

The Chase: Episode 4 - A silly first episode followed by an adventure which is still silly at times but can be quite fun and has a really good last two parts.

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 4/10 · 19 August 2014]

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.