An Hour of Who a Day: June 13: The Time Monster Episodes Three & Four

June 13: The Time Monster Episodes Three & Four

Oh dear. They've started to build up The Time Monster as this epic story, and then they spend two episodes giving us some of the most flagrant padding ever. Episode three isn't as bad though, as, after Krasis explains his role to the Master, we see the Master summon Kronos (who looks like a cross between a bird and a man, all in white) for the first time. He can't quite control him yet, but he knows he's close to being able to do so. All he needs is the true crystal of Kronos -- the one he has is only a fragment of it. So the Master needs to head to Atlantis to get that crystal.

That's the interesting bit. The other stuff ranges from the rather laughable (bless them, trying to show time slowing down by having all the actors slowly jog in place, but it's incredibly obvious that that's what they're doing -- they probably should have actually slowed the film down and then superimposed the Doctor over it, but maybe that was technically beyond them) to the bizarre: yes, it's time to mention the time flow analogue, made out of random bits of junk around Stuart's apartment (wine bottle, forks, corks, keychains...) but seemingly able to interfere with the Master's efforts to summon Kronos. "The relationships between the different molecular bonds and the actual shapes form a crystalline structure of ratios," the Doctor explains. "... it's just like jamming a radio signal, Jo. We used to make them at school to spoil each other's time experiments." So that explains that, then. Which might be okay if the Doctor's modern art device had lasted longer than thirty seconds. But it doesn't, and so it's exposed as the padding that it is.

Episode three ends with Mike Yates and a caravan trying to get to the Brigadier, only to be stopped by the Master bringing threats from the past to stop them. The last problem is a V1 Doodlebug which is going to fall right on top of where Yates's convoy is. The Brigadier tries to warn Yates, but then there's a huge explosion (although, annoyingly, not even a hint that something fell out of the sky onto them).

But the problems really start with episode four, which may be the single worst episode of Doctor Who yet. Yates barely survives the explosion, but there's no time to waste, so Jo and the Doctor head off in the TARDIS (which has been redecorated, as Jo points out, by sticking awful plastic bowls all over the walls instead of the previous round circles -- fortunately, the redesign only lasts this story) to stop the Master. The Master himself freezes time around TOMTIT and then escapes from Benton, Ruth, and Stuart into his TARDIS: next stop, Atlantis. We get some truly horrendous dialogue from Ruth first though (including such gems as "You know, Stuart, for a so-called member of the dominant sex, you are being remarkably feeble" and "why are you men so spineless?" -- which might just be all right if any of it were delivered convincingly), and then their efforts to free the Brigadier and his men from the time field only serve to turn Benton into a baby.

There's a hint of cleverness with the TARDIS scenes, with the first suggestion that the TARDIS is not only alive but also sentient (and we get a mention of telepathic circuits). And, also somewhat cleverly, we see that the Doctor, in order to stop the Master, has materialized his TARDIS inside the Master's and ended up with the Master's TARDIS inside his TARDIS as well, in a sort of eternal paradox. But rather than do anything interesting with this (as they would later do in Logopolis (and then rather less interestingly in the (admittedly brief) 2011 Comic Relief sketch "Space" / "Time" -- but at least they explore the paradox somewhat)), it's simply the backdrop for the Doctor and the Master to bitch at each other for the rest of the episode. It's tedious and painful to watch, with little fun involved for anyone in the audience. The whole thing ends when the Doctor leaves his TARDIS and gets swallowed up by Kronos, after which the Master sends the Doctor's TARDIS spinning off into the vortex. Hooray. Can we get on with the story now, please?