June 14: The Time Monster Episodes Five & Six

After a deus ex machina button to bring the Doctor back from floating through the time vortex, it's time for two episodes set in Atlantis.  These are marginally better than the last two, partly because the setting is a bit more interesting, but mainly because George Cormack is so watchable as King Dalios.  It's not perfect (these scenes open with Hippias rebuking Dalios for the lack of food in Atlantis, even though we'd seen them acting all buddy-buddy in episode three), and there's the matter of Ingrid Pitt's stilted delivery as Queen Galleia (and her rather, um, distracting costume), but these scenes are nevertheless an improvement over just about anything in episodes three and four.  Particularly worthwhile are the scenes of the Master failing to hypnotize Dalios ("A very elementary technique of fascination.  I'm too old a fish, too old in years and in the hidden ways to be caught in such a net.  You are no emissary from the gods," Dalios tells the Master), and then his successful efforts to seduce Queen Galleia, where we see the Master at his most charming ever -- all the more nefarious for using his wiles rather than simple hypnosis to achieve his goals.

The discussions between the Doctor and Dalios are also reasonably entertaining, but it seems events are moving faster than either of them anticipate: Galleia has convinced Hippias to venture into the catacombs of the temple in order to defeat the guardian of the Crystal of Kronos -- the Minotaur of legend (as played by body-of-Darth-Vader-in-the-first-three-Star-Wars-films Dave Prowse⁷⁰) -- so that the Master can retrieve the true crystal for his own ends.  And then Jo is thrown into the catacombs as well...

Episode six sees the destruction of Atlantis as a result of the Master's actions.  But before that the Doctor and Jo are imprisoned, which gives Pertwee the chance to deliver the Doctor's "daisiest daisy" speech, where he describes meeting with a hermit after "the blackest day of my life," who then told him the secret of life.  It's a charming speech, and it gives us a little bit of insight into the Doctor's character, which is nice.

Queen Galleia learns the Master has killed Dalios. (The Time
Monster Episode Six) ©BBC

But before long the Master has seized power and Dalios has died (though it looks more like he died because he was old rather than because he was gravely mistreated), and the Doctor and Jo can do nothing but watch.  But when Galleia learns of Dalios's death, she becomes angry and orders the Master seized, but the Master summons Kronos using the true crystal of Kronos -- after which Kronos descends upon Atlantis, causing its destruction (which is at odds with what we're told in The Dæmons -- by the same authors! -- and so a bit difficult to reconcile; meanwhile, the depiction of Atlantis here is at odds with that in The Underwater Menace, but that's probably to be expected).  The Master escapes in his TARDIS with Jo and the crystal, while the Doctor pursues him in his TARDIS.  The Doctor knows he can't let the Master go free with the crystal as it would mean the end of everything, so (with a little help from Jo) he does a Time Ram, which will utterly annihilate both TARDISes.  But at the moment of collision, Kronos is set free and rescues them all, sending them back home (including the Master, thanks to the Doctor's intervention).  Back on Earth, the gap in time is closed, freeing the Brigadier and his men, and returning Benton to his adult self -- albeit in the nude...

The Time Monster starts well, and there's a real sense of trying to make this the most epic Doctor Who story ever.  But somewhere along the way they get bogged down in pointless details and padding, rather than keeping their eyes on the big picture.  The result is a mess, frequently tedious and only occasionally entertaining; it's not the powerful story it wants to be and it never reaches the level of greatness it's striving for.  A lot of important elements of the story do start here (TARDISes may be sentient, the Doctor's meeting with the hermit, the idea that the TARDIS travels through the "time vortex"), and you can tell that they're at least trying to do something big, but unfortunately these are small additions to a story that squanders its potential on a lot of Doctor-Master bitching and some truly horrible dialogue and awful moments.

And so season 9 comes to an end.  Season 8 may have given the impression that the production team were growing more comfortable with the series, but this season cements that impression.  There are some good moments and some terrible ones throughout the season, and there hasn't been a season that has been quite so uneven as a result -- and run the gamut of what this team thinks the show is about.  But even the less-than-impressive moments are generally worth our attention, as you can see that they're trying to make this show the best they can, and the confidence they exude as a result helps those weaker moments shine at least a little.  But in the final analysis, more than any other season yet (more so than even season 8, which at least introduced the Master to shake things up), season 9 feels like nothing so much as business as usual.







⁷⁰ Seriously, did the casting people on Star Wars just watch season 9 of Doctor Who for potential actors?  It's a miracle Paul Whitsun-Jones doesn't show up as one of the Imperial officers aboard the Death Star.