morton dill, the young man from alabama whom the travellers meet at the top of the empire state building, was played by peter purves, who would appear in the last episode as steven taylor. earlier drafts of the story used the names "bruck" and "michael" for the character of the captured astronaut, before settling on "steven". the story also features the beatles in a film clip. it was originally planned for the band to appear as themselves, but under heavy "ageing" make-up, to represent themselves in the future. however their manager, brian epstein, objected to them appearing on the programme. thus, footage from the bbc chart show "top of the pops" of the group performing "ticket to ride" was used instead. this had the unintended effect of making "the chase" (specifically, the episode "the executioners") the only remaining source of any surviving beatles footage from "top of the pops", as the band's performances were one of many victims of the bbc's archive wipings.