Daleks galore! (Doctor Who Museum)

Member Name: willtheman

Product:	Doctor Who Museum
Date:	22/02/08 (286 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well laid out, lots of things, indoors, daleks, interactive, enjoyable

Disadvantages: Expensive and poor signs

Located on Blackpool's promenade in an oldish building on the Golden Mile is the Doctor Who Museum. I am a huge fan of both the classic and new series so this was a must fo me. Of course I was not dissapointed...

If you have Satanav the exact adrress is:
Doctor Who Museum
The Golden Mile Centre
Central Promenade
Blackpool
FY1 5AA

Phone number: 01253 299982

Website: www. doctorwhoexhibitions.com
Click on Doctor Who Museum Blackpool link the webiste contains basic information but no prices:(

There are exhibitions of props and costumes from the new series at Earls Court London (largest Who museum for new series) (Please note this is a touring exhibtion
Land's End exhibtions (small)
Cardiff Exhibition (Votes no 1 attraction in Cardiff)
I visited the exhibition when it was in Manchester and it was excellent.




Doctor Who
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For those of you who don't know (shame on you) is in fact the world's longest running science fiction programme thrashing the poorly Star Treck. It is in my humble opinion the best. Doctor Who is the story of a time lord who can travel in his TARDIS and can also regenrate into another body when in mortal danger. Its started November 1963 (on the date of JFK's assassanation so was a minue late). with grumpy Doctor William Hartnell. In its 26 year span between 1963 and 1989 Patrick Troughton , Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison , Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy all took on the role of the nation's favourite time lord . The museum houses 600 displays from mostly the classic series but some from the 3 series of the new series which stars Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. There was a quite frankly rubbish TV Movie form 1996 which starred Paul McGann but there is nothing in the museum from that.

The Museum
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The original Doctor Who museum was just around the corner from here and opened in 1975. It then moved to Llangollen before moving to Blackpool a couple of years ago. Personally I think this is much better than the Llangollen one. It is a quite old and smallish building which you can't miss as it has the name of it in massive letters and a replica of Bessie outside. However this is a real TARDIS-it is much bigger inside tha out. After paying your ticket prices at a booth (£ 7.50 for adults and £5 for children which I think is quite expensive but we didn't grumbely because of how good it was.) It is open every day from 10.30 am to 5.30pm. After being told everything in here is original your journey begins....(after passing a rather un-scary black dalek)...

The very first thing you see is actually a mock up of a 1963 room-a quite good one I must admit-there are clever little details like the news headline being about JFK's assassination. Of course the little kid waxwork is hiding behind the sofa. The little telly plays the very first episode (An Unearthly Child) which I have never seen and still haven' seen because we only watched about 5 minutes of it.
After passing two cases full of Doctor Whu toys/ everything a die hard fan could possibly want you enter a mock up of a TARDIS.
Its quite an effective mock up even if it is only of the central thingy. The lighting is dark in here and there are displays around it home to some monsters. You can only access two on this side one of which is a Silurian. The buttons are okay but only light it up.
Next up are the cybermen - I love these metal meanies although they are really tin foil meanies. There are two display here-one is home to a vast amount of head one of which talks and a bigger case home to a good collection og 80's cybermen-which are all made of tin foil. Theyv'e even got the cyber leader and the weird machine they use in earthshock. There is even a cybermen that is dead with green gunge coming out of its tubing-eueughh! The buttons here move their heads. you can take photography here. But you can't in the next bit-monster alley...

Crammed and dark monster alley is pretty darn scray. There's quite a few monsters here mostly from the 80's which include the insectoid tractators and the yeti like Tetraps who have eyes in the back of their heads. My two favourite exhibits are from Peter Davison's adventure 'The Awakening'. The first is a little gargoyle which if you press the button tilts his head around and his eyes go purple. My favourite is the Malus which is basically a gaint stone face. He's pretty big and pretty impressive and when you press the button his eyes light up which is quite chilling.
Next up is the robot gallery. Thsis also has the remanants of an android from the Longleat fire which destroyed many priceless Doctor Who exhbits-one of which was the lovable K-9 who you can see but his inner workings have been completly burnt. Other robots in here include the disgusting but impressive Giant Braina dn the Gianr Robot from Tom baker's first story-who is pretty darn impressive. he has my favourite interactive disply -by pressing the button his sides go into vibrant and lovely colours. Also in here is a fun illusion where you can make the TARDIS aldn before entering the costume gallery.
This was one of my favourites-I don't know why which contained a lot of costumes incluidng Tom baker,s Pater Davison's cricket outfir, Colin Baker's horrible colourful mess of a costume and Sylvester McCoy's question mark one. There's also the costumes from some companions and the time lord costumes. After passing a video showing all the regenrations you enter the new series area...

Its a little sparse but enjoyable the main ehibit being a cracking gold dalek who's head swivels round a lights light up and screams exterminate who is in fact on top of battered 1960's dalek. Aroudn the edges you'll find the chilling screacrows , Simmon's costume and even a big green Slitheen. The waxworks that the costumes are on are less tha impressive.

You the meet bessie-that lovable yellow car (who you can;t touch) and some Who pinball machines before seeing the greatest dalek collectio anywahere...

There's about nine or ten of the killer pepperpots and there all displayed in one massive case with a well re-created street scene. Among them is the big, mean and amazingly cool-Special weapons dalek-what big gun! There's alos the white imperial dalke a cool dalek emperor from the 1960's dalake films and the emperor dalek Remembrance of the Daleks (the big omde) Also here is the original davros mask and chair-the greatese rubber monster of all time. By pressing buttons the daleks swivel about and scream ' EXTERMINATE!' at you and there is alos a dlake voice changer thingy and a dalek shell kids can go in.

Finally is another bigger colection of monsters all in tableau. These include Omega. the scary snake-like Mara is his jungle and the ugly Sil and Kiv on tjeir opertating table. As i said before all the exhibits have been put in sets which resemble thjem from the programme i.e the utterly terrifying Morbius is in his lab. There'a tiny model of a Brachiosaur and a sea devil (from warriors of the Deep) and the final display is the best-a collection of the blood-sucking , terrifying , chilling and ugly haemorves in a wondefully re-created graveyard. After passing a yeti. a sontaran and an Axon your journey is complete . It take about an hour.

Photography can only be took in some areas and nto in monster Alley, Robot Land or the costumes so as not to damage these precious things. of course everybody ignores them.

The signs are quite poor with lots of grammatical errors but I know most of them already and i'm being a bit perdandic.

There's a small souvenir shop home to Target Novelisations (just £1.00) a lot of DVDs as well as toys and lots of other things form other sci-fi programmes.

There isn't a cafe bu there is one in an adjacent arcade which we didn;t use it doesn't look particualr.y nice.

Its right next door to the sea life cntre which includes a Pirate area and near the waxworks which are appartently rubbisha dn is near the Tower with its aquarium and circus.

So overall this is a superb and well laid out museum which charts the history of Who in some splecnodur. I can guarantee you'll enjoy your day ou and although it is a little expensive I can' really grumble-as this is a top notch museum and is in Blackpool. Well worth a vist-or two!

Summary: Great day out but could be cheaper