DOCTOR WHO-THE TIME MONSTER

 

DOCTOR WHO-THE TIME MONSTER episode 1

 

I feel as if I’ve written about this story more than any other and I feel as if I’ve just watched it in full, which I haven’t in quite a few years. It’s not a safe story, as many characters die or get turned old (hello the sexually questioning Stu Hyde, who’s own sister claims he doesn’t count as a man!) or into a baby (hello Benton who’s naked at one point after returning to his adult form). It feels safe and comfortable. Jo is clearly Jo (“I know I’m exceedingly dim…”…uh, no, you’re not) and the Brig is clearly the Brig (“You know, if this got out, you'd be the laughing stock of UNIT. A dream. Really, Doctor, you'll be consulting the entrails of a sheep next.”). Mike is…you get the idea. That said, it’s not predictable as the Master is now a Professor at a university or something, the Newton Institute working for some time over Ruth Ingram and her brother Stuart (both companion material but maybe for Troughton’s Doctor!). These last two are interesting characters, likable and almost seem as if they’ve been regular for years, which they haven’t. At one point, oddly, after a successful test, they dance in circle with each other to…strangely infantile music. There’s also infantile music at least once when we see the Doc and Jo driving in Bessie.

 

Bessie’s show some abilities that we may have seen before including absorbing inertia, including that of Jo. The Doc says he has reflexes ten times as fast as Jo (and all humans). The Master turns on the charm and Delgado’s been great before but in this entire story, he dominates every scene in a good way and gives to his fellow actors as well. There is no Master as great as he is.

 

It’s fun to see Bessie on the country roads, too.

 

There are flaws, of course. Stu goes into the chamber in full radiation suit…well, almost full, as he leaves his gloves off! He also takes his head cover off before leaving the room at one point and despite an effort to close the door, it re-opens. Benton and the Brig go to the institute but can’t recognize the Master’s voice when the Master shows up in full radiation gear. The cliffhanger is strange as the Master starts up the chamber and calls for Kronos but …we don’t know what that is yet…

 

Yes, there’s a lot of talk here but also the start as the Doctor have a surreal dream with the Master and the crystal, too. All in all, another entertaining episode, having the UNIT family secure in their stations and us better for it. DW at this stage, can do no wrong or if it does wrong, it’s just a blip that never detracts from our enjoyment. At the same time, it might be TOO comfortable (we know the Master will hypnotize the man in charge but he does it so easily here and other stuff) but this episode is enjoyable and fun.    

DOCTOR WHO-THE TIME MONSTER episode 2 and 3

 

 

BRIGADIER: This isn't a picnic. One moment you're talking about the entire universe blowing up, and the next you're going on about tea. Doctor! What's happening?

 

 DOCTOR: A great deal. For instance, you, Brigadier, you were caught in a hiatus in time. Being without becoming. An ontological absurdity.

 

 BRIGADIER: I don't understand a word you're saying.

 

No other way to say it: I fucking love THE TIME MONSTER. I know in some fan circles, it’s not thought of all that well but I think it’s a lot of fun and possibly one of the best examples of Pertwee DOCTOR WHO and of DOCTOR WHO overall that there ever is and ever will be. It’s that much fun. Also this might be the first story that has TIME rather than TIME TRAVEL (though it will have that, too!) as a focus within the plot. Roger Delgado as the Master. That’s all I have to say. Are there other Masters? Oh, I guess. I mean he’s just flawless in this story and these episodes in particular. I just read that this is the last story of the Master (Delgado’s Master) on present day Earth. He even says in episode 3, “You know, it's a long time since I came across a hypnotic subject who turned out to be as good as you are. It's just like old times.”  He has reasons for doing what he is doing and although insulting to Percival, it’s not he who kills the man directly…it is the first full appearance of the wildly surreal and real Kronos, a flapping winged angelic demonic entity that just seems to wrap around the man in a flash, killing the poor guy. Yes, the Master got him killed but he wasn’t directly the killer. The new series really never got the Master right and could learn from having its writers watch the Delgado Master.

 

Pertwee is brill again. Though he and Jo are highly involved, Episodes 2 and 3 spotlight the Brig and Benton just as much. Can Yates, who’s relegated for a time in this episodes, to a smaller part, be far behind? Again, the Modern Series could learn from this story by not making the Doctor ALWAYS the center of the thing.

 

I LOVE Ruth and Stu’s relating to our UNIT family. When, hilariously the Doctor’s ramshackle device blasts up in smoke, Ruth puts her arms around the startled Doctor. BESSIE drives really fast and…while I’m on this and reminded of the Doctor besting the smug Brig’s car with Bessie, the dialog in this is extremely funny and fun. Ruth and Stu toast to the Brig’s smugness. The Brig solves a scientific problem for the Doctor’s time question without realizing it. And there’s more. Benton is and isn’t bested by the Master. The Master can make his voice sound like the Brig but can’t get the military jargon entirely correct. Stu’s room is wildly 70s (and I spent almost all morning trying to find a list I made of the things in it once in my last review of these episodes –to no avail).

 

In the entire history of DW—and this just occurred to me---there hasn’t been a relationship quite like the Pertwee Doctor and the Brigadier. It’s quite golden.

 

Last time I reported that Stu was Ruth’s brother. Well, that’s not true. He’s not but he might as well be. He seems to have no interest in her whatsoever. He’s also aged to quite an old man in episode 3 (really by the very last moment of ep2 but we don’t know that).

 

The cliffhanger to episode 2 has Krasis appearing (and Percival seems to be frozen in fear or time or both in a weird shot) from…Atlantis, which, oddly seems to be…from the area around Greece? I don’t even mind that it seems Atlantis was ruined by a Daemon (only in dialog in that story, which this sort of resembles…a bit) and was seen ruined in THE UNDERWATER MENACE, in what seems like an eternity ago (in the fiction it was supposed to be the 1970s!!!). The cliffhanger to ep 3 has Mike’s UNIT team, wonderfully transporting the TARDIS on a lorry toward the institute and after being attacked by a knight on horseback and roundheads, bombed by a WW2 flying bomb, all brought by the Master. The explosion happens behind some trees from the POV of the Doctor, Jo and the Brig and the Brig can’t reach Mike.

 

I’m sure there are many books (ABOUT TIME for one) that can tell us all the flaws of this story. For one, why does Krasis seem to serve Kronos in part two but in part three on present day Earth, he seems to say he serves Poseidon? Is the boy listed as Neophite…someone a younger version of Hippias, who’s …well, a twink? Did he get aged by Kronos? That DOESN’T seem the implication but the boy seems to vanish and THEN we see Hippias. Just a thought.

 

Again, THE TIME MONSTER is wonderful and these two episodes are a joy. Oh and the Doctor is credited as Dr. Who, which should infuriate those who think they are purists.

DOCTOR WHO-THE TIME MONSTER part 4 and 5

 

 

DOCTOR: Good afternoon. Now where have I seen that face before? Can't think of anything to say?

 

JO: How about curses, foiled again.

 

 

 

More good stuff. BUT uhm, the Master’s time rotor looks like a chocolate fountain! The Time Ram goes wrong as one TARDIS appears in the other. It will happen again…twice that I know of. Jo’s grief at the Doctor’s “death” into the nothingness is well acted. The Master has in Krasis his own companion (and if it weren’t for the Doctor’s own pseudo companion, the hot Hippias, Krasis would have had the Doc and Jo killed by the trident baring guards upon their arrival in Atlantis) but it is the gestures the Master makes toward Galia, the queen of Atlantis that is most telling and she toward him. He is probably using her as I’m pretty sure he’s gay. One thing that occurred to me is: if Kronos swallowing the Doctor left him in the nothingness as the Master calls it, was Percival or is Percival still there? As mentioned before, Ruth and Stu are not brother and sister but act as if they are and act as if they are long running companions! Benton is turned into a baby in what seems like filler but the main thing is…the Doctor and Jo in ep 5 go to ATLANTIS in the PAST. This is DOCTOR WHO again!

 

Hunky warriors, shirtless men, shirtless twinks, slaves, plotting queens, cowering handmaidens, and a cat!

 

The Doctor and Jo’s rapport borders on romance here. The cliffhanger has Jo go blurry as the TARDIS is split from the Master’s. The cliffhanger to ep 5 has Jo facing a roaring unseen monster…the Minotaur that we do not see until ep 6. It’s all well done, honestly. Jo looks fantastic in…well, anything really but she looks doubly so in her Atlantan gear. The Doc talks to an old man.

 

Which reminds me: the KEEPER OF TRAKEN might be patterned after this episode or the two part Atlantis episodes. For one thing we have a queen or royal being used by the Master which leads to the ultimate destruction of a place. The Master can’t seem to control the leader Dalios (in a great scene where the Master tries to hypnotize him, Dalios just laughs it off!). In many ways these episodes are novel: we’ve seen the Monk vs the Doc in the past at least twice but we’ve NEVER seen the Master in the past doing things like this.

 

Two more entertaining episodes. The Pertwee Era (at least thus far and probably all the way through) hasn’t had one totally bad story.

THE TIME MONSTER ep 6

What can one say? The minotaur stuff is badly handled though I see what they were going for. THE MINOTAUR movie from 2006 with the talented Tom Hardy (now, HE would make a great Doctor!) and even the old sword and sandal movies such as MINOTAUR and HERCULES AGAINST MOLOCH (which has another title, too) were better. It’s sad to think Hippias dies saving Jo but…what was he doing there in the first place? Was he helping Krasis? He was sent there by Gallia and the Master? In any case, the Doctor doing a bull fight and its death are …well, badly handled.

 

But more memorable are the rapport between Jo and the Doctor while in the cell, the Doctor telling her the story of his blackest day and his best day and the hermit on the mountain that told him a story, making her feel better…at least until Dalios is brought in and an angry guard hits him with the staff of his trident and causes his death. This spurs a series of events.

 

One of the best things I’ve ever seen in DOCTOR WHO ever is Jo Grant, free, while Kronos is attacking and ruining Atlantis, jumping…and holding onto the back of the Master trying to stop him! It’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen a companion do and it’s wild. Of course, he escapes in his TARDIS but with Jo on his back! If that’s not enough, Jo’s sacrifice once against saves the universe, the Doctor and even the Master. For his part, the Doctor should have let Kronos destroy the Master and Kronos should have anyway. At one time, the scenes in “haven” or “nowhere” were okay but today they seem kind of…I don’t know, childish, even for DOCTOR WHO. The Master also seems …a bit TOO cowardly but there you have it.

 

The ending has Benton being changed back to an adult, naked, not that I needed that but there you go. Earlier Ruth told him in ep 5 probably that he just needed to stand there and look pretty. Pretty?

 

This episode was a fitting end to an enjoyable story and although the Doctor and Jo talk about the destruction of Atlantis, the last shot we see of it is Gallea standing in the temple with ruins and lots of people laying around, seemingly dead but she’s alive and Kronos seems to go. Once it becomes the giant woman looking at the Doctor and seems to know him of old, the Doctor doesn’t really mention the destruction or the death it caused. Then it was nothing but today it seems strange when things are more cohesive in a story.

 

This works and this was a good story and a good episode, despite the many flaws.