Mary Celeste

The Mary or Marie Celeste was a ship famous for the mystery surrounding why it had been abandoned at sea.

The First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki arrived in the Doctor's TARDIS on board the ship while being pursued by the Daleks in their Dalek time machine. When the Daleks arrived on board, the crew were so frightened of the Daleks, who they mistook for "the Barbary Terror" that they jumped overboard rather than face them. The Doctor was unaware of the name of the ship he had landed on. (DW: The Chase)

Another account had it that the Daleks on the ship had actually arrived via a human-made Time-Conveyor and that they were being pursued by two brothers named Peter and David. These time travellers also left without realising the name of the ship. (DWA: Timechase)

Tegan Jovanka told Nyssa that Mawdryn's ship was more Mary Celeste than Queen Mary due to its apparently empty state. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)

Other contradictory accounts

 * The Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot found that the crew of the Marie Celeste had been abducted by Arcturans. The Doctor freed the crew, but they were then all killed by a sea serpent. (DWA: The Mystery of the Marie Celeste)


 * When the Third Doctor landed the TARDIS on the New York docks, the crew mistook it for cargo and had it loaded on board. To regain access to his ship, the Doctor paid for passage on the Marie Celeste. When he showed Professor Theodore Cassells the TARDIS interior, he fled from the hold to the deck. When he tried to tell the captain what he saw, the captain misunderstood and thought the TARDIS was a time bomb. He, Cassells and the crew left the Marie Celeste in a lifeboat, which was swamped by a large wave that drowned everyone on it. The Doctor left, unaware of the name of the ship he was on. (TVA: A Stitch in Time)


 * In 2009, a future version of Peri Brown claimed that the Mary Celeste disappearance was caused by Piscons wanting to take over human forms, however this is revealed as simply something she made up. (CC: Peri and the Piscon Paradox)

Behind the scenes

 * In reality, the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste remains a mystery on par with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
 * On the DVD release of The Chase, it's mentioned that some feel the nameplate seen in the episode is misspelled, but the production notes commentary indicates the spelling used is correct.
 * Although mostly played for laughs, the scene in which the Daleks force the passengers to jump overboard takes on a sombre note as a baby is shown among those falling into sea, becoming the first baby to die during the course of a televised Doctor Who story. The next baby to die on screen would be the ganger version of Melody Pond in A Good Man Goes to War.