The Time Monster

The Doctor prepares to track the Master.

‘The Time Monster’ was an interesting story. A lot of fun, a bit crazy and definitely non-sensical,  but an interesting idea that may or may not have worked. I’m still not sure. On the one hand as an audience member I had to suspend disbelief when looking at a man in a white bird suit apparently being the monster, and groaning at the name ‘Chronivore – eater of time’, and yet for much of it I enjoyed the absurdity.

Barry Letts the Producer often said he wanted science rooted in fact. Let’s be honest there was little to none of that in ‘The Time Monster’, which he co-penned with Robert Sloman who was credited with this story. I think it’s great that

Man in a white suit = monster???

Doctor Who had a story which had a little to do with time – such as the season opener in ‘Day of the Daleks’, but not a lot was made of it over these six episodes save for some things being brought forward in time to attack UNIT troops and the like. The plot again reads as the Master trying to control a being he could ultimately have no chance of controlling to give him the ultimate in power – which admittedly changes from story to story. Here it’s presumably power of all of time. He also tried to harness the Nestene, the doomsday weapon, the power of Azal and so forth.

The TARDIS full of salad bowls!

That aside, if you allow yourself into the world of this story it’s quite light-hearted despite the destruction of Atlantis and a couple of deaths. It moves at a decent pace, with the last two episodes set in Atlantis and features a lot of the TARDIS – both the Doctor’s and the Master’s, which we've seen precious little of since Doctor Who went into colour. Apparently no-one likes the salad bowl sets, except for me. I think they looked smashing and might yet decorate my TARDIS in such a design.

Delgado and George Cormack.

Moving on the cast is superb. Roger Delgado holds nothing back in this quintessential performance, whilst Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene and Katy Manning are clearly having a ball. The Doctor builds a device to interfere with the Master’s TARDIS out of forks, a wine bottle and tea leaves, whilst the Master drops a doodle-bug on Mike Yates. Benton outwits the Master ever so cunningly only to have the Master fool him even more simply. THEN Benton ends up a baby!

Ingrid Pitt.

Ingrid Pitt guest stars as Galeia, Queen of Atlantis, a city with a lot of topless men who are very very white. The guest cast is full of brilliant performances from George Cormack as Dalios to Wanda Moore as Doctor Ruth Ingram. We even have another character in the style of a useless bureaucrat in Doctor Percival, played by John Wyse.

A wonderful array of sets for Atlantis, essentially only appearing in the final two episodes, were contructed too and kudos to the team for that because they can’t have had much money for them. Unless they borrowed them from ‘I, Claudius’ ???

Look, it’s no classic, some could even say it’s so bad it’s good, but I think it’s a pretty enjoyable 6 part story.

7/10

The Mutants

Another great, inventive, clever, ground-breaking story. It was written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, although at times feels like a Malcolm Hulke story with political overtones pertaining to the British Empire and its downfall.  Add to this the idea of a species mutating to adapt to its environment, the use of humans basically as the bad guys, the message of ‘just because it looks horrible to you doesn’t mean it is horrible’, I think ‘The Mutants’ should be up there with the classics of Doctor Who.

It moves very well for a six part story, adding new elements and characters as it goes along with various storylines intertwined; narratively it is very well done. The director, Christopher Barry may have wished he hadn’t had such a bizarre and challenging piece, but I think he makes a decent fist of it. The use of lighting and colours in the caves is great, and I felt that the majority of the CSO shots worked effectively.

Paul Whitsun-Jones

The casting has a question mark over it in fan circles. I have heard that Rick James, an actor of African descent, is regarded as one of the worst actors ever in the history of the show. I can’t really agree, although some of the lines are clearly written for a cockney accent, as the writers had originally planned for the character of Cotton (you’d have thunk the director might has also changed the character name). It’s at the very least refreshing to see an African character in a main part in Doctor Who, indeed in any early-1970s British show. His delivery is stilted throughout, but I’m not sure it is ‘bad’.

Jon Pertwee with Varran and Ky (right)

Paul Whitsun-Jones as the Marshal is perhaps just a little too stereo-typically megalomaniac for me, and is thus my biggest beef with the story. In his second Doctor Who story, he is very one-dimensional which is a pity. The part was presumably also written in such a way, but a different actor may have brought something less predictable to it. Other casting was spot-on with Geoffery Palmer again failing to last long in his second Doctor Who story, and James Mellor and Garrick Hagon perfectly cast as Varran and Ky respectively.

The ‘mutt’ costumes also deserve a mention. Very well made and effective, much better than the Silurian or Sea Devil costumes. Dirty and horrible

In the lab.

yet beautiful in a strange way at the same time. The design and set work is great, even if Skybase is quite over-lit (not a major surprise there). Jaeger’s laboratory is very functional in its design, and apparently the wall decoration used has been replicated many times since. Uniforms for the humans were a little predictable perhaps, but no ridiculous which has often been the case. The model work is mostly excellent, with the exception of the Investigator’s ship where it seems they just ran out of cash. Skybase itself looks great from outside. Some of the best model work to date along with ‘Ambassadors of Death’.

End of Episode Four.

The end of episode four (I think) sees Skybase punctured in a crazy scene with Varran flying out through a huge hole in the side of the space station. This was just one of the many technically difficult scenes Barry had to shoot, and whilst the first part of it works very well, it lingers on Jo, Stubbs, Cotton and the Marshall hanging on from grim life except they don’t appear to be and it’s poorly directed and acted.

Barry had to deal with psychedelic caves, transforming one of the leads into a super-being, making the planet misty (presumably with mist-machines!), lighting and shooting in caves, a large amount of CSO and who knows what else. I reckon he did well.

Ky trasnformed.

For me, the production has a few problems, a few moments that weren’t presented as well as they might have been, however, the storyline is brilliant, and more than makes up for the bits that are rough around the edges. It was one of the most daring, different and difficult stories the production had encountered at the time, rivalling ‘The Claws of Axos’. Loved it.

9/10

The Sea Devils

Malcolm Hulke’s ‘The Sea Devils’ capitalised on the success of his season 7 story, ‘The Silurians’. It also capitalised on the location chosen with a castle, a fort, a navy base and several navy vessels a real feature of this six-part adventure, the only Pertwee story so far set on Earth but without UNIT.

He's back! And he's an Admiral?

We do, however, see the return of the Master. Inevitable, yes, predictable – even more so. I’m surprised after five stories in a row with him, Barry Letts didn’t hold off a little longer before bringing him back. It’s a pretty good story for Roger Delgado too. On top of that the story has two government officials of dubious moral character to infuriate the Doctor – such characters have become the staple of the Pertwee-era as far as I can see.

Trenchard and Captain Hart.

We have Trenchard, the prison-warden in charge of looking after the Master but ever so easily manipulated by him, and Walker from the ministry, who keeps ordering food and wanting to blow things up. Trenchard ends up dead when he realises the folly of his way, and it is a sad death in the end at the hands of the sea-devils.

The Master comes to the aid of the Sea Devils.

The monsters of this piece, the ‘Sea-Devils’, are a more successful form than the Silurians, if still far from being perfect. Their eyes don’t move at all which always results in the destruction of belief on behalf of the audience, the actors inside the suits had their heads in the necks of the costumes so the heads wobble but not in a believable way, but the skin is pretty well done and if you don’t look too hard you could be convinced. Maybe.

More to the point only one can speak, and the voice is better than that of the Silurians, and we are spared the dreadful dialogue those particular ancient reptiles had forced upon them. A definite plus. It’s great to see a story with so much shot on film too. Minor quibbles are the end of episode four (I think) when the Doctor disappears in the diving vessel. Jo pokes her head inside and the Doctor is gone, but it’s not very clear. Then at the start of episode five she reinforces the point with ‘he’s gone’. I really hate it when they spell things out like that!

A great story for Jon Pertwee.

The combination of stock footage coupled with filming on actual navy vessels gives it a really authentic feel. Hulke writes a bunch of different characters – two men on the sea fort and the men in the submarine in particular – which don’t see a lot of action but are both well written and well played.

Pertwee clamours through passageways.

There’s some wonderful humour injected at times which Jon Pertwee plays superbly – especially when a radio blows up in his hand. He has a particularly good story, finding himself in diving suits, boats and being very much the action hero. The navy were happy to join in as extras and provide all the vessels etc. Pertwee himself had a military history and had starred for many years on the radio drama ‘The Navy Lark’.

Sets are very good, especially the castle and navy base ones. The Sea-Devils’ base suggests that they had run out of cash, mostly just black walls, but effective in its own way. Definitely preferable to white or light walls. The final episode seems an ‘almost’ pre-emptive nuclear strike, the Master fake his own death, boat chases and the Doctor blow up the Sea-Devil base. He turned on them a bit quickly for mine, to be fair, to resort to that when he was so upset by the Brigadier taking the same action in ‘The Silurians’. The Master also is very trusting of the Doctor considering their history. But minor quibbles.

Episode Six is action-packed indeed as I have mentioned, it needed another five minutes as it ends very abruptly. The story keeps good pace for a six-parter throughout. A great Doctor Who tale.

8/10