327 The Time Monster Episode Four

EPISODE: The Time Monster: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 327
STORY NUMBER: 064
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 June 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

"Oh come, Doctor, must we play games? I take it you have something to say to me before I destroy you?"

Yates & his men are injured by an explosion: a local farmer recalls a doodlebug exploding on the same spot in 1944. The Tardis is dragged out the mud by a tractor. The Doctor locks his Tardis onto the Master and dematerialises. The Doctor materialises round the Master's Tardis by accident, but also inside it. The Master uses the crystal to freeze the approaching Unit forces in time. Benton, Stuart & Ruth break into the lab holding the Master at gunpoint before he escapes fleeing into the Tardis and dematerialising. Discovering the frozen Unit troops they decide to turn the transmitter off but it doesn't unfreeze the troops. Trying to unfreeze the troops Stuart & Ruth accidentally regresses Benton to babyhood. The Doctor leaves his Tardis to talk to the Master who summons Kronos which consumes him taking him into the time vortex into which the Master casts the Doctor's Tardis containing Jo Grant.....

Deary Lord I'm struggling with this story. This episode in particular was dire. Lots of standing round talking when we could have just cut to the chase and gone straight to Atlantis. I know lots of people love the exchanges between the Master & the Doctor but I just found it juvenile and a waste of time as first the Master turns his speaker off, then the Doctor broadcasts his words and finally the Master does something using the crystal to scramble them!

And as for this exchange between Jo and The Doctor....

DOCTOR: If the thraskin puts his fingers in his ears, it is polite to shout. That's an old Venusian proverb.
JO: What's a thraskin?
DOCTOR: Thraskin? Oh, it's an archaic word, seldom used since the twenty fifth dynasty, the modern equivalent is plinge.
JO: What does plinge mean?
DOCTOR: Oh, for heaven's sake, Jo, I've just told you. It means thraskin.
JO: Oh, of course.

Pointless. Just wasting time.

Still it gives us a good look at the new Tardis set in both it's incarnations doubling as the Doctor & Master's Tardis.

They're shot using different doors at different ends of the set and with different Time Rotors in place: The Master's Tardis' Time Rotor looks uncannily like a chocolate fountain!

It's been described as the "Washing up bowl" Tardis set due to the three dimensional shape of the roundels and you can see why. One of the roundels holds the Tardis scanner screen, done using CSO, which features heavily in this episode. Unfortunately when the Doctor enters the Tardis you can see the brief woodland set, built outside for background, through the walls!

To me this set looks like the original Tardis set with the roundels taken out and replaced by the washing up bowls: I can see the panels on the outer edge of the doors added for the Master's Tardis in Colony in Space. This is the only appearance of this version of the Tardis set: it was damaged in storage and reportedly not used again. My suspicion is the roundels were replaced again and this is the set we see from The Three Doctors onwards. In particular the Master's Tardis doors resemble internal doors seen in Pyramids of Mars and the panels on the outside of the Doctor's Tardis doors persist for many years.

The "materialising a Tardis inside a Tardis" theme will be returned to many years later in Logopolis!

Things Philip learnt from this Doctor Who episode (albeit many years ago): What a Coccyx is:

JO: What's happening, Doctor?
DOCTOR: We're on our way, Jo. The Master's taken off for Atlantis.
JO: She's never behaved like this before.
DOCTOR: It's because the Tardis is operating out of phase, that's why.
DOCTOR: That's calmed her down a bit. She's very temperamental when she's roused, isn't she.
JO: You know, I never know whether you're joking or not, I, Ow. Oh, I think I've bruised my tailbone.
DOCTOR: Sorry about your coccyx, Jo, but these little things are sent to try us.
JO: My what?
DOCTOR: Coccyx. Your tailbone.
MASTER: I'm sorry about your coccyx too, Miss Grant. How very sociable of you both to drop in.

George Lee, who appears in this episode as a Farmworker, was in the opening third Doctor story the Spearhead from Space as Corporal Forbes, the soldier who sends the poacher on his way and is in charge of the party that shoot the Doctor. He can be seen in Blake's 7: Traitor as Igin as well as appearing in two Fawlty Towers episodes: The Builders as the Delivery Man and Communication Problems as Mr. Kerr.

Stuntman Marc Boyle plays Kronos. He'd been a UNIT Motorcyclist & a Policeman in The Ambassadors of Death, a Stuntmen playing UNIT Soldiers/Auton Daffodil Men/Technicians in Terror of the Autons, a Prisoner/Motor Cyclist/UNIT Soldier in Mind of Evil and a Castle Guard/Sailor/Sea Devil in The Sea Devils. He returns as one of Irongron’s Men in The Time Warrior, which he also helps Fight Arrange, and as an Exillon in Death to the Daleks. He appears in Superman II as a C.R.S. Man, The Professionals as Donatti in Kickback and The Living Daylights as a Blayden Grounds MI6 Man. He did stuntwork on Space: 1999 Space Brain, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi, The Italian Job, the James Bond films You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, Never Say Never Again & Licence to Kill, Superman & Superman III, An American Werewolf in London and Alien³

This episode is actually a significant milestone for the cast: It's the last episode with the entire "UNIT family" in. Captain Mike Yates, played by Richard Franklin, is absent from the rest of this story, his character being hospitalised following the doodlebug attack!

In fact it's not a good episode for the UNIT team all round as well as Yates' ending up in hospital, The Brigadier gets frozen in time and Benton is regressed to a baby!

While Roger Delgado's Master returns for one more appearance after this in Frontier in Space, UNIT do not feature in that story. In fact the last time they were all in the studio together was for recording of episodes 1 & 2, Franklin not being required for other studio blocks and only appearing on location during episodes 3 & 4.

Two day after this episode was broadcast High Mountain, the second episode of Doomwatch Season Three, was shown on BBC1.