50 Years of Doctor Who: 324 The Time Monster Episode One

EPISODE: The Time Monster: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 324
STORY NUMBER: 064
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 20 May 1972
WRITER: Robert Sloman
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.6 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Myths & Legends: The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of the Nimon
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"Come, Kronos, come!"

The Doctor dreams of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, a trident shaped crystal, and the Master's voice. Meanwhile The Master, disguised as the Greek Professor Thascalos has a Trident shaped crystal which he's using in his equipment. He's assisted by Dr. Ruth Ingram and research student Stuart Hyde at the Newton Institute. Jo makes a chance remark that connects recent eruptions with Atlantis which catches the Doctor's interest and causes the Doctor to warn the Brigadier that he thinks the Master is at large. The Brigadier is off to see a demonstration of the TOMTIT machine, for matter transmission at the Newton Institute. The Master brings the head of the grants committee under his control. The Doctor is working on a time sensor to detect disturbances in the time field to find the Master when he uses his Tardis. When the TOMTIT machine is test activated it sets the Doctor's device off. The Master is angry when he discovers his associates have run a test. The test run is witnessed by an astonished window cleaner who falls from his ladder and slowly drifts towards the floor. The Doctor & Jo take Bessie to try to find the source of the transmissions. They discover the transmissions are coming from the Newton institute and race there. The Brigadier, and observers arrive for the TOMTIT demonstration. The Master disguises himself in a radiation suit and conducts the experiment in disguise so the Brigadier does not recognise him. The Crystal glows as power is put through it and the power runs away. The Master cries out "Come Kronos,Come!"

The dream sequence that opens this episode is a bit peculiar, it feels rather out of place for a Doctor Who episode

The first thing I thought seeing it was "The Inferno volcano footage is back!" and indeed it is!

Like his last appearance in The Sea Devils, and indeed the one before that in The Dæmons, the Master is already established in situ and is reaching the climax of his plans.

We're back on Earth this story and, after three tales wandering the universe and the Solent we're reunited with the supporting cats of The Brigadier and UNIT, with the Doctor & Jo starting in the familiar surroundings of the UNIT Headquarters and Lab:

With the Master working some distance away, The Doctor & Jo spend a large amount of time in Bessie racing to the source of the trouble...... again just like the first episode of The Dæmons!

And the climax of this episode resembles the Master summoning Azal in the church crypt. Compare this story's

MASTER: Come, Kronos, come!

with the end of The Dæmons episode 1:

MASTER: I conjure thee and charge thee Azal. Arise, arise at my command, Azal! Azal!

More Dæmons similarities to come later but they shouldn't be a surprise really as this story is credited to Robert Sloman who co-wrote The Dæmons and was written as a replacement for the story intended to close the season! The six-part serial envisaged as the finale for Season Nine was planned to be the first Dalek story in half a decade. Producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks turned to Sloman, who had co-written the previous season's finale The Dæmons with Letts, to write the tale and he was commissioned on May 25th 1971 for a storyline called “The Daleks In London”. However, Letts and Dicks soon became concerned that the season did not have a lead-off hook to entice viewers, in the manner of the introduction of the Master the previous year or the debut of Jon Pertwee's Doctor the year before. It was therefore decided to abandon “The Daleks In London” in favour of inserting The Daleks into Louis Marks' "The Ghost Hunters" which then become Day of the Daleks. Sloman was then left to devise a new storyline for the season's last story.

The other major influence here is Greek and if anything the hand is slightly overplayed here with the Master taking a Greek identity, eruptions in Greek Islands, a Chekov's Gun reference to the Minotaur Myth, the Trident shaped crystal (the Greek god Poseidon is frequently pictured with a trident) and the name Kronos dropped in without warning or reference at the end of the episode is an alternate spelling for Cronus, one of the Greek Titans (and Father of Poseidon).

Liz is watching this story with me and immediately lowers the tone by pointing out that the Doctor's time monitoring device is shaped like a willy. Deary me.

The entrance to the lab contains a panel from the ICT 1300, as previously seen in Terror of the Autons, Mind of Evil and The Sea Devils.

Meanwhile the shape of the bell tower seen here reminds us both of the main building in Clyst Heath in Exeter where Liz's sister Cathy used to live.

Although this story is set in Cambridge, the location work was performed on the borders of Hampshire & Berkshire. The series would eventually get to film in Cambridge in 1979 but sadly what they shot never made it to the screen......

Swallowfield Park in Berkshire provides the location for the Newton institute, a fitting name for a Cambridge based science institute as Sir Isaac Newton studied at Trinity College, Cambridge.