"Welcome! Welcome to
your new Master!"
The Doctor is having the
grandmother of all nightmares as we join this story, The Time Monster.
Volcanoes and earthquakes rage on in a very very strong opening scene. These
then dissolve away into a picture of the Doctor slumped on a sofa, besides a
massive glowing trident shaped crystal. A flash of lightning and the Doctor,
played suavely and amazingly by Jon Pertwee, awakes, seriousness and horror
etched on his features. Then he looks up to see the Master, as ever sublimely
portrayed by Roger Delgado who utters these commanding words. Then the Doctor
wakes up. Wow, what a brilliant opening scene. I remember thinking this scene
was truly filmic when I first watched it as a kid!
What follows on from this
memorable opening scene is a story packed with some extremely strong ideas,
only slightly hampered by some not quite so brilliant effects. But the story is
definitely ambitious, and has a massive epic quality to the storytelling none
the less. The Time Monster wonderfully weaves some of the best-known Greek myths
together in a very satisfying cake that is brilliant to watch from the get go.
First let's talk about the
cast of this story. It is extremely strong. Ingrid Pitt for beginners stuns and
impresses as the Atlantean Queen Galleia. Her scenes together with Roger
Delgado are absolutely priceless scenes. I love scenes where the Master is
using his suave charm to bend people to his will. Ingrid is superb in this
role, and her final scene of looking on as Kronos the Chronovore reduces her
city to rubble makes for a very powerful final image of the ancient city of
Atlantis.
George Cormack is superb
as King Darius, and his scenes where he talks with the Doctor are just as good
as Roger's with Ingrid. George gives so much realism and pathos to the doomed
King, and his final scene is touching and deeply moving indeed.
I dont think one will see
many people ever dwell on the character of Lakis, portrayed incredibly
wonderful by Susan Penhaligon. I absolutely love her character and how she
instantly strikes up such a strong and firm rapport with Katy Manning's Jo. I
love the scenes of them creeping about Atlantis spying on the Queen. I only
wish that she had been in more stories. This unassuming yet brave girl deserved
even to become a companion if you ask. Oh well, I suppose one has to be glad of
them being in one episode I suppose.
Its brilliant beholding
the sublime costume and makeup of the wonderful Dave Prowse as the Minotaur. In
fact, I would state he portrays one of the very best Minotaur's I've ever seen
in any film or TV programme. The makeup is fantastic. His Bull head is
absolutely exquisitely designed. Its again such a shame he didn’t get a few
more scenes!
Wanda Moore and Ian
Collier are absolutely a class double act as Ruth Ingram and Stewart. I love that
Ruth is absolutely a feminist, and one loves some of the one liners she has
throughout this story. They make a memorable couple of scientists and Ian is
particularly superb when in his aged form, he gives a superb performance when
he sees his old man face in the mirror.
John Wyse is wonderful as
the easily controlled and manipulated Dr Percival. His scenes with Roger
Delgado are amazingly good.
This story is also a very
strong one for both John Levene's Benton and Richard Franklin's Mike Yates. In
fact, this story yet again has an extremely fine cliff-hanger to part three
where the Master drops the WW2 doodlebug on the UNIT troops transporting the
TARDIS through the woods. This is a superb scene indeed and one that stayed in
my mind a long time after watching.
It's a shame that the make
up of Kronos doesn't work so well as the rest of the story does. The strange
helmeted bird fails to ever really be convincing. And the much better adopted
form of Ingrid Bower as the female face of Kronos in the final scene is let
down because of this being her only scene in the role, so she doesn't really
have much at all to work with, and this is a shame as she still manages to
steal the scene.
However, one slight oddity
is that at the end of the scene Roger Delgado perhaps gives a somewhat starkly
uncharacteristic grovelling scene to the Doctor which fails to convince, it’s
totally at odds with his otherwise superb performance throughout the rest of the
story. But it’s the only time I thought Roger could have done it a bit better,
otherwise in every story he was utterly formidable in the role of the Master.
And the Doctor's daisiest
daisy scene would rank high up as one of the Third Doctor's defining moments.
There is no way Jon Pertwee could have delivered the scene any better than he
did either. It's a sublime scene and so beautifully performed indeed.
The Time Monster is a
thoroughly excellent six parter. However, there is just one other slight annoyance
with this story. This story for some reason, is a lot more jarring between its
studio scenes and film scenes. In this story the filmed sequences are extremely
effective, and when paired with the studio scenes this time it's a little
distracting at times. I think this story would have benefited greatly in being
shot completely on film.
This is only a minor
niggle though. This story is imaginative, creative and with the the
abbreviation TOMTIT highly amusing indeed. The whole concept of Time Ram too is
a bonkers little addition to the mix. This makes the Time Monster a very
strong, if slightly flawed entry to the Doctor Who canon.
And, oh yes, how can one
end this review without a mention of John Levene's intense embarrassment as the
now grown up Benton in nothing more than a nappy to close the story on a very
very memorable way?! Priceless stuff.
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