The Time Monster is the fifth and final story of season nine of Doctor Who, and was first broadcast in 1972. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates, John Levene as Sergeant Benton, and Roger Delgado as the Master, which makes it the last story to feature the entire 'UNIT Family.'
It is also the fifth of the Pertwee Six-Parters, and the third six-parter in a row. I previously watched this story as part of Doctor Who Night 2018, but the experience of watching a Doctor Who story in one go is quite different from watching it episodically (as it would originally have been broadcast), and this is especially true of stories longer than four parts, which end up being longer than most films.
The Time Monster starts with the Doctor's dreaming about the Master. Not that kind of dream, naughty reader! It is a nightmare with the Master looming over the Doctor, in a reversal of the Master's vision of the Doctor in The Mind of Evil. The dream also contains stock footage of a volcano erupting, as previously seen at the start of episodes of Inferno.
When he wakes up, the Doctor asks Jo lots of questions, but doesn't actually tell her about the dream so Jo says
"Look, I know I'm exceedingly dim, but would you mind explaining?"
Self-awareness! It would seem Jo is on the path to enlightenment.
The Master is in disguise as Professor Thascales, which involves wearing a labcoat and putting on a slight accent (when he remembers to). He has the crystal from the Doctor's dream in his laboratory, as well as two assistants of his own - Dr Ruth Ingram and Stuart Hyde (both, I have to assume, named after characters in The Strange Case of Dr Ingram and Mr Hyde, mew). This following on from a scene set in the Doctor's UNIT lab makes it clear the Master is the dark reflection of the Doctor. You can't trust those cats in the mirror, they always seem to know which way you're going to pounce. They are very handsome though, purr.
Back in the Doctor's lab he is on the verge of dismissing his dream until Jo mentions "Atlantis." Mike Yates is there, and it is Jo's turn to give exposition to him:
"Atlantis? I thought that was supposed to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?""You're a bit out of date. Apparently it was part of the Minoan civilisation. Oh, you know, the minotaur and all that Cretan jazz."
So if Jo is "exceedingly dim" what exactly does that make Mike Yates? Although I must (grudgingly) admit he's made an understandable mistaik in connecting the words "Atlantic" and "Atlantis." It's hardly as if there is no similarity between them whatsoever, mew.
The Brigadier's face when the Doctor tells him he saw the Master "in a dream" is priceless.
"A dream? Really, Doctor, you'll be consulting the entrails of a sheep next."
The Brigadier and Benton are about to visit the Newton Institute to see a demonstration of TOMTIT "Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time."
"Apparently it can break down solid objects into light-waves or whatever, and transmit them from one place to another."
says the Brigadier, since it is now his turn to be giving exposition. I'm sure there's another word for that, isn't there Vila?
The Master meets with the manny in charge of the Newton Institute, Dr Percival. He has been clever enough to discover the Master is an impostor, but is not clever enough to not get hypno-eyesed by the Master into obeying him, especially when backed up by the Master's familiar theme music.
The Doctor and Jo have a komedy moment where Jo correctly deduces what the Doctor's latest invention does just from the name:
"It, er... detects disturbances in a time field.""Well done, Jo, you're learning."
This little scene succeeds by being not only charming but also showing us Jo's character growth - not so "exceedingly dim" after all.
Ruth and Stuart decide to test TOMTIT while the Master is away, and the Doctor's invention immediately detects it. The Master is also able to detect the test because - in accordance with narrative laws regarding experimental time machines - of the effect it has on nearby clocks.
A window cleaner is so surprised by what he sees (given this was the 1970s, he must have been awfully disappointed it was only a scientific experiment) that he falls off his ladder in slow motion.
When the Master learns that the Brigadier and Benton are coming to see TOMTIT's demonstration, he sends Ruth to meet them in his place, so he obviously wasn't expecting them to be on to him so soon. The Brigadier and Benton are distracted by finding the window cleaner.
That looks a bit rude, doesn't it? The Doctor and Jo are driving around in Bessie trying to use the time sensor to get "a bearing" on what they think is the Master's TARDIS until they realise it is centred on the Newton Institute "where the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton are."
The explanation of TOMTIT is worth quoting in full because it contains several great lines, starting with the Brigadier's:
Brigadier: "That's a fearsome looking load of electronic nonsense you've got there, Dr Ingram. How does it all work? In words of one syllable?"Ruth: "I'll do my best. Well, gentlemen, to begin with: time isn't smooth. It's made up of little bits."Stuart: "A series of minute present moments."
(That's 'mine-yoot' not 'min-ut' that Stuart says there. We all know that time is made up of minutes.)
Ruth: "That's it. Temporal atoms, so to speak. So, if one could push something through the interstices between them, it would be outside our space-time continuum altogether."Brigadier: "Where would it be then?"Ruth: "Well, nowhere at all, in ordinary terms."Brigadier: "You've lost me, Dr Ingram."Dr Cook, a pompous civil servant: "And me. I've never heard such a farrago of unscientific rubbish in all my life. It's an impossible situation."Stuart: "But we've done it. We shoved that vase through and brought it back, in there."Brigadier: "But shoved it through where, for goodness sake?"Benton: "Sort of through the crack between 'now' and 'now' sir."Stuart: "Right, you've got it."
The Master then arrives in a proper disguise so that he isn't recognised by the Brigadier and Benton straight away.
While this is going on the Doctor and Jo are still on their way, despite the Doctor's cheatily speeding up the film to make Bessie go even faster.
The Master and his assistants start the demonstration, which involves a lot of shouting technobabble at each other and counting up, which is normally a lot less dramatic than something counting down so after a while Stuart starts counting down from 10 to 1. But then he says
"I'm getting too much power. I can't hold it. Switch off!"
Too much Power? Oh noes! No wonder Stuart wants them to switch the TV off. But the Master wants even more power, and shouts
"Come, Kronos, come!"
Cliffhanger!
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