Jason King: The Stones of Venice

Jason King was the spinoff from Department S that ran from 1971-72, keeping only Peter "Klytus (I'm bored)" Wyngarde's flamboyant Jason King as the main character. The telefantasy TV detective genre was well-established by the early '70s, so Jason King attempted to stand out from the crowd by playing around with and subverting all the by now familiar formulas. This was most obviously accomplished by having the character of Jason King, a writer of James Bondesque spy novels, continually comment on the events of the stories he himself was taking part in as though he himself had written them.

While other episodes of the series would take this even further (most obviously Wanna Buy A Television Series? in which the main plot takes place within a framing device of Jason King trying to sell the idea of a TV series to a producer, and includes several instances of scenes being shown twice and changed when the producer insists to Jason they be made more exciting), one of the most enjoyable instances of this playing with the format is found in The Stones of Venice.

This episode is set, as you might guess from the title, in Venice, so it includes a load of stock footage to try and convince us it is really taking place there (and not in a TV studio somewhere in the UK), plus one scene of a Wyngarde lookalike in some dark glasses who is actually on location in a place that could even be taken for St Mark's Square.

It begins in media res, showing us the end of the story before the beginning when we have no context to know what is going on. That in itself is not a major subversion of the format (though it isn't exactly common either), but this is only the start. The police then arrive to arrest Jason King, and the police captain is played by...

Roger Delgado!

This would have originally been broadcast on ITV in March 1972, around the same time as Delgado was also starring in The Sea Devils on BBC1. No stranger to playing telefantasy rentabaddys, here his role is a bit different - although Delgado's police captain arrests Jason King and tries to interrogate him, this becomes a framing device whereby King tells the episode's story to him in the form of extended flashbacks. This is also an excuse for much comedy where the captain is in the dark about events just as much as the audience is, putting him in the position of audience surrogate, and he reacts with increasingly exaggerated incredulity to the implausible occurrences that King unfolds.

The plot is therefore given an excuse to be even more outlandish than is typical even for this series, which frequently sent up the common tropes of telefantasy detective stories. Here it includes a sidekick for Jason King called "Toby" who is a champagne-drinking dog; identical twins who are both played by the same actress (including a poor quality split-screen effect for the one scene where they appear together), one of whom pervs on Jason King when he is changing his clothes (a complete reversal of the usual situation when Jason King is involved); and a a computer that can be trained to write novels in the style of Jason King by feeding in all his 'real' (that is, real within the confines of the TV show) novels, thus anticipating modern computer 'machine learning' (a.k.a. 'Artificial Intelligence') by about 50 years.

The combination of all these different elements makes for a completely ludicrous hour of television, but it is a lot of fun and Delgado is a great comic foil for Wyngarde, once again demonstrating what a versatile and underrated actor he really was.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Frontier in Space Episode Six

Despite the hypno-noise making the Master appear as every scary monster from the last two seasons that the production team could lay their paws on (though, for some reason, no jelly creatures were used), Jo resists it.

Jo: "It doesn't work on me any more!"

The Master: "Congratulations, my dear. I seem to have failed again."

Jo: "Yes, you do, don't you? Never mind, you can't win 'em all."

This completes Jo's character arc from when she was hypno-eyesed by the Master at their first meeting. Then she was but a pawn in the game between two Time Lords, now she stands up to the Master as, if not an equal, certainly as an experienced time-traveler. The myth that Companions don't undergo character development in Doctor Who is certainly not true of Jo Grant.

The Doctor is on the earth spaceship with the Prince and General Williams when they get attacked by a Draconian spaceship. General Williams shouts "Dragons!" even though the Prince is right there beside him.

They escape the attack, but need to make repairs to the ship. The Doctor volunteers, leading to this dialogue exchange:

General Williams: "No doubt you're a qualified space engineer too, Doctor?"

Doctor: "Naturally."

Here we see Malcolm Hulke blending his writing style with that of Terry Nation, so the next episode is not too much of a jarring change of gears. This scene is blatantly padding, but is kept exciting by the Doctor having to make the repair and then get back inside the spaceship before the pursuing Draconian ship catches up with them.

Jo escapes from her cell and steals the Master's hypno-noise box. She sends a message to the Doctor using the Master's space telephone. But this is exactly what the Master wanted in order to set his trap for the Doctor, so when Jo has done that he comes in and captures her again. The spaceship lands and the Master sends out Ogrons to capture the Doctor.

The planet is a classic quarry location. The Ogrons ambush the Doctor and the landing party, but they are scared off when a strange and terrifying creature appears at the top of the ridge.

The Master is on his space telephone, finishing his conversation in such a way that we don't find out who he was talking to, or even what they sound like. How curious...

Another spaceship lands, and is spotted by the Doctor's party. They continue trekking towards the Master's base, but the Doctor is uneasy and says

"I've got a feeling... Some sort of premonition."

This, in combination with the mystery of who the Master was talking to in the previous scene, helps to build up the suspense. The Master intercepts the Doctor's party and stands atop the ridge to talk to them:

The Master: "Hello, Doctor! So here you are at last, eh?"

General Williams: "Surrender or you'll be shot down!"

Doctor: "No, he's unarmed."

The Master: "Unarmed maybe, but not unaccompanied. I've brought some old friends along to meet you."

The Daleks are here! It's easy to forget when you are familiar with this story, or this season, but this is an amazing twist, especially since we are well into the final episode by now.

General Williams orders his mannys to fire, but the Daleks fire first and exterminate all the extra mannys. The named characters get captured and put in the same cell as Jo. Jo still has the Master's hypno-noise box, which she gives to the Doctor to use. He appears to the Ogron guard as a Dalek, which then lets them out of the cage.

The Daleks have returned to their ship, but they still telephone the Master to tell him

Dalek: "WE ARE ABOUT TO ENTER HYPERDRIVE AND RETURN TO OUR BASE. DO NOT FAIL THE DALEKS."

The Master: "Right, we'll see who rules the galaxy when this is over. 'Do not fail the Daleks' indeed. You stupid tin boxes."

I wonder if failing the Daleks is what they put him on trial for at the start of the TV Movie?

General Williams and the Prince separate from the Doctor and Jo, the former to escape and warn their peoples about the Daleks, the latter to get to the TARDIS.

The Master and several Ogrons ambush the Doctor and Jo, but the Doctor turns the hypno-noise on them. The Ogrons all run away, but the Master has time to shoot the Doctor before he also flees (although he doesn't run away so much as disappear in between shots - this scene is very confusingly edited considering that it is basically the climax of the story), and the Doctor collapses, wounded.

Luckily they are right outside the TARDIS, so Jo can help the Doctor stagger inside. He puts his paws on the console, and tells Jo

"Telepathic circuits... sending a message to the Time Lords."

We see a shot of the TARDIS spinning in space as the theme music starts up, because this story ends on a cliffhanger!

Imprisoned counter: Doctor 1, Jo 1

Final total: Doctor 10, Jo 10

What's so good about Frontier in Space?

It's possible to imagine a version of Frontier in Space without the Master in it. General Williams is an obvious alternative for being the main baddy, either causing the war to gain power for himself, or revenge against the Draconians for the last war, or else hypno-eyesed by the Daleks into W-wording for them (if this still needs to precede Planet of the Daleks). The Doctor could ally with Professor Dale and the Peace Party (who otherwise completely disappear from the plot once the Master appears) to escape from the moon, while Jo stays on Earth and perhaps makes contact with the Peace Party there. Maybe Willie Caine, who also hasn't been in it since episode two, could return and help them?

You would still have a witty script by Malcolm Hulke, one of the best writers of this era of Doctor Who, and an interesting sci-fi plot and setting. The Draconians would still be there, with all of their potential as one of the more three-dimensional alien races to appear in Doctor Who (I'm sure I'm not the only one to be surprised that they didn't appear again in the TV series after this story), and you would still have the twist at the end that, if nothing else, would make this story memorable.

But would it be as good without the Master in it? In a word: no. Because you would miss out on the charismatic central performance by Roger Delgado, and the dynamic he has with the Doctor and Jo, established through their earlier encounters and continued here, in such a way that every scene they share lifts the story up a level. The scene where the Master rescues the Doctor; the scene where the Master pretends to be on the side of "law and order" in front of the Draconian Emperor; the scene where Jo resists the Master's hypno-eyes; and so on. And it would hardly have the same resonance to see General Williams regretting that killing the Doctor using a long-range missile strike lacks a "personal touch." Every one of the eight stories in which Roger Delgado appeared as the Master was lifted in a similar way, and it is tragic that there would be no more such stories after this one.

Frontier in Space was clearly never intended to be the Master's final story, or I'm sure they would have given him a better send off. The story itself lacks a proper ending - deliberately so - because of the need for it to run straight into the following one, which meant that setting up the Dalek plot took precedence over resolving the Master's plot. This unintended consequence then ends up being, if only retroactively, Frontier in Space's biggest weakness - that the era of the first (and best) Master ends this way.

Pertwee Six-Parter Padding Analysis

The clearest manifestation of the padding in this story is in the number of times the Doctor and Jo are captured, imprisoned, and then escape, for which it is somewhat notorious. The final total of my count was that they were each imprisoned 10 times, and even though for many of those the Doctor and Jo were together (so it is not 20 separate instances), it is still easily more than once an episode on average.

Episode two is by far the worst for this, and must take most of the blame for the story's reputation. Things improve significantly after the Master appears (as things usually do) in part three, but I also think this is one of those stories that benefits from not being watched in one go, when the incidences of imprisonment early on in the plot could make it feel as though they are happening constantly and non-stop throughout.

If the Doctor and Jo getting captured and escaping repeatedly is the bad sort of padding, there is also the more enjoyable kind when writer Malcolm Hulke expands upon the setting of the future Earth and Draconia. He also takes the opportunity to put in callbacks to previous Doctor Who stories (most obviously in the scene in episode five when the Doctor and Jo are talking to cover their escape attempt), including all of his own stories except for Doctor Who and the Silurians. This is a little self-indulgent, but they are really only 'Easter Eggs' for the benefit of cats who have been paying attention, and wouldn't spoil the story in any way if you didn't catch what they were a reference to.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Frontier in Space Episode Five

There's almost no recap of the previous episode, which is surprising - especially in a six-parter, when they normally take every opportunity they can for some padding.

At the Draconian court the same situation as on Earth is playing out in parallel, with the Emperor as cautious as the Earth President was, and the Prince playing the part of General Williams in pushing for a war. This is a clever way of quickly establishing the similarities between them.

The Master, the Doctor and Jo enter, and the Doctor introduces himself to the Emperor. This is an iconic moment, worth quoting in full:

Doctor: "My life at your command, sire."

Prince: "How dare you address the Emperor in a manner reserved for a noble of Draconia!"

Doctor: "Ah, but I am a noble of Draconia. The honour was conferred on me by the 15th Emperor."

Prince: "The 15th Emperor reigned 500 years ago."

The Master: "Your Majesty, do not be taken in by this ridiculous story."

Emperor: "Be silent! There is a legend among our people of a man who assisted the 15th Emperor at a time of great trouble, when we were almost overwhelmed by a great plague from outer space. But you could not be that man. No Earthman lives so long."

Doctor: "Your Majesty, this man that you speak of, was he not known as the Doctor? And did he not come to this planet in a spaceship called the TARDIS?"

Emperor: "He did."

Jo obviously didn't know the Draconians before this story, and the Doctor couldn't use the TARDIS again until after she was already his Companion, so this suggests the Doctor must have visited Draconian before his regeneration and exile to Earth - it is lucky for him they don't have any pictures of that time, or he would find it even more difficult to convince them.

The Doctor goes on to tell the Draconians about the Master's plan (masterplan?), but when Jo tries to back him up she is told

"Silence! Females are not permitted to speak in the presence of the Emperor."

Now I know Malcolm Hulke wrote this story, but nobody told me that Ben Steed was the script editor for it.

All the Master can do is deny the Doctor's accusations. The Emperor seems to believe the Doctor, so the Master tries a different approach:

"I too welcome your wisdom, your Majesty. Nobody could be more devoted to the cause of peace than I. As a commissioner of Earth's interplanetary police, I have devoted my life to the cause of law and order. And law and order can only exist in a time of peace."

The Doctor follows this with the punchline:

"You feeling all right, old chap?"

Lol. Another spaceship lands claiming to be from Earth, but it makes the hypno-eyes noise from earlier. Ogrons run in and rescue the Master, but the Doctor knocks one out so that when the others have gone and the sound fades away, the Emperor sees it is really an Ogron and not a manny.

The Prince continues to act like General Williams when he threatens to use the mind probe on the captured Ogron. The Emperor sends the Doctor, Jo, and the Prince to go to Earth to show the Ogron to the President.

On board the ship, Jo talks to a Draconian guard about the Ogron prisoner:

"Hey, you know, you want to be very careful of him. He's not as stupid as he looks. I know, I know, women aren't allowed to speak. You know, I think it's about time that women's lib was brought to Draconia."

This is ironic because she is speaking to an extra who is not allowed to speak back to her.

The Master's (new) spaceship is following them, and the Master talks to an Ogron:

The Master: "I'd like to try and take the Doctor alive if possible. If not, I'll blast him out of space. Pity though."

Ogron: "You do not wish to kill him?"

The Master: "Of course I do! But I don't know... rocket fire at long range, it's... I don't know. Somehow it lacks that personal touch."

Lol. The Doctor, not realising it is the Master's ship, telephones the master to ask who they are. The Master puts on a komedy policemanny voice to answer him, because he is a master of disguise.

The Master fires missiles at them, and then sends the Ogrons to board them. They rescue the captured Ogron, and in exchange manage to capture Jo, but then the Master spots yet another spaceship approaching, this time "an Earth battlecruiser," so they withdraw and fly away, leaving the Doctor and the Prince behind to get arrested by the mannys on the Earth spaceship.

In a nice change from the way this story has operated so far, we don't see the Doctor and the Prince get imprisoned, it just cuts directly to them talking to the President and General Williams on Earth. Even without the Ogron as evidence, the President believes the Doctor enough to go along with his plan to "mount an expedition to the planet of the Ogrons."

Planet of the Ogrons? Isn't that the name of the next story?

General Williams has forgotten that he isn't meant to be the main baddy any more, and refuses to go along with the President. This leads him into having an argument with the Draconian Prince:

Prince: "How can we expect help from a man such as this? This is the man who deliberately caused war between our people!"

General Williams: "That is untrue!"

Prince: "20 years ago, you destroyed a Draconian ship that had come in a mission of peace."

General Williams: "A ship that was about to open fire on us when we were damaged and helpless."

Prince: "They came in peace as had been arranged."

General Williams: "Then why didn't they answer my signals?"

Prince: "Their communications equipment had been destroyed in a neutron storm. The same neutron storm that damaged your ship!"

President: "Is this true?"

Prince: "I have read the records of my father's court. It is the truth."

General Williams: "But why a battlecruiser? The agreement was that both ships were to be unarmed."

Prince: "Naturally we sent a cruiser. How else should a nobleman of Draconia travel? But its missile banks were empty. The ship was unarmed."

This is very similar to the events that would, years later, be used as the backstory for the war between mannys and Minbari in Babylon 5. If I were a suspicious cat, I might even say they were suspiciously similar.

This is enough to make General Williams realise how wrong he has been. He switches completely to siding with the Doctor and the Prince, and even insists on leading the expedition. Unusually for Doctor Who, the Doctor plays virtually no part in helping General Williams come to his realisation in this scene, merely being present as the Prince and the General figure it out between themselves.

The Master takes Jo to his base on the Ogron planet, where he also has the TARDIS. He says

"I'm going to set a trap for the Doctor and you are going to help me."

Then he tries to hypno-eyes her, just like he did back in Terror of the Autons, even bringing back his music to help him. Jo responds by reciting nursery rhymes, so the episode goes a bit Once Upon A Time for a moment, with the Master repeating "you will obey me" while Jo counters with "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."

The Master gives up and his music trails off to show he has been beaten and can no longer hypno-eyes Jo. So then he resorts to turning on his hypno-noise, to see if that will be more effective.

Cliffhanger!

Imprisoned counter: Jo 1

Running total: Doctor 9, Jo 9

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Frontier in Space Episode Four

The Doctor is rescued by the Master, who says

"I'd hate you to come to any harm, you know."

Lol. The prison's Governor is acting like more of a baddy than the Master, sentencing the Doctor and Professor Dale to a year in solitary confinement, which is a kind of prison for when you're already in prison.

The Master helps the Doctor again, by confronting the Governor and threatening him.

The Master: "I think that those two prisoners were telling the truth. I think that your trustee, Cross, was helping them."

Governor: "Why should he do that?"

The Master: "On your instructions."

Governor: "That is an outrageous suggestion..."

The Master: "Oh come, Governor. You rid yourself of a politically dangerous prisoner, and foster the legend that escape is impossible in one go. I must congratulate you."

Governor: "You're being very impertinent."

The Master: "Suppose I were to support the Doctor's demand for an official inquiry? Some very awkward questions could be asked."

Governor: "I have nothing to fear."

The Master: "Haven't you? Oh, come, Governor."

This is an example of why the Master is such a brilliant regular character, and so much more than just an antagonist for the Doctor.

Again he gets his way, and the Doctor is released into his custody just as Jo was. He tells the Doctor of all the crimes the Doctor is accused of committing on Sirius 4, to which the Doctor replies

"I seem to be quite the master criminal, don't I?"

Lol.

The Doctor is taken to the Master's spaceship, where there is a big cage that Jo is already inside, and the Doctor soon joins her. The Master says

"Well, Doctor, this is an interesting reversal. I remember your once visiting me when I was in prison."

The Doctor asks why he is still alive, and the Master makes a cryptic reference to his "employers" being "most interested" in him. Oh noes, that means the Master has had to get a job!

The spaceship takes off and flies over some stock footage of the moon's surface, then into space. The Doctor and Jo start trying to escape, even though the Master is watching them over the "closed-circuit television" (his ship has all the latest technology). To pass the time the Doctor starts making continuity references to previous stories, which bores the Master so he starts reading his book.

(I love how he still has his gloves on while reading, so cool. Purr.)

The Doctor gets out of the cell, and Jo has to keep talking so the Master doesn't notice what they're up to. She waffles on for quite a while, Katy Manning giving a good portrayal of somebody who is improvising:

"Lethbridge-Stewart, hey! As far as he's concerned I've been absent without leave all this time. I'm always telling you that you've no idea where you're going in that TARDIS of yours. I mean, you're supposed to be getting me back to Earth, right? And we keep landing up in one terrible situation after the other. I mean, when I get back, I'll probably be court-martialed, and then I'll be put in a cell again."

Not surprising that this is at the forefront of her mind, mew...

"That's if we do get back, and the way things are going, it doesn't look like it. But if we do get back, I'm telling you one thing, right here and now. I'm never going back in that TARDIS with you again. But if we do get back, I really do think you ought to be a bit more reasonable with the Master. I mean, he keeps offering you a share in the galaxy, or whatever's going on, and you keep refusing him and playing dirty tricks on him. But, you see, the trouble is with you is, well, you're so stiff-necked. I mean, you've got to realise that this time the Master has won. You might as well make the best out of a terrible situation. I mean, look at it now. Here we are..."

It is at this point the Master turns the volume down so he doesn't have to listen to any more. But we do.

"Goodness knows where he's taking us to. I mean, just a few of those Ogrons is bad enough. Can you imagine... I mean, imagine a whole planet of them? Still, I suppose it's all my own fault really. I mean, if I hadn't asked my uncle to pull those strings and get me that job, I'd never have landed up in this mess in the first place. You know, some people think that it's very romantic working in intelligence. Oh, but my goodness, I could tell you it's not. I mean, they think that I run around all day with terrific-looking James Bond types going to suave dinner parties. Oh, but I don't, you know. I mean, either I'm with the Brigadier and I'm doing the filing at HQ, which is very, very difficult, or else I'm running around making tea and being general dogsbody. I mean, the times come really when I'm..."

By this point the Doctor has managed to get a spacesuit on and open the airlock to get to the outside of the spaceship. 

The Master, who is blissfully unaware of the Doctor's escape attempt, makes "a sharp course correction" while the Doctor is still outside, and this causes the Doctor to let go and begin floating around in space. He gets back to the spaceship and climbs about on it for a bit until he gets back inside through a different space door.

The Master eventually notices the Doctor has escaped so he gets a gun and goes to where Jo is still in the cage. He makes her get into the airlock, and threatens the Doctor that he will "open the outer door and hurl her into space."

We see that there is another spaceship flying towards the Master's, but the Master and the Doctor are unaware of it because they are too busy confronting each other. The Doctor manages to sneak up on the Master and disarm him of his gun, and then they fight until the Master manages to get to the airlock buttons.

The airlock opens and some Draconians come in with Jo and, mistaiking the two Time Lords for mannys, capture them both to take them to their planet Draconia. The Master ends up in his own cage, along with the Doctor and Jo, but from there he sends a secret signal to another spaceship, where we see there is an Ogron. This new twist in the plot isn't really much of a cliffhanger, but it is where the episode ends, with a shot of the back of an Ogron's head.

Imprisoned counter: Doctor 2, Jo 2, Master 1

Running total: Doctor 9, Jo 8

Oh, and did you see what they did there? The Master is reading The War of the Worlds because he's trying to start a war between the worlds of Earth and Draconia, lol!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Frontier in Space Episode Three

The Doctor and Jo run away but get recaptured by the mannys and put straight back in their cell. Time for me to increment the imprisoned counter already.

General Williams gives an implicit warning to the President that she will be replaced if she does not declare war on the Draconians. This kind of thing makes him look a lot like like a baddy, and even more so when he decides to use the mind probe on the Doctor. 

But the Doctor outwits it by telling the General nothing but the truth so the mind probe doesn't do anything to him, and eventually it blows itself up, just as the Doctor predicted last episode.

The President decides to send the Doctor to the "Lunar Penal Colony" on the moon, which is full of members of the "Peace Party" who are all there "forever" (more evidence that the Earth Federation is an evil one like in Blakes 7 rather than a good one like in Star Trek). The Governor there tells the Doctor and other prisoners

"There's one rule here: you do as you're told. If you behave yourselves, you'll be reasonably treated, but you have no rights and there is no means of escape. You'll do well to remember that you're here for the rest of your lives."

Oh noes, that last bit means they won't let the Doctor out even if he regenerates.

General Williams and the President have found criminal records for the Doctor and Jo, these have clearly been faked up (using Space Photoshop?) by "the Commissioner from Sirius 4" because when he comes in the Commissioner is revealed to be...

The Master!

Well, this story just got much better. General Williams was being made to look so obviously like the secret baddy behind the Ogrons that it is a neat twist for it really to have been the Master all along. He wants the President and the General to let him take the Doctor and Jo to Sirius 4 with him, and he says, with irony that is evident only to the viewers at home,

"You may rest assured, General Williams, they will be perfectly safe with me."

The Doctor is already trying to escape from the moon, but hears that nobody has escaped before and those that tried ended up ded. These scenes would be more dramatic if the Doctor and his fellow prisoners weren't drinking from sippy cups at the same time.

Jo is still on Earth, and gets visited in her cell by the Master. His first line to her is

"Penny for them, Miss Grant?"

almost as though they were old friends.

Jo: "How did you know we were here in the first place?"

The Master: "Well, after they'd attacked the cargo ships, the Ogrons returned to their planet, taking their loot with them. Now imagine my surprise - and my delight - when I found that they'd brought me the Doctor's TARDIS."

Jo: "And why are you taking us with you?"

The Master: "Oh, need you ask? How could I leave two dear friends in such dire straits?"

In the end Jo agrees to go with the Master, almost as though they were old friends.

The Doctor tells some of his fellow prisoners what has happened to him, until one of them believes him. He is Professor Dale, who is planning an escape of his own - right now! Despite only having just met the Doctor, he already believes his story so much that he lets the Doctor in on the escape attempt.

The Professor and the Doctor go to where there are two spacesuits, but 

because there is no air for them. The manny who pretended to be helping the Professor, Cross (I mean his name is Cross, not that he is cross, although he may well be that too), then locks them in the room. The Doctor realises something is wrong before the Professor does and shouts at him

"They're depressurising. Don't you understand, man? They're pumping out the air!"

Cliffhanger!

Imprisoned counter: Doctor 2, Jo 1

Running total: Doctor 7, Jo 6

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Time Monster Episode Six

It's the minotaur! D'aww, he's super-cute!

Lakis warns the Doctor, so he runs straight into the labyrinth to help Jo. Hippias fights with the minotaur until he gets thrown through one of the many mirrors they have about the place for some reason - possibly to try and make the studio look bigger than it is. When the Doctor meets the minotaur he does a komedy bullfight with it until it charges through a wall and goes

The Doctor and Jo reach the crystal of Kronos, but then Krasis comes in with his guards, captures them and takes them to the Master, who has, since we last saw him, usurped the place of King Dalios with the help of Queen Galleia. But there is trouble in paradise for the Master, as after he has sent the Doctor and Jo to the dungeons, he has a row with Galleia over which of them is really in charge:

The Master: "You must learn to obey, my love, to do my will. To carry out my commands without question, like a soldier."

Galleia: "You mean like a servant girl? Then you must learn, my love, that Galleia is a queen."

In the dungeon, the Doctor tells Jo a story about "the daisiest daisy" he ever saw. It would appear at first to be revealing a previously unseen side to the character of the Doctor and his backstory from long before the series began, but when Jo laughs at the story he lets slip that he is only telling her a story he himself "heard" as though it had happened to him - so although it tells us something about the Doctor, it is what makes him the sort of character who would tell that tale to a despairing Jo to lift her spirits, not about what once happened to him in the long past.

The plot resumes when Dalios is thrown in the dungeon with them and is struck by a guard. We saw in part five that the mannys of Atlantis were near to the point of revolution, but the guard expresses such hatred for the recently deposed king that it must have been a powder keg awaiting a spark when the Master and the Doctor arrived. Dalios puts his trust in the Doctor and Jo before he dies in their arms.

The Doctor and Jo are taken to the court where they almost immediately reveal the fact of Dalios's death to Galleia, which turns her against the Master when he is forced to admit it. Before she can have the Master arrested, he gets Krasis to switch on TOMTIT (now upgraded with the larger crystal) to summon Kronos.

Kronos flies about wrecking both the set and the Master's plan. Jo tries to wrestle with the Master, but he takes her and the crystal into his TARDIS and dematerialises. Galleia frees the Doctor so that he can follow in his own TARDIS.

The Doctor threatens to deliberately time ram the Master's TARDIS, an eventuality that was cleverly foreshadowed back in part four when it was something the Doctor wanted to avoid doing by accident. But after only a moment's hesitation the Master dares him to do it, calling the Doctor's bluff and knowing that he might sacrifice himself but never Jo. So it is up to Jo to act, and she saves the day by forcing the time ram from the Master's TARDIS.

Jo and the Master are knocked out, and when Jo wakes up first she goes across a void consisting of some extremely fringing-heavy CSO (making this sequence even more trippy than it would have already been) to the Doctor's TARDIS. She thinks they are both ded and that this is the afterlife, but instead of a waiter played by Jack May it is the giant CSO face of Kronos they meet.

When Jo questions why her appearance now is different from the flappy birdy Kronos of earlier, she replies

"I can be all things. A destroyer. A healer. A creator. I'm beyond good and evil as you know it."

This short speech places Kronos firmly in the category of being one of the most titanic beings in Doctor Who, and this scene is a suitably epic-level climax to the story. The time ram released her, and in gratitude Kronos offers the Doctor and Jo a wish - they are both wise enough to only wish to be able to go home.

Kronos plans to keep the Master here, for

"Torment, of course. The pain he has given so freely will be returned to him, in full."

The Master comes out of his TARDIS and begs for mercy, so the Doctor asks Kronos to release him as well. When she does so, he escapes back to his own TARDIS and leaves. The Doctor had hoped to take him back to Earth with them as a prisoner, but Kronos, in true wish-granting style, says

"You asked for him to be given his freedom: he has it."

We haven't seen anything of the characters left behind on Earth for two whole episodes, but now we go back to see Ruth and Stuart (and baby Benton) still trying to reverse the time-freeze effect on the Brigadier and his soldiers. The Doctor and Jo arrive just in time to see them finally succeed, but then their machine blows up with a disappointingly small explosion - especially coming after Stuart built it up with a dramatic cry of

"Everybody get down, it's going to go up!"

The Brigadier bursts in and demands to know what's going on in this denouement:

Brigadier: "Right, stand quite still, everyone. Er, where's the Master?"

Doctor: "A very good question, Brigadier."

Brigadier: "Doctor, glad to see you're back. Miss Grant, what on Earth are you doing in that extraordinary get-up? And where, for heaven's sake, is Sergeant Benton?"

His question is answered, and the episode, story, and season ends with everyone laughing at the fact that Benton has been restored to normal... but with no clothes on.

What's so good about The Time Monster?

As usual for any story with Roger Delgado in it, he's a large part of what makes it so good, though as with The Dæmons this is an ensemble piece with all of the regulars contributing their part to its success.

The Time Monster is a very light story which makes for an easy and fun viewing experience. There are probably more komedic moments than is typical for Doctor Who (and certainly for the Jon Pertwee era up to this point) but even the more dramatic moments are played with a lightness of touch that stops them from being so dark they clash with the komedy. Jon Pertwee deserves a lot of the credit here, his central performance as the Doctor walking the line between taking the plot seriously and winking to the audience.

You do get the sense that the cast and crew had fun making the show, from the Doctor speeding up the film to make Bessie go faster, to the Master's irritation at being outwitted by Benton (twice), to the Brigadier's 'oh FFS' face at the Doctor's invention made out of Stuart's odds-and-ends. On top of that, there's a surprising amount of innuendo in this story, enough that it surely can't be coincidence and the show's makers must have been in on it - from the shape of the Doctor's time sensor, to the Master's repeated shouting of "come, Kronos, come!" through to the final shot of Benton, with the implication that the other characters are all looking at his willy.

There's even a cat in episode five - I mean, what more could a viewer ask for? This is a great story.

Pertwee Six-Parter Padding Analysis

Just as was the case with The Sea Devils, the presence of the Master can cover up a lot of plot padding, keeping the show watchable in the knowledge that viewers will find it fun seeing his interactions with the Doctor or, when the Doctor is elsewhere, just watching him going about hypno-eyesing mannys and being generally villainous. 

The difference between this and previous six-part Master stories is that here the padding is highly concentrated - we are treated to almost two entire episodes of continuous padding. From the Master saying to Krasis 'get in, loser, we're going to Atlantis' about halfway through part three, to them actually arriving at Atlantis near the start of part five, the main plot of the story advances not a jot, save that the concept of "time ram" is introduced, so that it is not a complete saturn ex tardisa when suddenly used in part six. 

But we do get some excellent scenes in amongst this padding, including some of the most fun and enjoyable of this whole fun and enjoyable story - the Doctor and the Master one-upping each other from their respective TARDISes, and in front of their respective Companions, is a highlight - and it would have been a shame to miss out on these, as would have undoubtedly been the case if this had been only a four-parter.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Time Monster Episode Five

The Doctor is able to talk to Jo as a voiceover, because

"The TARDIS is relaying my thoughts to you."

The Doctor is thus able to tell Jo to pull a lever on the TARDIS console that makes him reappear inside the TARDIS.

Well, after the dire situation that the Doctor and Jo were left in at the end of part four I'm bound to say that the resolution is a bit of an anticlimax. Then again, it is also quite fitting that a very abstract moment of peril should be solved in an equally abstract way.

The scene now shifts to Atlantis - the main focus of the rest of the story, which maybe explains why it now ceases to be shot in soft-focus? Hippias and Dalios talk to each other in an oldey-timey way, as if they're in some kind of BBC historical costume drama, but I can't find it in me to care about what they're saying because my eyes are being irresistibly drawn to the outstanding physical attributes of the figure seated to their left.

It's a cat!

Why are there so many stories with the Master in them that also have cats? His first and last stories both had cats in them, and there was also a cat at the very start of The Dæmons (which was written by the same writers as wrote this story). I think it is an attempt by the makers of Doctor Who to put an association into the brains of the viewers - because cats are best, therefore the Master is also best! Well if that was their intention, it succeeded, although casting Roger Delgado would probably have been enough on its own.

The Master's TARDIS appears in front of them and he steps out, bringing Krasis with him. He claims to be "an emissary from the gods."

Queen Galleia says

"He has the very bearing of a god himself."

and practically purrs like a cat when she sees him.

The Doctor's TARDIS materialises right next to the Master's. When the Doctor and Jo come out, Krasis orders the guards to capture them and take them to the king - although this is probably where the Doctor would have wanted to go anyway.

The Master tries hypno-eyesing King Dalios, and even turns his music on to reinforce this, but Dalios laughs it off and the music tails away like Orac when his key is removed. Dalios mocks the Master's claim to be from the gods with wit:

"Tell me then, what of great Poseidon? What did he have for breakfast? Fish, I suppose? And what of Zeus and Hera? What is the latest gossip from Olympus? Do tell me."

Mmmmm, fish. Also lol.

The Master leaves Dalios and passes the Doctor and Jo on his way out. He makes an astonished face at seeing them still alive.

They go in to see Dalios. There is a mix of the comic and the serious in their dialogue, as the Doctor introduces Jo to the king as "Jo, Jo Grant" and then Dalios calls her "Jojo Grant," a joke form that would later be used in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy with "Dent Arthur Dent."

Dalios then tests them by calling Jo a goddess, passing it off as "clumsy gallantry" when Jo denies it, but really he was seeing if they were more honest than the Master had been.

The Doctor makes friends with Dalios, but meanwhile the Master is making friends with Queen Galleia (and her cat). Jo finds out that the Master is there and listens to their conversation. The Master knows exactly what Galleia wants, and plays her:

"Lady Queen, you are beautiful."

He's no Jarvik, but the effect is much the same. Galleia starts to tell him exposition about "the guardian" of the crystal. It then cuts to Dalios giving the same exposition to the Doctor. The Doctor realises from Dalios's description of the guardian that it is the minotaur that keeps all mannys away from the crystal.

Galleia plans to send Hippias with a sword to try and kill the minotaur, but says if he died trying then his "death would be of little account." This turns her servant Lakis, who is in love with Hippias, against her, so Lakis teams up with Jo to try to help Hippias. But they are too slow, because suddenly the lesiurely pace of the episode speeds up and Hippias is already on his way with Krasis.

Jo tries to shout a warning, but Krasis grabs her, throws her in the room, and then locks the door behind her. There is a "rar!" from off-screen and Jo sees something in there with her. Crash-zoom to her face - cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Time Monster Episode Four

Mike Yates survives, but one of his soldiers suffers a fate worse than death when he has to listen to a komedy yokel tell him all about the original bomb and explosion that the Master brought through time.

The Master takes Krasis and the crystal into his TARDIS. I love the way Krasis exclaims the traditional "it's bigger on the inside" reaction in an old-timey way:

"So vast a space inside so small a box!"

And, for all his evil, it's nice to know that the Master still takes a responsible attitude towards environmental issues:

"Just a few minutes recycling and we shall be ready to leave."

The time sensor detects the Master's TARDIS activating so the Doctor and Jo go into the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor's plan is to land his TARDIS inside the Master's, and he explains the difficulty of this to Jo:

"This is the time setting. Now it's critical to a billionth part of a nanosecond, do you see?"

"Yeah."

"Now hold this. If it's infinitesimally low, we'll miss it entirely and goes whistling off to heaven knows where. But if it's too high, even by a fraction of a moment: time ram!"

"Time ram?"

"Yes. You see, the atoms making up this TARDIS would occupy precisely the same space and time as the atoms making up the Master's TARDIS."

For all that this is a risky and dramatic moment for our heroes, there's still time for some komedy, as the yokel witnesses the TARDIS's dematerialisation and is unimpressed by it. He says

"Pft, Londoners!"

Benton, Ruth and Stuart run about on location as they stealthily approach the building TOMTIT is in. This could almost be a send-up of the similar scene of the three guerillas from the future approaching Auderly House in Dave the Daleks, at the other end of the season.

The TARDIS landing doesn't go as planned, and the Master's TARDIS appears inside the Doctor's TARDIS. But it's worse than that - when the Doctor and Jo leave the TARDIS, they find they are inside the Master's TARDIS. So the TARDISes are inside each other.

"Well, it's perfectly simple, Jo. My TARDIS is inside the Master's."

"Yes, but his is inside yours."

"Exactly. They're both inside each other."

I just explained all that, mew. The Doctor's explanation has ended up inside mine!

The Brigadier arrives at the institute with his UNIT reinforcements, but the Master just sends them all into slow motion using TOMTIT. Ruth and Stuart enter the lab, and Ruth says

"Take a look behind you."

"Oh, come on, really."

says the Master, knowing this is exactly the trick he pulled on Benton back in part two. But Benton really is behind him, so the Master has been tricked by Benton twice in the spacetime of a single story.

The Master looks even more pissed off, but he manages to escape into his own TARDIS and dematerialises, taking the Doctor's TARDIS with him.

The Master soon appears on the scanner of the Doctor's TARDIS (with perfect timing to have a quick perv at Jo, the Naughty Master!) and begins a dialogue exchange between the two Time Lords (and Jo and, I suppose, Krasis) that makes for one of the most enjoyable of all the Doctor-Master scenes in the whole series. I would quote some highlights, but that would just end up being the script for most of the rest of the episode.

Meanwhile Benton, Ruth and Stuart are left with the run of the TOMTIT lab and try to turn it off so that they can free the Brigadier and soldiers from the slow-mo. But all that happens is that Benton gets turned into a tiny manny by mistaik, lol.

The Doctor is forced to leave the safety of his TARDIS to talk to the Master in person.

"You're risking the total destruction of the entire cosmos."

"Of course I am. All or nothing, literally! What a glorious alternative!"

"You're mad! Paranoid!"

"Who isn't? The only difference is that I'm a little more honest than the rest. Goodbye, Doctor!"

The Master summon Kronos to nom the Doctor:

"Behold, Kronos, a rare and delicate feast for you. A Time Lord! Devour him!"

Kronos flaps around and the Doctor disappears. Jo asks the Master

"You mean that thing, that... that creature really swallowed him up?"

"Ah, that's a nice point. Yes and no. Yes, it engulfed him. No, it didn't actually eat him up. He's out there in the time vortex, and there he's going to stay."

"Then he is alive?"

"Well, if you can call it that. Alive forever in an eternity of nothingness. To coin a phrase: a living death."

"That that's the most cruel, the most wicked thing I ever heard."

"Thank you, my dear."

Then, with Jo still in it, the Master ejects the Doctor's TARDIS from his own. It's an odd point to put the cliffhanger - several seconds after the Doctor has seemingly been killed off - but it succeeds mostly because the Master's explanation to Jo of what happened to the Doctor makes the situation seem even worse than if the episode had ended with the Doctor being attacked by Kronos or just after he disappeared.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Time Monster Episode Three

The pope of Atlantis introduces himself to the Master:

"I am Krasis, high priest of the temple of Poseidon in Atlantis."

The Master introduces himself in turn, and lays out his deal to Krasis, ending with "together we shall become masters of the universe."

The Master learns what he can from Krasis's seal, which has on it knowledge about Kronos that Krasis didn't even know he had, then he switches the machine back on.

"Come, Kronos, come!"

he says again, presumably because he enjoys it. Benton escapes back to tell the Doctor and the Brigadier about what the Master has done.

Kronos appears and noms Dr Percival (who, now that Krasis is here to be the Master's henchmanny, is superfluous to the plot), and then flaps about scaring the Master until he realises that he can use the seal to control Kronos. Krasis disagrees:

Krasis: "For all your sorcery, you are as a child trying to control a rogue elephant. A puny child."

The Master: "But I have the crystal?"

Krasis: "That crystal is but a part of the true crystal of Kronos. A small fraction."

The Master: "Fraction? And the rest is in Atlantis?"

Krasis: "Deep in the vaults of the temple of Poseidon, guarded by night and by day from such thieves as you. You may command the slave but never shall you command the mighty one himself."

A lucky side effect of Kronos's return is that Stuart gets returned to his real age. Less luckily, the Doctor sees the Brigadier, Benton and Ruth all running in slow motion, so he rescues them from the field of slowed time by running in at normal speed and pulling them out.

Back in soft-focus Atlantis, Hippias is talking to King Dalios. I know he's called "Dalios" from the credits, but it always sounds to me like they're saying 'Darius' due to the echoey effect and the incidental music. Dalios claims to be over 500 years old and takes Hippias to see the "true crystal" and hints about how he also has a minotaur down there. Well, he says it is

"A creature too horrible to imagine. Half man, half beast."

but I have a suspicion the BBC budget will not be doing that description justice any time soon.

The Master wants to go to Atlantis to get his paws on the "true crystal," but the story would be way too short if he managed that immediately so it's time for some padding or, as the Doctor calls it "delaying tactics" (I suspect the series Producer called it that as well). Stuart offers to make tea and sandwiches for everybody, which annoys the Brigadier.

"This isn't a picnic!"

he says, having gone from being a competent commanding officer last episode to a komedy sidekick in double-quick time.

Despite giving every impression that he's trolling the Brigadier on purpose, the Doctor makes a gadget out of the odds and ends in Stuart's room.

Doctor: "It's a time flow analogue."

Stuart: "Of course it is, Ruth. You should have seen that at a glance."

Doctor: "The relationships between the different molecular bonds and the actual shapes form a crystalline structure of ratios."

Brigadier: "Does this make any sort of sense, Dr Ingram?"

Ruth: "None whatsoever."

Brigadier: "Just as I thought. Doctor, please stop this silly game at once."

Only once he gets it going does the Doctor deign to explain what he's doing:

"Well, it's just like jamming a radio signal, Jo. We used to make them at school to spoil each other's time experiments."

The Master soon overloads it using TOMTIT. 

"Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted."

says the Doctor, and I have to agree with him. This whole bit was padding, but it was fun padding.

The Master sees that Mike Yates is on his way with the Doctor's TARDIS using his wrist-mounted, CSO-powered TV, a different model from the one we saw in Colony in Space - he's obviously upgraded from a csoPhone to a csoWatch in the meantime. He uses TOMTIT to summon a knight on a horsey to charge at Yates's convoy. When Yates reports this to the Brigadier, the Brigadier replies

"Are you suffering from hallucinations, Captain Yates, or have you been drinking?"

Lol.

Next the Master summons up some historical reenactors to exchange fire with the UNIT soldiers.

"Oh get on with it, you 17th century poltroons."

he says when they're not very effective, lol.

The Doctor and Jo head towards the TARDIS in Bessie. The Brigadier drives his own jeep, expecting it will be faster than the Doctor's car, but is swiftly overtaken - another komedy moment.

As his "grand finale" the Master summons a V1 "buzzbomb" to try to blow up the convoy with. The Brigadier, suddenly serious again, tries to call Yates to warn him:

"Yates, get out of it, man! It's a bomb! It's a bomb! Get out of it, Yates!"

but the reception is poor and it is not clear if he heard the warning in time. We see things from the Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier's point of view as the bomb explodes in the distance, and the episode ends with Yates's fate unclear - and we can only hope he has been blown to bits.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Time Monster Episode Two

The Master runs off to hide just before the Doctor runs in and tells Ruth to "reverse the polarity," which allows her to turn off TOMTIT. But it has already turned Stuart into an old manny. Ruth starts to tell the Doctor about Professor Thascales when he says

Doctor: "Thascales? Really the arrogance of that man is beyond belief..."

Brigadier: "Whose arrogance? Doctor, I wish you wouldn't talk in riddles."

Doctor: "Perhaps a classical education would have helped you, Brigadier? 'Thascales' is a Greek word."

Jo: "Thascales? I get it. 'Thascales' is Greek for 'Master.'"

Continuing what we saw in part one of Jo "learning," this is a neat reversal of the similar situation in The Dæmons.

The Doctor hears Stuart say "Kronos" and he says

"Kronos? Yes, of course, I should have known."

The Brigadier takes over the place and sends for Mike Yates to come with reinforcements for him and the TARDIS for the Doctor, showing a level of competence scarcely seen from him since season seven, although when ordering Dr Percival to evacuate the mannys from the institute he doesn't perceive that Percival has already been hypno-eyesed by the Master.

When Ruth shows the Doctor (and Benton) the crystal, the Doctor recognises it as "the crystal of Kronos" and tells Ruth - and us - what he knows about it:

"Well, luckily you are already familiar with the idea of stepping outside of space-time."

"I've lived with the concept for months."

"And I've lived with it for many long years. I've been there."

"You have?"

"Yes, I have. Strange place it is, too. A place that is no place. A dangerous place where creatures live beyond your wildest imagination. Chronovores: time eaters. They swallow a life as quickly as a boa constrictor can swallow a rabbit, fur and all."

"Are you saying that Kronos is one of these creatures?"

"I am. The most fearsome of the lot."

The incidental music playing under the Doctor's speech helps sell this dump of exposition as being more dramatic. The Doctor continues:

"Kronos, a living creature, was drawn into time by the priests of Atlantis, using that crystal as its centre."

"You mean, that that crystal is the original? The actual crystal from Atlantis?"

"It is, and your friend the Professor is trying to use that crystal, as it was used four thousand years ago, to capture the Chronovore."

The incidental music segues into the Master's theme as the scene cuts to him and Percival, who also have some great lines:

The Master: "E = mc cubed."

Percival: "Squared."

The Master: "What?"

Percival: "E = mc squared, not cubed."

The Master: "Not in the extra-temporal physics of the time vortex! Oh dear, now you've made me lose my place. You're an interfering dolt, Percival!"

Back with the Doctor, Ruth and Benton, and Benton can't pick up the crystal because, as the Doctor explains, it "isn't really here at all." The writers then get a bit too clever for their own good with their next bit of technobabble, with the result that it seems like they couldn't make up their minds about what the crystal is:

Doctor: "It must to be linked to that other crystal all those thousands of years ago. Or rather it is the other crystal."

Ruth: "But then where is the original one?"

Doctor: "Where do you think? In Atlantis, of course."

A zoom in to the crystal is followed by a fade to the crystal in ancient Atlantis, where soft-focus was the order of the day and the pope* of Atlantis says

"At last! At last, Kronos, the time is come, and I await your call!"

He is being observed by some other manny, but what this all means is left mysterious for now so that we can go back to watch Benton answer the telephone.

Stuart wakes up and doesn't recognise himself in the mirror. Poor old manny, but it can happen to the best of us.

The Master wants to get back to the lab, but it is being guarded by Benton, so he impersonates the Brigadier's voice on the telephone and orders him to leave the lab unattended. But although the vocal impression is so good that they had to get Nicholas Courtney to dub it on, the Master makes a silly mistaik that tips Benton off.

The Master and Percival go into the lab where Benton is waiting for them with a gun. This is a wonderful scene with great dialogue, which kicks off with the Master ironically getting captured just after saying

"I tell you that nobody and nothing can stop me now."

(That sort of dialogue must be obligatory in Doctor Who stories featuring Atlantis.)

This is followed by Benton saying

"You didn't really think you could fool me with a fake telephone call, did you? It's the oldest trick in the book."

The Master looks genuinely horrified to have been outwitted by Benton.

"I underestimated you, Sergeant. How did you know?"

"Simple. The Brigadier's not in the habit of calling Sergeants 'my dear fellow.'"

But Benton's victory is short-lived, because the Master distracts him and then knocks him out, while saying

"You're wrong, Sergeant Benton. That is the oldest trick in the book!"

The Master turns TOMTIT back on and we go back to Atlantis, where the pope is still ranting and raving - or possibly praying - to Kronos. There are flashes of lightning SFX (which are quite scary, I will admit) and he disappears, leaving the other manny looking at the empty space where the pope disappeared from.

The scene fades back to the lab, where the pope appears and surprises Percival, who just has time to make a surprised face before there is a crash-zoom to the pope's face - cliffhanger!

* He's addressed as "holiness" and his name isn't spoken on screen in this episode, so I think it is fair to call him that for now.