This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2009) |
064 –The Time Monster | |||
---|---|---|---|
Doctor Who serial | |||
Cast | |||
Others
| |||
Production | |||
Directed by | Paul Bernard | ||
Written by | Robert Sloman, Barry Letts (uncredited) | ||
Script editor | Terrance Dicks | ||
Produced by | Barry Letts | ||
Executive producer(s) | None | ||
Music by | Dudley Simpson | ||
Production code | OOO | ||
Series | Season 9 | ||
Running time | 6 episodes, 25 minutes each | ||
First broadcast | 20 May 1972 | ||
Last broadcast | 24 June 1972 | ||
Chronology | |||
| |||
The Time Monster is the fifth and final serial of the ninth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who , which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 20 May to 24 June 1972.
The serial is set in a village near Cambridge as well as the mythical city of Atlantis. In the serial, the alien time traveller the Master (Roger Delgado) seeks the power of Kronos (Marc Boyle and Ingrid Bower), a being that exists outside of time and space, so that he can control the universe.
The Master, posing as a professor, gains access to a physical science research unit in the village of Wootton, near Cambridge. He conducts time experiments focused around transmitting matter by breaking it down into light waves. He is particularly interested in examining a trident-shaped crystal in his possession, using it to attract a being he addresses as Kronos.
The Third Doctor and Jo Grant visit the institute, following his hunch (via a dream he had about a crystal) that the Master is back on Earth with his TARDIS. The experiments disrupt the normal flow of time and in one instance, Hyde, a researcher, is caught in the field of the experiment, and ages to more than eighty years. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has the project evacuated and begins a hunt for the Master. The Doctor explains that Kronos is a "chronovore", a creature from outside time that feeds on it, attracted from the vortex to ancient Atlantis using a crystal trident larger than one seen to have been used by the Master. The Doctor suspects capturing the chronovore is the Master’s purpose, and that this represents a danger to the entire universe.
Meanwhile, the Atlantean High Priest of Poseidon, Krasis, is transported through interstitial time by the Master and brought to an office at the institute. The Master seizes the Seal of Kronos from the priest and uses it to conjure Kronos, a white, bird-like figure, who devours the Institute's Director, Dr Percival. Kronos is briefly contained by the Master, but breaks free, Krasis surmising the Master only has the smaller fragment of the original crystal.
The Doctor and his allies, alerted by the Master's actions, build a time flow analogue to interrupt the experiments. The Time Lords then duel using time as a weapon, leading to a series of bizarre temporal effects. When they pit their TARDISes against one another, the Doctor is ejected into the vortex, but survives thanks to Jo and his TARDIS.
In ancient Atlantis, King Dalios is troubled by the disappearance of Krasis and the threat to the Kronos crystal, which is guarded by the Minotaur at the heart of a maze. The Master has travelled to Atlantis in search of the crystal and soon inveigles himself at court, wooing Queen Galleia. When the Doctor and Jo arrive, the unnaturally long-lived King confides that Atlantis turned from Kronos and sought to end the link by which the chronovore could be controlled, by destroying the crystal, but they could only splinter it. The Doctor then faces the Minotaur to rescue Jo, duped into the maze by Krasis, and the creature is destroyed. The crystal is now produced from the maze – but the Master’s schemes have borne fruit and he has usurped the throne. Jo and the Doctor are soon detained and witness Dalios' death after being smitten with a trident.
Krasis uses the crystal to summon Kronos to Atlantis once more. The enraged chronovore begins to destroy Atlantis while the Master flees in his TARDIS, with Jo Grant in tow. The Doctor heads off in his own TARDIS in pursuit while Kronos destroys the city and people of Atlantis. In the vortex, the Doctor threatens the mutually assured destruction of both TARDISes by a "time ram" in which both vehicles would occupy the same space/time co-ordinates, The Master calls his bluff, on behalf of Jo is unable to until she carries the threat out. In a resulting temporal void, a thankful Kronos is set free, saving the Doctor and Jo and returning them to their TARDIS. On the Doctor’s insistence, the Master is spared from torment by Kronos, but he flees in his own TARDIS before he can be apprehended. The Doctor and Jo return to the institute, where normality is returning, through a final use of the Master's machine, which now overloads, and the time experiments end.
According to the comprehensive production documentation released in 2023 as part of the 'Season 9 Blu Ray Collection', when Sloman was commissioned to write the final six part story for the season in May 1971, it was titled "The Daleks in London". By December 1971, the idea had been abandoned (the Dalek story for the season instead was the premiere with Day of the Daleks ) and Sloman's contract was amended to write "The Time Monster". [1]
This story sees a redesign of the TARDIS interior. [2] Producer Barry Letts was unhappy with the redesign. The set was damaged shortly after recording on this particular serial wrapped and, as a result, was discarded.
Although the PAL mastertapes had been wiped, NTSC copies were returned to the BBC from TVOntario in Canada in 1983. In 1987, a low band 625-line monochrome tape of Episode Six was discovered at the BBC. It was recoloured by combining the black-and-white picture with the 525-line colour signal of the episode, creating a superior copy to the NTSC one.
George Cormack also played K'anpo in Planet of the Spiders (1974). [3] Ingrid Pitt later played Solow in Warriors of the Deep (1984). [2] Ian Collier returned to play Omega in Arc of Infinity (1983) and appeared in the audio play Excelis Decays . Susan Penhaligon played Shayla in the audio play Primeval and Neville Barber played Howard Baker in K9 and Company . David Prowse would later achieve worldwide fame as Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy beginning in 1977.
Episode | Title | Run time | Original air date | UK viewers (millions) [4] | Archive [5] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Episode One" | 25:04 | 20 May 1972 | 7.6 | RSC converted (NTSC-to-PAL) |
2 | "Episode Two" | 25:05 | 27 May 1972 | 7.4 | RSC converted (NTSC-to-PAL) |
3 | "Episode Three" | 23:59 | 3 June 1972 | 8.1 | RSC converted (NTSC-to-PAL) |
4 | "Episode Four" | 23:55 | 10 June 1972 | 7.6 | RSC converted (NTSC-to-PAL) |
5 | "Episode Five" | 24:29 | 17 June 1972 | 6.0 | RSC converted (NTSC-to-PAL) |
6 | "Episode Six" | 24:55 | 24 June 1972 | 7.6 | PAL 2" restored colour videotape |
Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping gave the serial an unfavourable review in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), describing watching it as being like "watching paint dry while being whipped with barbed wire". [6] In 2010, Mark Braxton of Radio Times felt that the serial teetered between "delightful" absurdity and "outright, galloping stupidity, and sadly it tips too often into the latter." While he praised the realisation of Atlantis and the Doctor and Jo, he wrote that many poor decisions were made in production and "any drama just dribbles away". [7] DVD Talk's Stuart Galbraith gave The Time Monster two out of five stars, finding problems in the plot structure and Kronos. [8] In 2010, SFX named the scene where the Doctor balances ordinary objects to counter TOMTIT as one of the silliest moments in Doctor Who's history. [9]
Author | Terrance Dicks |
---|---|
Cover artist | Andrew Skilleter |
Series | Doctor Who book: Target novelisations |
Release number | 102 |
Publisher | Target Books |
Publication date | 13 February 1986 |
ISBN | 0-491-03870-4 |
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published in hardback by Target Books in September 1985, and in paperback in February 1986. It was reprinted again as part of Target's Doctor Who Classics range back-to-back to Barry Letts' novelisation of The Dæmons and bound in a metallic cover.
This story was released with Colony in Space in a VHS tin box set, The Master, in 2001. As of 5 August 2008, this serial has been offered for sale on iTunes. The Time Monster was released on 29 March 2010 in a Region 2 DVD box set named "Myths and Legends" along with Underworld and The Horns of Nimon . It was released as a stand-alone disc in Region 1 on 6 July 2010. In March 2023, the story was released again in an upgraded format for Blu-ray, being included with the four other stories from Season 9 in the Doctor Who - The Collection Box Set. [10]
The Time Lords are a fictional ancient race of extraterrestrial people in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' main protagonist, the Doctor, is a member. Time Lords are so named for their command of time travel technology and their non-linear perception of time. Originally, they were described as a powerful and wise race from the planet Gallifrey, from which the Doctor was a renegade; details beyond this were very limited for the first decade of the series. They later became integral to many episodes and stories as their role in the universe developed. For the first eight years after the series resumed in 2005, the Time Lords were said to have been destroyed during the Last Great Time War at some point in the show's continuity between the television movie in 1996 and the show's revival. In 2013, the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" concerned this supposed destruction and their eventual survival.
The Master, or "Missy" in their female incarnation, is a recurring character and one of the main antagonists of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-off works. They are a renegade alien Time Lord and the childhood friend turned archenemy of the title character, the Doctor.
Planet of the Daleks is the fourth serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 7 April to 12 May 1973. It was the first Dalek story to be written by their creator Terry Nation since 1965’s The Daleks' Master Plan.
Genesis of the Daleks is the fourth serial of the twelfth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by Terry Nation and directed by David Maloney, and originally broadcast in six weekly parts from 8 March to 12 April 1975 on BBC1.
The Evil of the Daleks is the mostly-missing ninth and final serial of the fourth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in seven weekly parts from 20 May to 1 July 1967.
Terror of the Autons is the first serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 2 to 23 January 1971.
Day of the Daleks is the first serial of the ninth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 1 to 22 January 1972. It was the first of four Third Doctor serials to feature the Daleks, which returned to the series for the first time since The Evil of the Daleks (1967).
The Dalek Invasion of Earth is the second serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Terry Nation and directed by Richard Martin, the serial was broadcast on BBC1 in six weekly parts from 21 November to 26 December 1964. In the serial, the First Doctor, his granddaughter Susan Foreman, and teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright discover that the Earth in the 22nd century has been occupied by Daleks. They work with a human resistance group to stop the Daleks from mining out the Earth's core as part of their plan to pilot the planet through space.
The Curse of Peladon is the second serial of the ninth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 29 January to 19 February 1972.
The Third Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by actor Jon Pertwee. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who travels in time and space in the TARDIS, frequently with companions. At the end of life, the Doctor regenerates. Consequently, both the physical appearance and personality of the Doctor changes. Preceded in regeneration by the Second Doctor, he is followed by the Fourth Doctor.
Vengeance on Varos is the second serial of the 22nd season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 19 and 26 January 1985.
Frontier in Space is the third serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The serial was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 24 February to 31 March 1973. It was the last serial to feature Roger Delgado in the role of the Master.
The Claws of Axos is the third serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 13 March to 3 April 1971.
The Invisible Enemy is the second serial of the 15th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 1 to 22 October 1977. The serial introduced the robot dog K9, voiced by John Leeson. In the serial, an intelligent virus intends to spread across the universe after finding a suitable spawning location on the moon Titan.
The Chase is the eighth serial of the second season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by Terry Nation and directed by Richard Martin, the serial was broadcast on BBC in six weekly parts from 22 May to 26 June 1965. Set in multiple time periods on several different planets, including Aridius, Earth, and Mechanus, the serial features the Dalek race travelling through time while pursuing the TARDIS and its occupants—the First Doctor and his companions Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, and Vicki —to kill them and seize the TARDIS for themselves. The Doctor and companions encounter several characters, including monsters Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, human astronaut Steven Taylor, and an android replica of the Doctor.
Colony in Space is the fourth serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 10 April to 15 May 1971.
The Sea Devils is the third serial of the ninth season of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 26 February to 1 April 1972. It was written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Michael E. Briant. The serial is notable as the first appearance of the Sea Devils and features extensive location filming in cooperation with the Royal Navy, as well as an experimental electronic score by Malcolm Clarke.
The twelfth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 28 December 1974 with Tom Baker's first serial Robot, and ended with Revenge of the Cybermen on 10 May 1975.
The tenth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 30 December 1972 with the tenth anniversary special The Three Doctors, and ended with Katy Manning's final serial The Green Death. This is the Third Doctor's fourth series, as well as fourth for producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks.
The ninth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 1 January 1972 with Day of the Daleks, and ended with The Time Monster. This is the third series of the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, as well as the third to be produced by Barry Letts and script edited by Terrance Dicks.