With the next story, we are off to an alien planet again, albeit one inhabited by a race virtually indistinguishable from humans – if, indeed, they’re supposed to be distinct at all. The opening episode, which plays with the concept of time, is reasonably popular, but what follows drags the whole down for most fans. But, as usual, that isn’t a universal opinion. Unlike, say,
The Sensorites, very few people seem to really like this, but a significant minority regard it as middling rather than weak. The problem, as so often in this era, is usually cited as being the slow pacing, with some claiming that Vicki only starts the revolution because she’s bored by the plot up to that point. The setting is also, perhaps, less memorable than the likes of Marinus or Vortis… but let’s see what we can do with it.
Where & When
The story is set on the planet Xeros, within the interstellar Morok Empire. No date is given for the story, but it clearly takes place later than The Dalek Invasion of Earth because of the design of the Dalek seen in the museum. Although it’s not obvious that the Moroks are also specifically aware of humans, we can at least say that the story is not set so far ahead that the exhibit has obviously degraded. This probably places it a few centuries into our future and, fitting with this, the tie-in media have tended to select dates towards the end of the third millennium.
