This story in a nutshell: A hallucinatory experience that
feels very much like 'a real pippin of a dream!'
Good Grief: The Master has been a thorn in the Doctor's side
for too long now and he is having apocalyptic dreams about him (this might just
be the best shot sequence of the entire story, it is genuinely frightening and
disorientating). You have to wonder why the Brigadier doesn't have the Doctor
sectioned when he asks him to put out a worldwide alert for the Master because
he saw him in a dream - not half an hour ago! All the bitching between the
Doctor and the Master in episode four is highly amusing, especially when the
Master switches the sound off to his scanner whilst the Doctor is in mid-rant.
The Master is right, this Doctor cannot bear to not have the last word. Jo gets
the chance to hear the Doctor's subconscious thoughts - what a shame we aren't
privy to them too. Especially the ones he isn't proud of. Letts was very
interested in making the Doctor a flawed character and takes steps to suggest
that he has doubts and fears like everybody else. An extension of that is his
story of the blackest day of his life, a poetic tale that he tells Jo to cheer
her up when they are locked up and awaiting execution. He talks of a hermit who
lived halfway up a mountain on Gallifrey that taught him the meaning of life
simply by staring at a daisy. Both the hermit and his own doubts about his
character would return to haunt him in Planet of the Spiders. The fable tells
of the joy of being able to experience life through somebody else's eyes, a
profound sentiment that we should all remember in our blackest moments. On the
whole though, this is as bland as the third Doctor comes. He's lost a lot of
the arrogance and coldness that made up his early persona and hasn't quite
transformed into the charming rogue of his final two seasons. He's caught
somewhere in the middle; an apathetic man. He's heroic only in the sense that
it is expected of him. He does nothing that genuinely surprises.
Groovy Chick: I don't know how Katy Manning does it. At
times she was written in such a patronising manner (well, I say at times but
what I mean is in this story) but somehow she manages ride that wave of
condescension and cling onto her dignity and stroll through the story a hip and
independent young lady. Compare and contrast with Victoria, who wallowed in
sexist clichés but didn't have the personality or charismas of Jo to burst free
of it. Saying that the moment in episode one where the Doctor practically pats
her on the head of getting a scientific question right (he sounds genuinely
astonished) and deserves a conk on that mighty honker of his. The Doctor
actually tells her it is her job to do as she is told. Apart from a brief
moment when he believes the Doctor has been killed, Jo walks through the story
completely unfazed by everything that is going on about her. Almost as if she
is taking none of it seriously. I can't say I blame her but when even the most
hysterical of companions stops giving a shit about proceedings and just seems
to be hanging around for a laugh we're approaching unforgivable levels of
nonchalance. Jo in her groovy Atlantean dress and hippy wig looks quite
beautiful. There's a moment very similar to that of the one between the ninth
Doctor and Rose in The Unquiet Dead in episode six, the Doctor apologising for
bringing Jo to such a dangerous place and her telling him she wouldn't have
missed it. She's the suicidal queen, throwing the TARDISes into Tim Ram because
she knows she is the only leverage the Master has in stopping the Doctor from
acting and defeating him.
The Bearded Wonder: The Master has had enough of this
piffling little planet and is going for a grand finish, haunting the Doctor's
dreams, manipulating time, attempting to ensnare time monsters and playing God
in Atlantis. All in a days work for the half baked fruitcake with arsenic frosting.
Plenty was asked of Roger Delgado during his three year tenure as the Master
but this was the only time that he was written for in quite such a mortifying
fashion - where the character wouldn't be out of place in a pantomime. It is a
sign of what an astonishing actor that he is that he manages to overcome the
cod-Greek accent, the grovelling and snivelling, the cheap tricks and maniacal
laughter and still manage to keep his intact and provide a great time for
everybody watching. Delgado is worth his weight in gold and nowhere does he
prove it more than in The Time Monster, where everything around him has gone to
shit and he still smells of roses. Pertwee was right to fear his popularity,
the Master is every bit as vital to
this story's (limited) success as the Doctor, perhaps even moreso. Since this
pretty much reaches Scooby Doo levels of naffness, it is a surprise to me that
the Brigadier didn't rip away the Master's anti-radiation suit as soon as he
entered the room wearing it. You'd think he would begin to suspect something
when he started bellowing 'Come Kronos! Come!' An embarrassing slip on
the Master's part who soon gets straight back into character. He wants control
over the Earth and the universe itself - I'm not quite sure what he is going to
do with it all but I'm sure it will be tediously overcomplicated and barmy.
About as close as classic Who ever came to examining the Master comes in the
exchange 'You're mad! Paranoid!' 'Who isn't?' It's the paranoid part
that interests me. Of what exactly? We get to see a new shade of the Master's
character when he turns on the seductive charm and climbs the ranks of Atlantis
by promising dark romance to Galleia. I like how she falls for the sinister
side of his character, he doesn't have pretend he is someone he is isn't to
intoxicate her. She wants a bad boy in her life and when the creaky body of
Dalios and the simpering poetry of Hippias are her best alternatives who can
blame her? I don't think the Master has ever looked so smugly satisfied as he
has the moment he sits in the throne at the head of Atlantis. A buxom babe at
his side, guards to do his every bidding and the Doctor at his knees in chains.
Turns out the Master would rather be killed than lose out to the Doctor - a
belief that the John Simm Master would follow on with. The Master grovelling at
the Doctor's knees a the climax is the most pantomime the character has ever
dared to descend. Delgado almost gets away with it too.
UNIT Family: 'Greyhound Three - we're stuck in the mud!'
Oh the irony of that statement. One criticism about the UNIT stories midway
through the Pertwee era is that the whole organisation is supposedly starting
to feel a little bit too cosy and indolent. Having Mike turn up at the start of
the story and state that he hopes something dreadful happens soon because he is
bored isn't exactly the most dynamic of introductions. It suggests that they
just hang around between invasions and drink army cocoa and Benton's brew. Once
upon a time this organisation could pull on impressive resources to take down
any alien menace and now it is reduced to a bouffant-bothered Brigadier huffing
because nobody will escort him to Prom, sorry to the demonstration of TOMTIT
(it's a choice between Yates and Benton and one is duty officer and the other
is heading home to knit a tea cosy). The Brig has been lobotomised to such an
extent that he needs jolly Sergeant Benton to explain the science to him - how
the mighty have fallen. It's not as if the TOMTIT technobabble is especially
hard to grasp, even if you are a pompous military idiot. I think if you rosy up
the Brig's cheeks, put a wind up key on his back and have him marching around
banging drums in the background of scenes and he would look less of a goon than
he does when getting involved with the action (his nadir comes in episode two
when he unwittingly contributes to the explanation of Stuart's ageing but can't
figure out how). If you are having a bad day you simply have to watch the
second episode of The Time Monster with the commentary switched on. John
Levene's solo effort is a joy to behold because he seems to think that this is
some kind of forgotten gem and his personal contributions are the work of a
skilled actor at the height of his powers. The pantomimesque trick that the
Master attempts to pull on Benton in episode two is highlighted by Levene as an
especially golden moment for his character. Note the urgency in episode three
when the entire universe is in all probability going to ignite and the regulars
pop back to Stuart's flat for marmalade sandwiches and a nice cup of tea.
Despite falling for the most obvious of tricks, Benton is given some of his
best material because he is allowed a little autonomy and lumbered with
tweedledum and tweedledee (Ruth and Stu) and thus is able to appear decisive
and gifted by default. Ultimately UNIT is so vital to the story they can be
trapped like flies in amber for two whole episodes and completely miss the
climax.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'That's the most cruel, most wicked
thing I've ever heard!' 'Thank you, my dear.'
'It was the daisiest daisy I had ever seen.'
Dreadful Dialogue: I'm at a loss to explain how the dialogue
is quite as nauseating as it is in The Time Monster - Barry Letts and Robert
Sloman wrote three other (well regarded) stories and none of them consist of
the sort of tongue twisting, beatnik, flamboyant discourse that pollutes this
story. It feels like the writers have simply forgotten how people talk for six
episodes...it's bafflingly apparent because there isn't a single other story in
the era where such cod-modish crassness spews from the characters mouths.
Watching the stories in order makes this one very much the sore thumb.
'Simmer down, Stu!'
'May God bless the good ship Women's Lib and all who sail in
her!'
'You'll be consulting the entrails of a sheep next!'
'TOMTIT, that's what it's all about!' - Say that to the tune
of Agadoo.
'That's alright, Prof. You go and enjoy your nosh. Leave it
to the toiling masses.'
'It can swallow a life as quickly as a boa constructor can
swallow a rabbit - fur'n'all!' - this might be the worst line in all of classic
Who, a hotly contested field.
'Get on with it you seventeenth century poltroons!'
'Sorry about your coccyx, Jo.'
'How about curses, foiled again!'
The Good:
* What a shame that Director Pervical has to become one of
the Master's stooges because he gives as good as he gets when he first meets
the renegade Time Lord - he could have been an amusing thorn in the Master's
side rather than a snivelling brainwashed slave. He even scoffs at the Master's
TOMTIT.
* When the whacky ideas start coming they manage to lift the
story considerably. I love the idea of the chronovores, creatures that exist in
the vortex and if let loose on our plane of existence would cause untold
damage. Shame the execution lacks finesse but that doesn't take away from the
strength of the idea. Creating a myth to tame reality when it has become
unbearable works to explain how the Greek legends can worm their way into
Doctor Who. . During the first third of this story the Master isn't engaging
with the UNIT family at all, he's too busy running dull tests. The whole thing
perks up considerably when they sabotage his efforts because it gives him the
chance to fight back. Cue an attack on UNIT by a horseman in armour, Roundheads
and the deployment of a V1 to take out the platoon of do-gooders. The Master
having control over time to such an extent that he can draw in some of the most
destructive weapons/soldiers throughout history and set them on his enemies is a
lot of fun. More should have been made of it. Don't get me wrong, the scenes
lack urgency and drama and the Doodlebug footage is in black and white but it's some action and we should be
grateful for it. Time Ram is an incredibly dramatic notion - two TARDISes
occupying exactly the same space and causing utter annihilation. I bet that was
a popular tactic during the Time War given both the Time Lords and the Daleks
have time travel technology. I've heard many say that episode four is the nadir
of the Pertwee era but it is my favourite part of the story (frankly it is my
favourite episode out of the disastrous 16 episode run that makes up The
Mutants-The Three Doctors). Like the transition between The Dominators and The
Mind Robber, a one episode interlude was required in the TARDIS to help with
the switch between the dreary contemporary Earth scenes and the am dram
naffness of Atlantis. I especially love Letts and Sloman realising the
potential of TARDISes within TARDISes long before Christopher H. Bidmead got a
hard on for dimension transcendentalism. The loopy idea of having one ship
inside another like a Russian Doll effect, constantly finding yourself in a
loop of console rooms, is deliriously trippy. 'The TARDISes are telepathic?'
'Of course, how else do you think they communicate?'
* Thank goodness for the sudden cut to Atlantis in episode
two to break the monotony. Filmed at Ealing, giving at a more polished look
than the rest of the production to this point, it marks something of a turning
point from all the dull explanations that have replaced any sense of drama or
wonder.
* Am I the only person who likes the space age TARDIS design
that appears in The Time Monster only?
* Dalios is the one element of the Atlantis scenes that
excites because George Cormack is too good an actor to be sunk by the weight of
the ungraceful dialogue. The character has a sharp wit, doesn't take anything
seriously and questions everything. He's more than a match for the Master. He's
the smartest person in the whole story and it might have been better had he
stepped into the renegade Time Lord's life instead of Krasis. He would have
single-handedly lifted the contemporary Earth scenes.
The Bad:
* Doctor Who is programme that has gone to far flung planets
so it isn't always necessary for the characters to talk in a naturalistic way
in order for you to enjoy the story. However if you are going to set a story on
contemporary Earth (or in the near future) then it is a good idea that your
characters have a certain degree of naturalism to them in order for them to
convince. I can only put the lack of success of characters like Stu and Ruth
down to the dialogue because the performances are generally fine (Wanda Moore
pours on the scorn a little too much at times but on the whole she and Ian
Collier are underplaying their parts). Ruth is a spokesperson for women's lib
and that is her sole contribution to the story - if she isn't agonising over
the lack of respect for women then she blends seamlessly into the background. I
bet her husband is seriously hen pecked. Stu, as characterised, is even worse,
a tussle haired hippy scientist with a line in hip language and an irritating
knack of dancing around the room when an experiment is successful. I reckon
he's into experimental drugs, puffing away on the fire escape when nobody is
looking. No part of these characters convinces - I simply cannot imagine
knowing anybody like either of them. And that's a problem when they are
supposed to be the two normal characters surrounded by Time Lords and soldiers.
I think Stuart's rapid ageing is supposed to enamour us to the character
through pity but the fact that he looks like he is wearing a hideous rubber
mask and how the story moves on from the consequences of his senility nips that
in the bud.
* Don't get me wrong, the ability to transport things across
the planet would be resourceful technology and a wonderful time saver but
devoting two episodes to laborious experiments in a dreary institute to
achiever something that is second nature on Star Trek is hardly a thrilling way
to kick start one of the most ambitious of Doctor Who stories. First episodes
are the bread and butter of Doctor Who, that stab of excitement in the gut as
we head off on a fresh new adventure to anywhere in the universe. The Time
Monster might be the only Doctor Who story that kick starts with its dreariest
episode with far too many familiar elements that fail to excite. It lacks
atmosphere, scares or interest. A far cry from where the season began. You
would be hard pressed to figure where this story would end up give the
weariness of the opening instalment. People complain about how long it takes
for the Doctor to get involved in Revelation of the Daleks but he's irrelevant
in episode one of this story too.
* With The Time Monster it becomes a game to spot things
that amuse you to distract you from the general lethargy of the storytelling;
the Doctor's insanely phallic TARDIS detector, the highly popular and much
simulated 'we've done it!' dance, Bessie speeding down the road at a
million miles per hour to a devil may care tune, how the Master pre-empts
Chronos' every visitation with a bellow of 'Come Kronos, Come!' (note -
don't try this during sex, it only invites awkward questions), how everybody
gathers around the Doctor and watches in intense astonishment (except the Brig,
who stands back as sceptical as ever) as he cobbles together his greatest
invention out of a wine bottle, a cork, two forks and a cup of tea (this is the
living embodiment of actors selling material that is beneath them), the random
in-bred yokel who turns up to inform the viewer that the Doodlebug fell in this
exact spot all those years ago and just happens to have a tractor on standby to
drag the TARDIS out of the mud, Benton being turned into a baby wearing a nappy
(which kind of suggests the adult version is too).
* It's no secret that some Doctor Who monsters don't quite
live up to their fearsome reputation. What's not as widely accepted is that
just as many do. However, when it comes to Chronos the train has well and truly
fallen off the rails; a man trussed up in a white budgerigar costume and a
roman helmet jammed on his head, hoisted up on a Kirby wire, flailing about and
losing feathers and squawking like seagull that has spotted a fresh round of fish
and chips. It's so appallingly unsuccessful you have to wonder why Barry Letts
didn't gate crash the production and demand a reshoot. The success of the story
does rather rely on the terrifying impact of the titular creature. This is the
sort of horror that awaits us in the spaces between time. A good sprinkling of
baking soda and they'll be exploding across aeons.
* I don't buy the idea that Atlantis was too ambitious for
the show to realise in the early seventies - they had a pretty good stab at it
in the sixties (and it was far more atmospheric in The Underwater Menace and
not just because it was shot in black and white, the sets were genuinely more
impressive) and managed to carve out a convincing corner of the universe in
Frontier in Space (including several planets, palaces, prisons, spaceships,
etc). The truth is as is so often the case in Doctor Who that it is the end of
the season and the money has been spent already but despite all that the
producer still wants to try and pull of a spectacular eleventh hour coup. We
are left with a humiliating attempt at trying to pull off the scale and the
majestic design of the ancient city but what ends up on screen looks like a
shoddy am dram set complete with dubious extras and a cod-mythical score from
Dudley Simpson. Despite its reputation for looking this tacky every week the
truth is the set designers normally produce magic with their meagre budget but
in this case the results make the show appear insolvent. The lighting is the
biggest sin, it is over lit so every deficiency is evident and every drop of
potential atmosphere is bleached away. It brings the flatness of a BBC studio
into sharp relief. Aidan Murphy playing every scene with robotic over emphasis
doesn't help, nor Ingrid Pitt's disinterest (in everything except bedding Roger
Delgado, naturally). The costumes are spankingly clean, the wigs preposterously
lustrous and mock-Shakespearean dialogue so extravagant it made my toes curl.
Rarely has a setting in Doctor Who lacked this level of conviction, I could not
believe in this society on any level (check out the appalling attempt at a
backdrop of the sprawling cityscape over Dalios' balcony). Just when you think
it can't get any worse, the bloody Minotaur shows up! Half man, half bull; it's
a muscle bound actor with a pantomime bulls head (slick with Vaseline) dumped
on his head going 'rrrawwwrrrr!' At least The Mind Robber had the sense
to keep the mythical beast out of shot for the most part, terrifying with its
shadow. The Time Monster goes all out and has the Doctor waving his red rag to
the creature. Add some meekly falling polystyrene boulders, an unconvincing
lightning effect and Chronos flapping his fluffy wings to complete the
disastrous effect. The Fall of Atlantis, indeed. I had no idea it was so
unremarkable.
* Is there a climax to this story? To my mind it just sort
of stops. Chronos turns out to be quite lenient in the end and lets all the
silly little mortals get on with their squabbles. If she was never a threat in
the first place, what the hell was this story all about?
Or for a more positive slant on this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au3lFPpak08&t=147s
6 comments:
Couldn't agree more. I'd speculate that much of the season's budget went on The Sea Devils, which left the season finale looking woefully inadequate; especially when compared to the beautiful Peladon sets. Sadly, even Skybase was better realised than Atlantis.
You're actually not on your own in liking the new TARDIS set, although I don't know how long I could have stuck it (of course, it returns later, looking much more impressive with more traditional roundels).
I have to admit, I do miss the original style TARDIS interiors. Just imagine what could be done on today's scale and budgets with a more traditional design...
Am I the only person who actually LIKED the Brigadier's exasperated "You'll be consulting the entrails of a sheep next!" line?
You know, the last two episodes almost work as a two-parter. It's a shame. As an aside, I half expected Pertwee to say, "And the old man under the tree was Clara Oswald..."
Watching all in order. Enjoyed this more than I have done previously, watching 2 at a time helps. You are spot on regarding an obvious over confidence which was firmly switched back in s10. I like the end of episode 3. Hippias is excruciating. Pitt is glorious. Delgado immense in his last UNIT story. some of it is embarrassing but I did like the slow motion stuff in the early episodes. 2nd worst of the era.
Great reading and extremely comprehensive post – pretty much covers everything. Thank you for this detailed information! This is some of the highest quality content I’ve ever come across....
The story has been underrated by fans. There were undeniably bad parts, such as the speeded up Bessie, but there was a good Buddhist underpinning to the tale. Barry Letts stated that the concept of 'instertitial time' was from that source, as was the Doctor's 'hermit' anecdote in episode 6. The characters of Ruth and Stewart were very interesting, and the narrative was coherent. Stay with it.
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