69: The Green Death - More Than Just Giant Maggots

Written by: Robert Sloman.

Companions: The Doctor, Jo Grant, the Brigadier, Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton.

Monsters/Villains: BOSS, Stevens, Giant Maggots.

Brief Synopsis: The Doctor and Jo head to Llanfairfach, South Wales to Investigate Global Chemicals and a dead miner turned bright green.

Rating: 10/10.

The reputation of The Green Death proceeds itself: "the one with the giant maggots," but there's so much more going on here. Writer, Robert Sloman's "Soylent Green" inspired script simultaneously tackles the environmental issues of pollution, globalisation of the coal mines and the introduction of oil whilst also tipping to the polar opposite of the scale in an (at times) almost pantomimic haze. On paper this doesn't sound like it would be a strong combination, but the strange concoction brings a surprisingly joyous balance. 

Professor Clifford Jones and some other hippies.

We start this story with the Doctor fixing the space time coordinate programmer, a subtle moment which partially explains the TARDIS' improved accuracy of travel that would follow. The rapport in the scenes between Pertwee and Manning is breathtaking, you can really tell that we're gearing up for Jo Grant's departure. The Doctor is growing tired of Earth and it's problems, and with his new freedom, clearly wants to explore the rest of space and time. Whereas Jo is growing up and finds a new purpose in life with Professor Clifford Jones and his desires to discover alternative foods and fuels; she even discribes him to the Doctor as a "younger you."

A lovely Giant Maggot!

The Doctor goes on a brief tangent to pick up a blue crystal from Metebelis III, a planet where all the animals are giant. Random. We then head to Llanfairfach, South Wales, where UNIT is investigating a dead miner who's turned bright green. The situation escalates when vast quantities of a green substance and giant maggots are discovered in the abandoned coal mine. It soon becomes apparent that Global Chemicals are behind these aberrations; but who's behind Global Chemicals? Who's the Boss?

John Dearth is excellent as the voice of BOSS.

The answer is: the first 'Biomorphic Organisation Systems Supervisor,' the BOSS; a computer connected to a human mind, Global Chemicals' director: Stevens. 

Jerome Willis gives an inspired performance as Stevens.

There are some brilliant light hearted moments too. At one point the Brigadier takes a call from the Prime minister: Jeremy. This was a joke by the production team intended to suggest that the Liberal Party, then led by Jeremy Thorpe, could win the next General Election; Thorpe, of course never held that office.

Pertwee's background as a light entertainer is certainly used to it's fullest ever in Doctor Who in The Green Death. In order to infiltrate Global Chemicals the Doctor disguises himself as an old milk man and then to avoid detection as a female cleaner. We get so close to Pantomime at one point there is even a slosh bucket joke.

Yates: "I like your handbag."
Doctor (in dame voice): "Do you?
Well watch out I don't slosh you with it."

The Green Death stands the test of time well, Robert Sloman's words in Professor Jones' mouth ring true. It would take twelve years but in 1985 a nutritional fungus alternative to meat would turn out to be Quorn. And in terms of renewable alternative technology for energy: solar, wind turbines and hydro power have all evolved dramatically since 1973.

A giant Fly.

In the end the maggots grow in to giant flys but fortunately UNIT manages to defeat them with Professor Jones' fungus. The BOSS's ultimate plans to link up with other computers round the world and take over the human race are foiled when Stevens fights the computer with the help of the Doctor and the Metebelis III blue crystal. Stevens destroys the BOSS, sacrificing himself and the whole of Global Chemicals.

Stewart Bevan who played Clifford Jones and Katy Manning
who played Jo Grant actually dating when filming The Green Death.

And then Jo decides to leave. Professor Jones offers her the exciting proposal to go with him to the Amazon to search for a rare fungus, and then backs that up with possibly the least romantic marriage proposal of all time. "We'll just stop in Cardiff pick up our supplies, get married!" Jo replies: "Married? You didn't say anything about getting married." To which Cliff replies "Sorry love. You will though?" Hardly high romance yet Jo agrees. 

The Doctor offers his blessing to the couple and gives Jo the blue crystal as a present asking them to save him some wedding cake. However, as the party starts to get into full swing the Doctor quietly slips away, noticed only by Jo who understands why. The Doctor, upset by the departure of his good friend, gets into Bessie and after one final look back at the cottage, sadly drives away. It's a beautifully handled departure for the companion. It feels a lot closer to modern Who than any other departures to follow.

Jo Grant did eventually see the Doctor again, in his eleventh incarnation in the Sarah Jane Adventures story Death of the Doctor. She is shocked to hear the Doctor is now travelling with a married couple in the TARDIS noting that she only left because she got married. 

Elisabeth Sladen, with Matt Smith and Katy Manning.

The Green Death is a wonderful farewell for Jo Grant and I have hopefully proven so much more than just Giant Maggots.

And so we have reached the end of Season Ten. The season in which we saw the return of the First and Second incarnations of the Doctor and met the infamous Time Lord Omega. We watched the Doctor and Jo escape a carnival of monsters. We saw the return of the Master, the Ogrons the Thals and the Daleks and met the wonderful Draconians and the invisible Spiridons. Finally we faced a crazed computer and some giant Maggots and bade farewell to Jo Grant. My favourite story in this season has to be this story The Green Death. My least favourite is Planet Of The Daleks. Out of a possible 50 points I scored Season Ten 32.5/50. Giving it an average score of 63/100 putting Season Ten in eighth place overall thus far. It was a real mixed bag of a season, with some well written and produced gems. I think it was a little too "adventure serial" heavy for my tastes, but I still enjoyed it throughly.

Jon Pertwee has really become my favourite Doctor and I'm sad that there is only one more season of his to go, but it's a real corker.

Join me next time for a new season, companion, title sequence and reoccurring alien race in The Time Warrior.

68: Planet Of The Daleks - Transparently Repetitive

Written by: Terry Nation.

Companions: The Doctor, Jo Grant.

Monsters/Villains: Daleks, Thals, Spiridons.

Brief Synopsis: The TARDIS follows a Dalek ship to the Planet Spiridon, where the Daleks are attempting to master invisibility.

Rating: 4/10.

So... Planet Of The Daleks features a band of Daleks on the planet Spiridon trying to discover the locals' secret of invisibility; the Pepper-pots don't manage to achieve this transparency but the plot's similarity to that of 'The Daleks' more than makes up for their failings. Terry Nation is behind this almost direct reworking of his original story and Planet of the Daleks contains a number of the same plot devices including: a group of Daleks in a city encountering the Thals on a ravaged planet; a deadly plague instead of a neutron bomb; someone using a Dalek shell as a disguise; the Doctor imprisoned in a cell, and the Daleks imprisoned in their city at the end of the story. It just feels like Nation is afraid to do another story, he's had success with his first Dalek story and doesn't want to break the mould. He's invented these wonderful creations but doesn't know where to go with them, he does go on to redeem himself before too long, but we'll have to wait until there's a new Doctor on the scene.

Terry Nation, writer and creator of the Daleks.

The story carries on right where Frontier In Space left off, Jo gets a chance to run the show as the Doctor is out cold, literally; this is similar to what happened to him in The Dæmons. On her journeys, Jo chances on the Thals, and a friendly member of the invisible Spiridon race. The Spiridons all wear big purple furs to keep warm, and presumably so as to not bump in to each other. Once the Doctor is up and about he too meets up with the Thals and tells them of his past encounter with their people on Skaro, even mentioning Ian, Barbara and Susan, which is a lovely moment.

Jo gets given more to do.

At first it appears the Daleks are on Spiridon simply to master invisibility; an invisible Dalek is a scary idea, although it really feels like this story line gets forgotten about very quickly. We later learn there are 10,000 Daleks in hibernation on the planet just waiting to awake and conquer the galaxy. Likewise we don't see much of the invisible Spiridons (no pun intended) until one dies and loses his camouflage.

A Spiridon.

There are some rather infortunate shots using tiny Dalek toys to fill in for the huge 10, 000 strong Dalek army. It's a great idea to have such a massive Dalek force but technology wasn't quite there yet leaving these shots best forgotten.

An army of tiny toy Daleks.

There is a rather wonderful scene in a cell where the Doctor gives a Thal a pep talk about bravery, stating: "Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway." This has a really genuine heart-warming quality, but unfortunately stands out as the only  such moment in the story.

The Supreme Dalek, or disco dalek if you will.

In the end the Daleks aren't destroyed but frozen by a wave of molten ice. The Supreme Dalek (which was adapted from one of the sixties film Daleks) also manages to escape, meaning we can surely expect the Daleks' return at a later date. 

Jo is given more to do and it's here that one can really see how far the roll of the companion has come during Jo's time as assistant. Her character has grown and developed from a screaming child into a responsible individual. At the end of the story Jo tells the Doctor that there is only one planet she wants to see: earth, home. This is perhaps a little sign post of Jo's departure in the next story.

The Doctor and Bernard Horsfall as Thal Leader Taron.

Overall Planet Of The Daleks isn't particularly memorable, we've seen it all before in previous Nation stories. The performances from the actors playing the Thals are two dimensional, with the exception of Bernard Horsfall. Like it's predecessor Frontier In Space, this story feels like an unwanted throwback to Doctor Who when it was at it's adventure/pulp sci-fi stage of development back in the sixties. 

It has to be said that a more up to date version of 'The Daleks,' which hadn't been seen since 10 years earlier would have been welcome at a time where repeats and DVDs were non-existent, but with hindsight the story just feels transparently repetitive. 

Join me next time for an absolute classic, Season 10's finale and a farewell to Jo Grant in The Green Death.

67: Frontier In Space - Doctor Who Does Space Opera?

Written by: Malcolm Hulke.

Companions: The Doctor, Jo Grant.

Monsters/Villains: Draconians, Humans, Ogrons, The Master, The Daleks.

Brief Synopsis:  In the 26th century the Doctor and Jo get embroiled in the stirrings of a war between the great empires of Earth and Draconia.

Rating: 5/10.

Frontier In Space started it's life as a 12-parter planned by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks as an extravaganza to rival The Dalek's Master Plan. It was later decided to split the story into two 6-parters which left us with The Frontier In Space and... well let's not get ahead of ourselves.

My favourite Doctor Who writer penned this Space Opera, but is it his best work? The story is exciting and challenging but the finished product often comes off as a little repetitive and clunky. With too many scenes of space ships attaching and detaching, the Doctor and Jo being locked in various prison cells, and numerous never ending space walks the narrative becomes, at times, muddled. It feels like Doctor Who as a programme takes a step back in it's development.

One to many stilted space walks, ay Doctor?

But we're ticking lots of boxes. We've got the return of the Ogrons, we've got Roger Delgado as the Master (although sadly for the last time), we've got a new alien race, the Draconians, but yet it just feels like something isn't quite right. I'm a sucker for 50s, 60s, and 70s ideas and expectations of the 'future.' There are some weird and wonderful designs, including futuristic collars. The then newly built National Theatre was used as a location and the Doctor goes on a tangential visit to a lunar penal colony, or "Moon Jail," if you will. There are also some lovely little touches that ground the piece in reality; like the pin-up girl posters in the Cargo ship control room. As always Hulke's characters are fully rendered and non-stereotypical. They're not goodies and baddies, they're all believable people with motives and ambitions. But how does that fit with the Space Opera style?

Vera Fusek as the President of Earth.

You can tell writer Malcolm Hulke, producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks had some say in the casting for this one. Vera Fusek a Czechoslovakian woman was cast as the President of Earth; something that at the time would have been so far from possible that even the representation of the idea of it on a programme like Doctor Who would have been shocking.

Louis Mahoney would later go on to play the
older version of Billy Shipton in Blink.

The casting of black actor Louis Mahoney would also prove to be fortuitous. Frontier In Space was broadcast 24 February-31st March 1973. In that very same year Trevor McDonald would become the first black Newsreader. It has sometimes been suggested that Malcolm Hulke was a communist; whether or not that is true he was certainly a progressive man. Like all of his stories Malcolm Hulke has loaded Frontier In Space with real world implications. Instead of his more usual moral dilemmas  Hulke here delves in to the world of politics and it's ramifications on war. It feels like he's pushing against the melodrama of the Space Opera setting.

There's a clue to who he's working for on his chest!

One of the saddest parts of this story is that it would transpire to be the last appearance of Roger Delgado as the Master. He died whilst on location in Turkey when a chauffeur-driven car in which he was travelling came off the road and plunged into a ravine. Jon Pertwee often remarked that it was Delgado's untimely death that led to his departure from Doctor Who. Delgado gives an excellent final performance, but sadly isn't given the farewell he deserves.

Jon Pertwee often named the Draconian as his favourite 'Who' Monster,
due to their design and use of the actors actual eyes and mouth.

So it transpires that the Ogrons are working for the Master, who is using a sonic device that makes people see what they fear most. This feels like Hulke and also fits the Space Opera style. The device causes the Draconians to see the Ogrons as Earthmen and the Earthmen to see them Draconians. The Master is trying to start a war between the two great empires so that... dun... dun... dun... the Daleks can sweep in and take over the Galaxy in the confusion.

Surprise!

The first time we met the Ogrons they were working for the Daleks but the Doctor explains that they are mercenaries, which neatly keeps the surprise of the Daleks showing up right until the end of the last episode. The Draconians make excellent characters. They have a sort of oriental, honour, dragon feel to them in design terms and each actor uses sibilance beautifully. They are one of the alien races that I believe most deserve a come-back in the current series. They were named-dropped as part of the Alliance to trap the Doctor in the Pandorica in The Big Bang in 2010 but didn't make an appearance on screen.

I love Peter Birrel as the Draconian Prince.

In the end an Ogron shoots the Doctor, who manages to escape back to the TARDIS with Jo. He uses the telepathic circuits of the TARDIS to contact the Time Lords, telling them to help him follow a fleeing Dalek ship before collapsing. It's a big cliffhanger, which is emphasised more by the fact it comes at the end of the story. So on the hole Frontier In Space isn't bad. It's let down by it's lengthiness and sometimes repetitive production. It feels like Hulke wants to write a straight drama highlighting the connections between polotics and war, but he's stuck with the melodrama, adventure and technological aspects of a Space Opera. At times the two synthesise and blend, but at others they clash horribly. 

It doesn't work on a consistent level, but there will always be a place in my heart for this story.

Join me next time for the continuation of this story in The Planet of The Daleks.

66: Carnival Of Monsters - An Early Metaphor For The Voyeurism Of Television

Written by: Robert Holmes.

Companions: The Doctor, Jo Grant.

Monsters/Villains: Drashigs, Plesiosaurus.

Brief Synopsis: The TARDIS lands aboard the SS Bernice a cargo ship in the 1926 only to realise they're not quite where they thought they were.

Rating: 8/10.

You can really tell this is written by Robert Holmes. It's a great idea and a great piece of story telling and although Barry Letts hasn't done the best job with the direction, the characters are fully fleshed out and entirely three dimensional. The aims of the story are clearly handled and very ahead of their time.

There are several wonderful levels of deception to be found in this story's first episode. A newly freed Doctor wants to take Jo to one of his favourite planets and thusly sets the TARDIS coordinates to Metabelis III, the famous blue planet of the Acteon Galaxy. Only when the time-ship lands the Doctor and Jo find themselves aboard the SS Bernice, a cargo ship crossing the Indian Ocean in 1926; or so they think. After stealthily exploring the ship they are shocked to see Harry Sullivan!?

Ian Marter as John Andrews not Harry Sullivan.

It's Ian Marter who plays Harry! Of course he isn't Harry at this point, he's playing a character called John Andrews, but he'll go on to be Tom Bakers Doctor's assistant in a few years time. What the Doctor and Jo are actually shocked to see in the ocean is a massive Plesiosaurus from the early Jurassic period. Something fishy is going on here, or should I say dinosaur-y.

Meanwhile we meet three officials of the overly-disease-conscious planet Inter Minor. Pletrac, Kalik and Orum are welcoming the first alien vistors to their planet.

Kalik (played by Michael Wisher), Pletrac (played by
Peter Halliday) and Orum (played by Terence Lodge).

These visitors are Lurmans, a pair of intergalactic travelling players, Vorg and Shirna. But they're not alone they've brought the Scope. The Miniscope is a sort of sideshow attraction which displays the lives of creatures for entertainment. Sounds like a TV. The difference is the creatures are actually miniaturised and kept in secure micro-environments within the device itself. The machine boasts many creatures including, tellurians (humans), Ogrons and Cybermen; who here make their only on screen appearance in whole of the Pertwee Era.

Upon further inspection Jo and the Doctor learn that they aren't on a ship at all and head for the TARDIS, but someone gets there before them.

A Monty Pythonesque cliffhanger. 

The rest of the adventure sees the Doctor and Jo meet the monstrous Drashigs and fight to escape the Scope and return to regular size.

The Drashigs are impressive creatures. They were mad from
the skulls of Dogs to make them look more fearsome and realistic.

The costumes of this one aren't the best. Vorg and Shirna's are particularly unusual.

In 2010 when the stage show Doctor Who Live: The Monsters Are Coming needed inspiration for it's story, Steven Moffat, Will Brenton and Gareth Roberts turned back to The Carnival of Monsters. The show featured prerecorded material by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, and on stage appearances by many Who monsters and Nigel Planer as Vorgenson son of Vorg, who has created a similar machine called the Minimiser. This transpires to have been a trap set by the Daleks to capture the Doctor.

Nigel Planer as Vorg's son Vorgenson.

The Drashigs also inspired one of my very favourite pieces of Doctor Who Merchandise, the Drashig hand puppet!

What a brilliant idea this story was and ahead of it's time! A story about people being trapped inside a machine for giving entertainment. The original title for the story was Peepshow, which works as a much clearer indicator of the story's true intentions as an early metaphor for the voyeurism of television. The Miniscope takes television to an extreme as we watch real people strive and suffer for mere amusement. It's amazing how ahead Robert Holmes was of his time. He preempted reality TV by two decades. The character of Vorg even acts as a kind of malevolent producer/puppeteer as he adjusts a dial which amplifies the "specimen's" hostility to increase the viewers amusement. The Doctor mentions his part in convincing the Time Lords to ban Miniscopes claiming that they were an insult to sentient life. Despite the Time Lords non-intervention policy the Doctor was successful.

Ooh Doctor, you've changed your tune!

Holmes could clearly see the negative potential that television could have and The Carnival of Monsters is a direct product of that. The Miniscope is really not a millions miles away from Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here or the X-Factor. If only we could do what the Doctor did and get the High Council of Time Lords to ban it!

Carnival of Monsters is leagues ahead of it's time. It's a classy, classic and (apart from the costumes) timeless story.

Join me next time for the epic space opera: The Frontier In Space.

65: The Three Doctors - Certainly A Celebration

Written by: Bob Baker and Dave Martin.

Companions: The Doctor, The Doctor, The Doctor, Jo Grant, Brigadier, Sergeant Benton.

Monsters/Villains: Omega, Jell guards, Time Lords.

Brief Synopsis: The Time Lords send the First and Second incarnations of the Doctor to aid the Third in stopping the infamous time lord Omega from causing universal destruction.

Rating: 4.5/10.

So here we are in the 50th anniversary year and I'm looking back to 1973 and the 10th Anniversary story, The Three Doctors. This one isn't the best, but it's certainly a celebration; it almost feels like a party. The Three Doctors boasts many impressive traits: there's yet another new TARDIS interior redesign, we're introduced to the Time Lord figure Omega, we learn a lot more about the Time Lords and their origins, we see the end of the third Doctor's exile to earth, but most excitingly, and as the title suggests The Three Doctors is the first multi-Doctor story. Which if you hadn't worked it out means, in this case: three incarnations of the Doctor all in one place and one time.

Unfortunately like most multi-Doctor stories, we don't quite get what's promised by the title; this one is more 'The Two Doctors.' Fans we're thrilled to see the return of Patrick Troughton to his role as the Second Doctor, and yes William Hartnell does make an appearance but only a disembodied one on a screen in the TARDIS.

The Time Lords with their weird circular note paper.

The Doctor should never meet another incarnation of himself as one of the Time Lords in this story remarks, "it goes against the first law of time!" So what disaster exactly would deem this extreme transgression necessary? Here is where the story gets interesting: We learn that the way that the Time Lords gained their mastery of time was owing to the efforts of Omega. 

Omega's costume is bad ass.

Omega was a steller engineer who caused a star to go super nova which enabled the Time Lords to harness enough energy to achieve time travel. Omega was believed dead but in actuality was pulled through the black hole created by the super nova where we lived as lord of the world of antimatter. The Time Lords call on three incarnations of the Doctor when Omega drains their power and threatens to destroy the universe. Fair enough.

Troughton and Pertwee. Brilliant!

So we get to see Pertwee and Troughton interact. Which is wonderful. They fight and bicker and work excellently as a comic duo. I can't help but wonder though: wouldn't you be more upset to know that at some point your version of yourself is going to effectively die and you'll be another person? Troughton doesn't even seem to consider it. The bickering is sorted out when the First Doctor gets on the scene, well sort of...

RIP William Hartnell.

Sadly this story would mark William Hartnell's last appearance as the Doctor and his final ever performance as an actor before his death in 1975. Hartnell was too ill to play a more active role in the story. Instead his scenes were filmed separately while he read his lines from cue cards. The script was rewritten with the explanation that the First Doctor was stuck in a "time eddy" due to the power drain caused by Omega.

I can't help but question: how ambiguous is the Time Lord's explanation of the 'power loss?' "Cosmic energy is being drained away, leaving the Time Travel facility in danger. Unless the energy losses can be stopped the whole fabric of space time will be destroyed." Ummm, why? Also why does it have to be the Doctor(s) who come to the Time Lords aid? Because: "No one [else] can be spared. Everyone is needed to combat the energy losses." Oh, okay! That makes sense...

These are called Gell Guards. I have no idea why.

UNIT HQ is assaulted by monsters that look like ear wax. Eventually The Doctor, the Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Benton, Bessie, the TARDIS and UNIT HQ itself all end up in the universe of antimatter, dragged there by some matter/antimatter-combo-time-bridge-organism-thing. Each one undergoing a conversion process allowing them to survive in the anti-matter world, which, of course, is a quarry! It feels like the regulars have gone on holiday, but they let Benton make the reservations. 

"I'm fairly sure that's Cromer."

The Doctor is brought before Omega, whom he respects and reveres, and knows from legend. Omega's reason for bringing the Doctor to his domain is simple. Someone must remain there in order to maintain the universe of antimatter or he cannot leave so he wants the Doctor to take his place.

Omega/Doctor silent disco, sexual wrestling match?

Jo then comes up with their escape plan. The Doctors' combined wills are greater than that of Omega so they could overpower him. Then there is this mega weird silent, black lit, sexual disco wrestling match between Pertwee and the dark side of Omega's mind. It's p-retty strange. The Doctor loses and agrees to take Omega's place, until he learns quite shockingly that underneath Omega's protective clothing there is literally nothing left of him. He is only alive because he wills it so.

The day is saved in a rather odd way. The whole fabric of space time is saved by a recorder. The recorder was inside the forcefield generator on the TARDIS and wasn't processed for the anti-matter world. Omega knocks it out of the Doctor's hands, the recorder falls out of the generator and all the matter and anti-matter atoms combine and annihilate everything.

Everyone is returned to their proper times and place and the epilogue concludes with the Time Lords sending the Doctor a new dematerialisation circuit and restoring his knowledge of time travel which neatly brings to an end the three year story arc of his exile to earth.

This is all well and good, but I can't help but feel like nothing has really happened. The Doctor or even Doctors don't save the day, it's all a bit of a fluke. It's been great learning more about the Time Lords and their sordid beginnings, and getting to see Troughton and Hartnell again, but I can't help but feel in all this jubilation someone forgot to write an actual story. It's a great idea to bring all the Doctors together in a story, but if we go by later examples one can't help but wonder if this orgy of Doctors is somewhat of a poisoned chalice? However, whatever you may think of multi-doctor stories, it can't be denied that The Three Doctors is certainly a celebration.

I wonder if we'll see a multi-Doctor story for the 50th Anniversary and if it'll be any good if we do... Also don't forget to check out my 2 year Bloggiversary Giveaway! There are some great prizes up for grabs. 

For info on how to enter the comp click here.

Join me next time for the rather wonderful story, The Carnival of Monsters.

64: The Time Monster - Masterful But Hardly A Master-Piece

Written by: Robert Sloman.

Companions: The Doctor, Jo Grant, Brigadier, Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton.

Monsters/Villains: The Master, Kronos, Minotaur.

Brief Synopsis: The Master goes all the way to Atlantis to unleash and harness a powerful being known as Kronos.

Rating: 5/10.

Here we are at the end of Season 9. It's been a fantastic one, but what of the Season Finale? We're back in Atlantis, but it doesn't bare the slightest resemblance to how it appeared in The Underwater Menace just 5 years prior. Penned by Robert Sloman and Barry Letts, The Time Monster is not one of the most loved, or highly thought of stories; this is most likely due to it lacking a memorable design element. The "monster" of this piece spends most of the story waiting in the wings, the location and studio work for the Newton Institute are pretty good, but not particularly memorable, the odd camera work and poor design of Atlantis really pull down the production as a whole and the less said about the one-off, washing up bowl interior TARDIS redesign the better.

The Master's assistants Stuart and and Ruth.

However this story does have some wonderful touches, the most noticeable has to be the Master having assistants. The Doctor's "best enemy" often has allies or cronies, both willing or hypnotised but in this story it feels somehow different. When we first see him posing as Greek Professor Thascalos, the genius behind TOMTIT (Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time) he is working with Dr. Ruth Ingram, and Stuart Hyde; clear assistant archetypes. Surely someone of the Master's intellectual prowess wouldn't need assistance. He is changing. Maybe he thinks it's the Doctor's assistants are what give him the edge. And later the Master takes Krasis under his wing and even in to his TARDIS. In what would be Roger Delgado's penultimate story as the Master, he really excels as the maniacal renegade time lord.

Delgado at his best.

He has some fantastic moments including a reminder/in-joke about how he hasn't used hypnosis in a while, an impression of the Brig, some wonderful scenes of an amorous nature with guest star Ingrid Pitt, and of course being the third explanation/person to blame for the destruction of Atlantis.

Baby Benton.

I noticed something that was clearly homaged recently in with Matt Smith's Doctor in the episode The Lodger. The Doctor constructs a Time Flow Analogue, which is kind of like jamming a radio signal, claiming the Master and he, "used to make them at school to spoil each others time experiments."

The Doctor makes a Time Flow Analogue.

The Doctor makes a similar device in The Lodger.

The story plays out fairly consistently, the Brig and UNIT get frozen in time and Benton gets regressed into a baby. Everything is going well until, at the beginning of episode 5, the Doctor and Jo follow the Master and arrive in Atlantis. The first time we see Atlantis at the very beginning of this story is in an appropriately filmed bad dream of the Doctor. When we finally arrive there in episode 5 it seems as thought the director has forgotten we're not still in a nightmare, as the camera filter quality remains rose-tinted. The sets are equally lacking in budget, this is especially noticeable when the Atlantian hero Hippias, is thrown through a mirror clearly made of tin foil. Fans defend Doctor Who through many tribulations, but this one might be hard to explain away. 

Kronos.

We don't see much of the titular Time Monster itself, and when we do, you can see the stings in an entirely literal sense. The design is impressive but badly presented and sadly underused.

Ingrid Pitt as Atlantian Queen Galleia.

The story boasts a couple of impressive guest stars, Ingrid Pitt (Hammer Horror Starlet) as queen of Atlantis, Galleia. And the second but easier to miss is Dave Prowse who plays the minotaur, famed for another unrecognisable role, as the body of Darth Vader in the Star Wars films.

Dave Prowse as the Minotaur.

There is a wonderful monologue from Pertwee in a scene where the Doctor and Jo are locked up: "When I was a little boy, we used to live in a house that was perched halfway up the top of a mountain. Behind our house, there sat under a tree, an old man. A hermit, a monk. He'd lived under this tree for half his lifetime, so they said, and had learned the secret of life. So, when my black day came, I went and asked him to help me." This presumably alludes to something to do with what would come to be known as regeneration. The hermit is almost certainly a character that we will meet in person in Pertwee's final story, Planet of the Spiders.

The denouement of the story is impressive, but the stakes aren't entirely clear. The Master finally manages to release Kronos thus destroying Atlantis, and escapes with his and the Doctor's TARDISes and Jo Grant. He seems to have finally won. He's bested the Doctor, with Kronos in his control the Master could dominate the universe and he holds all the cards. The Doctor threatens to Time-Ram the Master, which would destroy them both and stop Kronos. But the Doctor can't do it, he can't kill Jo.  In the Master's eyes the Doctor's compassion and pity are his weakness. It is Jo who takes the impetus and activates Time-Ram. This is a huge moment for the role of the companion. When the Doctor's values, which we cherish and respect so much, stop him from doing what he must it is Jo who steps up and saves the universe.

Jo saves the Universe.

Thankful for it's freedom, Kronos saves the Doctor and Jo and at the Doctor's behest the Master as well. The Doctor and Jo are returned but the Master escapes, his ex-assistants Ruth and Stuart manage to free the Brig and UNIT and return Benton to his correct age. After all this impressive high octane stuff, the story fizzles out at the end with a naked Sergeant Benton asking "Can anyone tell me what exactly is going on?"

A Nude Benton.

My answer: "No, I really can't." There are some wonderful moments in this story, some parts I really love but it's let down on too many points to ignore. Roger Delgado rules as the Master, but the story isn't well produced, ultimately it just doesn't feel like a season finale.

But it is, which means we've reached the end of Season Nine. The season in which we saw the long awaited return of the Daleks. We took a trip to Peladon and met the Ice Warriors once more. We caught up with the Master twice, we discovered the Silurians' brothers: the Sea Devils, saw the oppressed Solonians freed from the tyranny of the evil Marshal and colonial Earth and finally, returned to Atlantis. My favourite story in this season has to be The Curse of Peladon. I don't really have a least favourite, if I had to pick one it would be this story, The Time Monster. Out of a possible 50 points I scored Season Nine 37/50. Giving it an average score of 74/100 putting Season Nine in second place overall thus far, after Season 7. It was a really strong season with great monsters, ambitious plots, and thought provoking themes. It didn't quite have the consistency of Season 7 but it certainly earns it's number 2 slot so far.

Join me next time for a new season, an anniversary special, and the return of some familiar faces in The Three Doctors.