The Time Monster: Ranking - 62

 

The Time Monster

(Season 9, Dr 3 with Jo and UNIT, 20/5/1972-24/6/1972, producer: Barry Letts, script editor: Terrance Dicks, writers: Robert Sloman and Barry Letts, director: Paul Bernard)

Rank: 62

   'Hello, this is the Rani speaking. If The Master's going to control time and become a God while overtaking a lost continent then I have to do the same. So I've gained the power of the crystal Meteroid (yes that's a real thing) so that I can control space and become a Queen while overtaking a lost continent of my own. Welcome to Atlantis' cousin continent Mu: a world full of...Well, cats going mew and cows going moo mostly by the look of things. That's disappointing. Where's Peter Cushing in a toga when you need him?!? That's not fair - he got Ingrid Pitt! On second thoughts, maybe I'll try something else?!' 

  

 One of the biggest differences between watching a DW story live in the 20^th and 21^st centuries is the chance to hear what other people thought about them – that feeling of a shared experience across a community is one of the best things about being a fan now I think, especially when its a story that gets a lot right. Even when I don’t agree over whether a story is any good or not (and my tastes can vary wildly, as you’ll know from my list already) seeing it through other people’s eyes is a really useful way of putting my finger on why particular elements worked or didn’t work for me. Though sometimes its just maddening. Back when I started watching DW the only people using the internet were the military in secret (now there’s a DW plot for the future) and the only other opinions to go on were published in big expensive coffee-table books by people who only half-remembered the stories to begin with. ‘The Time Monster’ was, for a while, my favourite DW story growing up – and apparently mine alone. It was DW at its most fun without being silly, was evenly split between the Earthbound UNIT stories and exploring new worlds and featured extended scenes of Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado outsmarting each other without Daleks, Axons or The Devil getting in the way and taking all the best lines. As times have gone by my tastes have matured, I’ve grown to love the bonkers weirdo imaginative stories that are not like anything else on television, become obsessed with history and I’ve come to see this story through the eyes of other fans: the shockingly poor visual effects, Atlantis being introduced as if its a real place (even though it looks nothing like the Atlantis in ‘The Underwater Menace’) and the sheer implausibility of, well, everything that happens in this story. ‘The Time Monster’ is, its probably fair to say, one of the more dated 1970s Who stories around too: its hard to believe anyone wore those clothes underneath those hairdoes, that they spoke in such flowery language and that we had two characters bitching about whether feminism means marriage and staying in the kitchen by people who are now quite obviously lesbian and gay. Even so, I’ve never lost my love for this story and don’t understand why its hated quite as much as it is, especially compared to the other similar Barry Letts season finales which are, every bit as daft in places (I mean, take your pick from giant maggots, giant spiders and The Devil: by contrast a whacking great bird created by a God brought back to life by crystals seems almost sensible). It is, after all, a story that plays around with the time element of the format (a toy so few other scifi series get to play with) and the idea of time running backwards so it can age you horribly or run backwards and turn you into a baby or age you into a pensioner is a great little concept especially I the hands of an unfeeling psychopath like The Master. Even though we’ve had a few other stories that have touched on it since (notably The Weeping Angels sending you back in time before you were born) no other story does it quite like this one: the poor scientist Stuart’s shock at finding himself ageing half a century and not even The Dr knowing how to put things right is one of the all time horrifying moments in the series, far more so than a Dalek or a Cybermen (by contrast, poor Sgt Benton in nappies and getting the short straw of army life again is one of the funniest). The Master’s hypnotised his way into a research institute now (he makes for a scarily plausible academic) and taken control of an experiment on a giant crystal with unusual properties named TOMTIT (not what you’re thinking – this isn’t a Steven Moffat script - that’s ‘Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time’ to you). The Humans think they’ve just invented teleportation but really The Master’s trying to contact Kronos the God of time, with links to the lost continent of Atlantis, where The Master quite fancies his chances of being declared a God (figures: by his standards its actually quite a sensible scheme). If that seems a reach for the Master we first met the year before when he was more (literally) down to Earth and suave, well, such is Roger Delgado’s ability that he totally sells it and the contrast between his calm gentile charm and the Doctor’s emotional outrage is never better presented than in this story: you can totally see why the authorities are on his side, not the Doctor’s. You’d think that Atlantis would be less dense than ‘our’ world, but not a bit of it: once there The Master’s busy wooing Ingrid Pitt and convincing her that he should be her King and that The Doctor’s a conman. Much of the fun of this story comes from the Dr, with Jo as loyal as ever, trying to prove his morals and staying patient until The Master, inevitably but satisfyingly, trips himself up and lets his real self shine through. The time-ram at the end, when the Dr tries to park his Tardis inside The Master’s, is still one of my favourite scenes: these two renegade timelords, trapped on this backward planet, are so similar they could be twins, were it not for the Master’s need to conquer the universe and The Doctor’s need to explore it making them mirrors of each other. Even The Master’s Tardis is so clearly ‘our’ set dressed to look dark and shadowy. They can’t help but try to top the other and The Master’s delight as he finally gets to mute the Dr and shut him up, before making him speak backwards, is one of the all time laugh out loud scenes. There are some classic Dr-Master clashes in this story, with both Pertwee and Delgado at the top of their game, and I’d go so far as to say its the best ‘Master’ story out there (as opposed to the best story with The Master in it, which is a very different thing). Though its less obviously Buddhist-based than Letts’ other co-writes (again with his friend Robert Sloman) it still fits a lot of the same ideas: the idea of another world more advanced than others saving us is ridiculous when the whole point of humans being alive is to make mistakes and learn from them, while karma does a lot of the heavy lifting in this story, The Master’s ego and thirst for power the one thing that gets in his way of ever having it and the idea of the interconnectedness of the universe, where everything affects everything else. Notably, too, the Dr defeats The Master this week by learning to reign in his emotions and becoming effectively zen and prepared to live in the ‘present’ (even if its a present that keeps changing timetracks), while his rival gets all emotional and goes to pieces. It’s a strong story for UNIT too, with six parts and not too much plot giving plenty of space over to the regulars. The Brigadier gets to be as exasperated as ever and Yates gets to be the dashing hero, but its Benton who gets all the best moments, the simple soldier roped into a time experiment he doesn’t understand at all. You find yourself sighing ‘poor Benton’ rather a lot in this story, not least when he gets sent backwards in time and becomes a baby (its a brave series that spends the final shot of its twenty-six run on a close up of an awkward soldier’s bottom), though he also becomes one of the few people to ever outwit The Master besides the Dr, a moment that will have you cheering him on. There are many things about this quirky story to love. I adore the way The Tardis is almost an extra character, making its first ‘proper’ return to the series in years and the way its made into a magical impossible conjuring trick again rather than merely transport – the idea of two infinite Tardises inside each other is such a great and daring concept. I love the ‘War Games’ like idea of having UNIT attacked by all sorts of soldiers from across history, including Romans and WW2 bombers: I mean, given the amount of time-travellers in this series, its a wonder we don’t see this sort of thing happen more often. I love the infamous ‘daisy’ scene where the Dr tells Jo about his trip to visit a Gallifreyan hermit when deeply depressed and on his last legs and how the hermit helped him see a daisy with fresh eyes teaming with life and colour, which might well be the most ‘Buddhist’ moment of all (the ordinary becoming extraordinary again; its virtually DW’s signature scene and a fitting one for such a new age story). There are, admittedly, a lot of key things wrong with this story too once my adult head is on. While the idea of a crystal that changes the properties of time is no dafter than other ideas in the series, the way its realised leaves a lot to be desired. Kronos himself is represented by two images, super-imposed over the crystal: a real dove flapping its wings (which is fair enough) and a man dressed up to look like a bird (which isn’t: a shot that’s aiming for fright and sophistication ends up looking like an anaemic albino Big Bird. And Atlantis is just plain silly, looking more like a part of Greece that’s let itself go rather than a lost continent of wonder and magic, full of new age hippies wearing next to nothing and no sign of any water at all, one of whom is even called Hippy-Ass (though ‘The Underwater Menace’ is far worse as a story, even the fish people were better realised than this). The plot goes to sleep in the last couple of episodes and leaving UNIT behind for a bunch of bored looking extras and supporting characters we don’t have the time or space to get to know is a bad move. I still don’t care though: this story is a lot of fun and sums up all the reasons DW was great in this era: the sparking between the regulars, especially Delgado whose really got to grips with The Master’s polite and civilised yet unhinged madman character by now, the wild ambition combined with nuggets of actual plausible science, the alternating scenes of humour and horror that chase each other’s tail throughout the story, the strong visual ideas that are quite unlike any other DW story. There are better stories out there of course, deeper more imaginative and moving stories with stronger moral messages to tell – some of them in this same season. But few stories put a smile on my face as much as this one does and sometimes in a story that’s all you need.

+ The Doctor’s never been more like the mad English inventor of the Peter Cushing films than here, as he creates a ‘time flow analogue’ out of odds and ends, bits of string and some tea – it works fine,until it explodes, as you always know it will. The special effects, with lots of impossible things balanced on top of each other in a way that looks impossible and which you assume are glued on before the Dr’s tea mug revolves round and round is a really impressive effect for the age. The series really should have done more with scenes like this – it does the hearts good to have a tinkering Dr in the Tardis again.

- Unfortunately DW has rarely been more chauvinistic than here too and it seems such a backward step so soon after season 7 and brainy university graduate Liz Shaw (not to mention super-brain Zoe in season 6). On paper Ruth should be another Liz: she’s a respected female scientist with a degree and lots of expertise, but she spends the whole story complaining about being told by men what to do and then doing what they tell her to do, even her underling (Stuart even utters the line ‘God bless women’s lib and all who sail in her’ – sarcastically it should be added). You can usually rely on Ingrid Pitt to add some gritty feminism to a series (not least her ‘other’ DW appearance in ‘Warriors Of The Deep’ where she kung-fu kicks a Myrka) but here she’s just a gooey-eyed innocent who totally believes everything The Master tells her, even when its obviously false (she is, in a way, ‘his’ Jo but Jo was far more interesting and multilayered than this). What with Jo at her drippiest and dimmest and you have quite possibly the worst portrayal of women in the whole run of DW. Until the end when God turns out to be a girl anyway, in a sort of last minute apology (Letts knew he’d messed up which is why we ended up with Sarah Jane when he next had to sit down and create a companion). It’s worth saying though that compared to the rest of telly around in 1972 its still remarkable just how ahead of its time this series was...