Fourth Doctor Summary

Of my generation and especially amongst Americans, before the New Series began, Tom Baker was the Doctor. If you ever find jokes about Doctor Who, especially in shows like The Simpsons or Futurama, you will always see a tall man with curly brown hair and a long scarf. For us, Tom Baker is the Doctor and I think that even with the New Series, Tom Baker remains the most recognizable Doctor.

I think this is a deserved honor because there is something that stands out about his era. Unquestionably the show hit it's classic era peak during the first half of his tenure in the Philip Hinchcliff era. Stories from that era are still generally regarded as some of the best of all time. Even as the show began it's slide as the 80's approached (due mostly to monetary issues) you still had Tom Baker giving pretty strong performances to carry the stories.

That is not to say that he didn't have his faults. The Graham Williams era is pretty notorious for Tom Baker imposing his own will on the production and some things just started to go over the top. It didn't help that Douglas Adams, script editor for Season 17, shared Tom Baker's absurdist sense of humor and that produced the weakest of all the seven seasons, in my opinion. This in turn gave way to the whiplash reaction of Christopher H. Bidmead who was overly zealous in removing all humor from Season 18. As such, the Tom Baker era ends much as Season 18 with an inevitable collapse in entropy rather than in some sort of heroic resurgence as was shared by many other iterations of the Doctor.

As good as Tom Baker is (and despite his own occasional opinion on the matter), he would have been hard pressed to produce as good of an era as he did without strong companions. Sarah Jane takes most of the limelight as she and Tom Baker are generally regarded as the apex of the show. She did well with the Third Doctor but there was such a natural chemistry between herself and the Fourth Doctor. That they took it upon themselves to write Sarah's exit and then have it be one of the best regarded scenes in the show speaks highly of the level of chemistry they had together.

But we should not shortchange the other companions. Leela was an excellent companion, even though her true nature and scope was lost early in Season 15. Romana I had excellent interplay with the Doctor and offered sharp wit throughout the whole of Season 16. Similarly Romana II played well but in a different way. Her intelligence was more subtle and worked more around a quiet determinism to get things done rather that just show up the Doctor. Even Adric worked relatively well as the older and more forceful Fourth Doctor offered a stronger foil as well as a check. With the more tolerant and softer Fifth Doctor, Adric asserted himself too much and got annoying.

We must also look at the team behind camera as well. Building on the lessons learned from the Barry Letts ear, Philip Hinchcliff built a strong show, relying on gothic horror in space and with a cadre of experienced writers and directors to assist. There also remained a relatively decent budget that helped the show look good which made the stories that much more convincing.

Budget cuts, rising inflation, strikes and a significant talent drain unfortunately mark the Graham Williams era. There were good stories and a number of them were well done from a production standpoint. But there were also some experiments that failed (Underworld) and stories where the kernel of a good story was lost in the shoddy production. Others would probably disagree with me but I personally feel that having Douglas Adams as script editor did the show no favors either.

The JNT era set forth things that would become hallmarks of the 80's. Many of them are very stereotypically 80's so they appeal in a nostalgic way but you also have the continued problems of budget and the shoddy look that started to come on to the show. Christopher Bidmead had some good ideas and made some decent changes but the total excise of humor was a mistake as many of the stories of Season 18 would have improved immensely if they could have simply had a little levity added to them.

Overall, I think it's impossible to not think of the Fourth Doctor era as the apex of the show. I enjoy many of the other Doctors and I would still rate the Second Doctor as my personal favorite, but it is hard to argue that the Fourth Doctor era, particularly the early Fourth Doctor era is of a type that can be popped into the DVD player and just enjoyed at any time. It is that factor alone that will keep it as the showcase time of the classic era.

Highest Rated Story: The Talons of Weng Chiang - 5.0

Lowest Rated Story: The Invasion of Time - 1.0

Average overall rating: 3.34

Robot
The Ark in Space
The Sontaran Experiment
Genesis of the Daleks
Revenge of the Cybermen
Terror of the Zygons
Planet of Evil
Pyramids of Mars
The Android Invasion
The Brain of Morbius
The Seeds of Doom
The Masque of Mandragora
The Hand of Fear
The Deadly Assassin
The Face of Evil
The Robots of Death
The Talons of Weng Chiang
Horror of Fang Rock
The Invisible Enemy
Image of the Fendahl
The Sun Makers
Underworld
The Invasion of Time
The Ribos Operation
The Pirate Planet
The Stones of Blood
The Androids of Tara
The Power of Kroll
The Armageddon Factor
Destiny of the Daleks
City of Death
The Creature From the Pit
Nightmare of Eden
The Horns of Nimon
The Leisure Hive
Meglos
Full Circle
State of Decay
Warrior's Gate
The Keeper of Traken
Logopolis

The Hand of Fear

Eldrad must live.

We now come to the last of the classic era stories for me to review. I still have some new series stuff to go through and as long as the show is on, we'll have new content, but this marks a type of end for me. My original thought when starting this was that I would be able to arrange for Survival to be the end, but that came and went a while ago. So I decided that The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's leaving story, would make an adequate substitute.

This story is generally divided. Everyone acknowledges that the last five minutes where Sarah leaves is damn near perfect. It's just the rest of the story that causes debate. I recall feeling that it wasn't quite as bad as it's reputation but still a rather mundane story for such an important companion to go out on. Of course you could say the same for Ian and Barbara going out in The Chase so it's not like there isn't a history of it. Perhaps it makes the goodbyes more memorable if the stories people leave in aren't that stellar overall. We shall see.

Plot Summary

On an alien planet, a group of hooded figures are overseeing the exile and destruction of a ship with a figure named Eldrad on it. However, the atmosphere is deteriorating and the hooded figures are forced to detonate the ship before it reaches it's maximum destructive potential. Once it is destroyed, the figures are dragged back inside their protective dome.

On Earth, the Doctor and Sarah land in a quarry, unaware that a segment is about to be exploded. They are caught in the blast, though they manage to avoid the worst of it. Sarah is partially pinned under some rock and as she reaches for the hole, she touches a petrified hand with a ring on it. She screams and that alerts the Doctor and the workers to her location. They find her unconscious, along with the petrified hand. She and the Doctor are then taken to a local hospital.

The Doctor is examined and cleared. Sarah is found to be ok but is still unconscious. They also find that her arm is very tense and her fist cannot be unclenched. Believing that it was the stress of nearly being buried alive, they leave her to rest. The Doctor instead heads down to the lab where one Dr. Carter is examining the petrified hand. The Doctor is quite interested in the initial reading of the hand and arranges for an electron microscope to be brought into the lab to examine it better. He leaves Carter to study a small sample of the hand while he heads back to the quarry to examine the layer of rock where it was found.

As the Doctor leaves, Sarah wakes up under the control of the mind embodied in the hand and the ring, which is hidden in her fist. She sneaks down to the lab and knocks Carter out with a blast of energy from the ring. She then takes the hand in a plastic box and slips out of the hospital. Carter comes to an hour later and reports her missing.

Shortly after the report is made, the Doctor returns to find Sarah gone. He becomes concerned and even more so when he sees the scan of the rock sample of the hand. The Doctor reveals that he found nothing in the rock pile which was from Jurassic strata. This means that the hand came down from space by itself 150 million years ago. The Doctor reasons that the sample is drawing regenerative energy from the radiation produced by the microscope. He then has Carter take him to the nearest nuclear reactor, a testing complex a few miles away.

Sarah arrives at the test complex and knocks the guard out with a blast from the ring. She then makes her way through the complex, stunning any worker who crosses her path. The Doctor and Carter arrive but are stopped by guards who have found the stunned guard. Sarah meanwhile makes her way into the reactor core where the hand begins to absorb the radiation and move on its own. As it gains more control, Sarah gets up and jams the door. She attempts to open the door but does not know the security code to open the inner door.

When Sarah opened the outer door to the core, the alarms initiated in the complex. In the chaos of workers running to their emergency positions, the Doctor and Carter slip away from their guards and make their way to the control room. They find the control room run by Professor Watson, giving orders to his people and trying to extricate Sarah from the room. Upon finding the door is jammed, Watson orders all staff out of the facility. The Doctor manages to make contact with Sarah over the security feed but is confused by her repeated statement of "Eldrad must live."

The Doctor runs to the roof to slip down the vent shaft. Unknown to him, Carter has also been taken over by the Eldrad consciousness and he follows the Doctor. He attacks him on the stairs but slips off when the Doctor dodges the blow, killing himself. The Doctor continues up the stairs and launches himself down the shaft. He bursts into the core and knocks Sarah out with a quick nerve pinch. As he carries her out of the core, the ring slips off her finger.

With Sarah out, the core returns to normal and Watson returns everyone to their stations. The Doctor examines Sarah and finds no radiation on her at all and her having no memory of anything after grabbing the hand in the quarry. The Doctor shows Watson the video feed of the hand and the radiation results, demonstrating it's alien nature. Watson orders a technician named Driscoll to collect the hand. He does so and seals it back in the box Sarah brought. He also grabs the ring, which takes over his mind.

Driscoll takes the hand and places it in the decontamination room. He denies finding the ring but the Doctor asks him to look a second time. The Doctor then puts Sarah under hypnosis to learn about Eldrad. Sarah is only able to tell the Doctor of Eldrad and his planet of Kastria. He then brings her back to herself, telling her to forget about Eldrad.

Driscoll again denies finding the ring and the Doctor suspects that he has found it and is now under it's control. This is further confirmed when another technician reports a knocking from the decontamination room, where the hand has absorbed more radiation. Driscoll knocks out this technician, grabs the hand and takes it back to the core. Watson again orders the evacuation of the facility and the Doctor chases after Driscoll, only to see him unlock the inner door of the core and walk inside. This triggers a core explosion, causing much of the computer equipment in the control room to explode.

The Doctor and Sarah head into the core room where the Doctor reseals the door. Watson comes down shocked to find that all the radiation from the core explosion had been absorbed. He calls the military who decide to airstrike the reactor with nuclear missiles. The three exit the facility as Eldrad begins to burn through the door.

From a distance away, they observe two fighters launching missiles at the facility but, much as the Doctor expected, they fall inert, their energy having been absorbed by Eldrad. The Doctor and Sarah head back in where they meet Eldrad, who has reconstituted in a feminine form. She probes the mind of the Doctor to find that he is telling the truth about what happened and that he is a Time Lord. She asks for his help to return to Kastria from which she was exiled after her people turned against her, she claims, following an alien invasion. The Doctor agrees but only that he will take her to Kastria in the present time and not shortly after she was exiled 150 million years ago. She accepts his terms.

As the three make their way out of the core, Watson attacks Eldrad with a pistol. His shots have no effect and she chases him as he retreats to the control room to get more ammunition. She catches him in an energy beam and threatens to kill him but the Doctor stops her by declaring their deal void if he dies. She releases him and once they are sure he is ok, they leave the facility for the TARDIS.

The Doctor, Sarah and Eldrad travel via the TARDIS to Katria, a windswept wasteland. They make their way into the main complex where Eldrad reactivates the power. With the defenses she built shut down, the solar winds destroyed the surface. Eldrad reasons that her people have retreated into a network of caves far below the surface. She opens a door to head down there when she is stabbed by a poisoned spear, a booby trap left behind.

Eldrad tells them that her only chance is to go to the regeneration chamber below. The Doctor and Sarah take her down, avoiding several other booby traps along the way and passing over a deep abyss, which Sarah almost falls into. Upon reaching the chamber, Eldrad is laid out on the slab and the Doctor initiates the process. Eldrad's body is crushed and vaporized but the essence is reconstituted in his original masculine form. Eldrad emerges from the chamber, vowing to become king and take his full revenge on Kastria.

The Doctor and Sarah learn from Eldrad that there was no alien invasion and that the barriers protecting the planet were destroyed by him when the people of Kastria rose against him. As Eldrad finishes, King Rokon appears on the monitor telling Eldrad to come take his kingdom from him. Eldrad goes into the throne room but when he confronts Rokon, he finds only a dead body that crumbles to dust. Undeterred, Eldrad enters a chamber that held the genetic information of his people, from which he can regenerate the Kastrian race. But he finds that chamber empty as well.

An image of Rokon appears on the screen informing Eldrad that rather than attempt to scratch out a miserable existence, the Kastrian people opted for obliteration. They also destroyed their genetic repository so that no one could revive their race to serve as slaves to their will. Eldrad briefly breaks down, robbed of his revenge and dreams of power. He collects himself and then decides that he will become the ruler of Earth and use them to conquer the galaxy. The Doctor however refuses to take him back or to give him back his ring, which the Doctor had taken earlier to avoid another booby trap.

The Doctor makes it appear that he tosses the ring aside, distracting Eldrad. Eldrad lunges for it but realizes it was not the ring. He then runs after the Doctor and Sarah. The two reach the narrow bridge that spans the chasm and hide behind two rocks, stretching the Doctor's scarf between them. As Eldrad runs to the bridge, they raise the scarf, tripping him and causing him to fall into the abyss. The Doctor then takes the ring and tosses it into a different part of the abyss.

The Doctor and Sarah head back to the TARDIS and take off. The TARDIS lurches oddly, affected by the cold and the Doctor begins to work on it. But out by the stress of the adventure and the fact that the Doctor isn't even listening to her concerns. Sarah leaves the control room to gather her things, making a show of leaving. While she is gone, the Doctor receives a psychic message from Gallifrey, ordering him to return. When Sarah reenters as part of her show, the Doctor informs her of his call and how he must leave her behind. She protests but Doctor insists. He lands the TARDIS and they share a quiet goodbye as she leaves. She stops to watch the TARDIS disappear before realizing that the Doctor had once again miscalculated and dropped her off nowhere near her home in South Croydon. Undeterred, she walks off whistling.

Analysis

Aside from the resolution to how to deal with Eldrad, I can't really understand why this story is regarded as middling at best. It has it's problems, but when looked at as a whole, it really does fairly well and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it a second time through.

Aside from a little bit of uncharacterized wimpy-ness from her in Episode Four, this is an excellent story for Sarah Jane and one that features her range nicely. You have her chummy relationship with the Doctor and her noble concern for those around her to say nothing of when she is possessed by Eldrad. Those scenes of her in that state in Episodes One and Two are a very strong performance punctuated with little personality quirks that take it from generic possession to Sarah Jane being controlled. It's a rich delivery from a strong character.

This doesn't even take into account her performance in the leaving scene. The bit of pique that sets up the scene is right within the normal teasing and jostling that goes in between the Doctor and Sarah but then it drops immediately into sincerity. There are no tears, no begging aside from that lone appeal at the beginning but there is that wistful moment of saying goodbye and trying to draw it out to preserve the moment. Once the TARDIS lands, you have the Doctor trying to lie as though it's a simple "I'll see you later" with Sarah going along with it. But she has this reserve in her eyes that lets you know that her travels with the Doctor are over. But once that moment's gone, its a reflection on the good times again. Playing with the dog and laughing that the Doctor dropped her in the wrong location then whistling as she walks down the road. I think I would have preferred a fade out as she walked off in the distance with her back to the camera rather than the freeze frame, but it still worked very well as a goodbye.

As far as the Doctor, he was very engaging. He had his aloof and funny moments but his deep concern for Sarah drives all the action in the first two episodes. It is after that, once Sarah is out of danger than the aloofness returns to the fore and his almost mocking of the situation disarms Eldrad of her power while on Earth, hiding the true danger of Eldrad while she is on Earth. I would even go so far as to suspect that he doesn't trust Eldrad's story but still goes along with it both to return Eldrad to Kastria as well as try to save her life on the hope that some good can still come of the situation. The change and yet consistency within character draws one in to the Doctor's performance and makes him enjoyable through the whole story.

Even the side characters are interesting and well performed. Though there is little action with him prior to Eldrad taking control Dr. Carter is interesting and you feel bad for him when he is killed trying to kill the Doctor. Similarly, Professor Watson is also engaging, with the little character moments of saying goodbye to his family when he thinks he might die and also not being the typical obstinate bureaucrat and actually believing the Doctor the first time around when the Doctor theorizes about the nature of Eldrad. Watson does go a little off script with his pistol attack on Eldrad, especially given that Eldrad had just absorbed the equivalent of three nuclear explosions worth of energy, just to add a little action and reinforce the fact to the audience that Eldrad is not who she claims to be. But it still works out and it's nice to have secondary characters that draw you in so well.

Eldrad her/himself is probably the weakest thing in the story. Eldrad is abstract in Episodes One and Two which is far scarier than being fully realized. The female Eldrad is not bad in her performance though she does go through the pantomime shtick of being the victim. I think it would have played better to make Eldrad appear more sincere in these situations, which would have made the trick of the Doctor and Sarah more believable, rather than the obvious wink to the camera that she was lying to the Doctor about her nature. I also didn't like the direct address to the camera after realizing her new form but that's more on the director.

The male Eldrad is where it really goes to pot though. Female Eldrad had some depth and could have played the deception better depending on the script or direction. The male Eldrad simply goes to eleven and stays there. It's all rage fueled revenge and even the moment of brokenness feels like it should have been more shattering than it was. Eldrad recoups rather quickly and decides to just move on to Earth without much more than a passing glance at Kastria. Had Eldrad not started at eleven but been a bit more reserved, perhaps even sly, his breakdown at being denied revenge and rule over Kastria would have felt deeper. He then could have gone to eleven when talking about taking over Earth. That would have felt like a man who has fallen into a desperate madness and clawing at anything that would give him purpose. Instead, it becomes just another monster and one who is dispatched in a very ignoble fashion.

The dispatching of Eldrad is a failure on multiple fronts. It is a failure of writing as such a crude trick should never have been employed in the first place. It is a failure of direction as it was neither set up nor shot in a way to make it even semi-believable. It is also a failure of performance as Eldrad does not even properly trip over the scarf. He actually more steps on it and then effectively jumps into the chasm rather than properly falling. I'm sure moving around in the suit was difficult but it was the most kiddy and stage-y moment in the whole story. As such, Eldrad went from the creepy, legitimately scary force, to a bumbling monster that would be at home in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

I thought the overall direction was pretty good along with the visual effects as well. The hand moving independently worked very well and everything else was all within normal. I also enjoyed the large use of different shooting angles when maneuvering around the plant on film. Not only did you get the nice look of film, but it better captured the scope of the facility Sarah and the Doctor were moving through. It was much nicer than just looking at corridors the whole time. I think the only point where things erred is when the missiles were fired at the plant. They weren't supposed to go off but it felt like just a static shot of the plant. An indicator that the missile had at least fallen to the ground near it would have looked good.

Overall, I think this story gets a bit shortchanged by fans. Is it a brilliant masterpiece for Sarah to go out on? No. But it is a good and entertaining story to enjoy in one sitting, which puts it at least one above The Chase. Sarah's leaving scene also has the advantage of clearing out the bad taste that the disappointing ending can leave and that does wonders for improving the overall feel of the story. Not one to start with, but I'm happy to have ended on this one.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

The Wedding of River Song

Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor WHO?

The Wedding of River Song is the final episode of the Series Six arc regarding the murder of the Doctor at Lake Silencio. Reaction to the resolution seemed to be rather mixed from a fan point of view as it didn't provide a lot of answers to the overarching questions, though it did address the immediate points of the series arc. I recall not having too many problems with it but still thought it a less than satisfying ending to a pretty good set up.

Plot Summary

In a reality where all time has merged into a single moment, Caesar Winston Churchill summons the soothsayer from prison to explain the lack of movement of time. The Soothsayer is the Doctor and he tells Churchill of how things happened.

After his adventure with Craig in Closing Time, the Doctor pursues various leads to help him track why the Silence are so intent on killing him. The trail leads him to the head of Dorium Maldovar, stored in the vaults of the Headless Monks. Dorium reveals that a prophecy was given regarding the oldest question in the universe and the fields of Trenzalore. Upon learning both the prophecy and the question, the Doctor takes Dorium in the TARDIS and begins to set a plan in motion.

The Doctor contacts the team of the Teselecta (Let's Kill Hitler) and has them send the four invitations to his death as seen in The Impossible Astronaut. All things proceed as expected until he meets River in the space suit coming out of the lake. She resists and discharges her weapon without killing the Doctor. However, as this is a fixed point in time, all things are enveloped in white.

The Doctor ends his tale to Churchill as they have come out of his office and into the main hall. They discover they have been fighting off the Silence, who are hanging from the ceiling in large numbers. The Silence are neutralized by a group of soldiers, led by Amy who is wearing an eye patch identical to that of Madame Kovarian. She stuns the Doctor and takes him to a private train for transport to Cairo.

On the train, Amy demonstrates that she remembers the Doctor but not Rory. Rory is serving as an Army Captain in her personal guard. The Doctor tries to make small jogs to her memory regarding Rory but nothing comes of it. Upon arriving at the pyramids in Cairo, they are taken into an American base where the Silence have been stored upon capture in tanks of fluid, though still sentient. Amy also reveals that the eye patches are actually computer drives that store the image of the Silence, allowing people to remember they are there.

At the base, the Doctor finds River with a captured Madame Kovarian. The two flirt a little while the Doctor tries to touch her and resume time. River resists, knowing that she would be forced to kill him if time resumed. They are interrupted by the Silence breaking out of their tanks and attacking the force. In addition to front attacks, they send pulses through the eye drives either killing the wearers or inflicting them with sharp pain.

River takes the Doctor to the roof, beckoning Amy to follow. Rory opts to stay behind but as the Silence break through, Amy returns and gun down those that attack him. She removes his eye drive but reattaches Madame Kovarian's, killing her.

They meet River and the Doctor on the roof where River shows the Doctor a distress signal asking for help for the Doctor throughout time and space. Embarrassed, the Doctor still insists that they must restart time but River still refuses. With no alternative, the Doctor performs a quick marriage ceremony between himself and River. He whispers into River's ear and then they kiss. The contact reestablishes the flow of time and everyone is transported back to Lake Silencio as in The Impossible Astronaut.

Afterwards River, fresh from teleporting from the Byzantium, meets Amy in her back yard. Amy is mourning the Doctor but River tells Amy that when the Doctor whispered in her ear, she looked into his eye and saw that the body of the Doctor was in fact the teselecta and that the Doctor was inside. Thus the "body" that was killed on the lakeshore was not the true Doctor and he has slipped away.

A disguised Doctor returns the head of Dorium to the vault, revealing himself to him. Dorium promises to keep the Doctor's secret but warns him that both the prophecy and the initial question are waiting for him.

Analysis

As a series ending story, this one is only okay. As an episode in and of itself, it's a bit better but still has it's flaws. Of course, it is nearly impossible to watch this one without having familiarity with at least the Eleventh Doctor era. There are all the points of Series Six that are addressed but there are also several other callbacks to prior stories which make the story flow a bit better if you know them.

In a way, I was reminded of Victory of the Daleks in this story in that it started well and was pretty engaging but then it lagged and resolved in an unsatisfying way. River refusing to shoot the Doctor and setting up the fusion of time into a single moment was interesting and gave some rather nice visuals, as well as some amusing throwbacks. Winston Churchill talking about downloads and Charles Dickens doing a modern media tour were particularly amusing. Where it started to go downhill for me is about the time they got to the pyramid. Not only did the narrative bog down but the circumstances of the Doctor's plan just seemed slapped together. Why have the marriage ceremony? The Doctor could have had a quiet moment with River and ordered her to look into his eye at any time without going through the ceremony. I don't mind that he married River but the circumstances of it seemed very forced.

I also didn't care for the slapdash nature of the Doctor's plan. He goes through this elaborate set up of saying goodbye to people he cares about, goes on a long chase to get answers, gets them, seems to resign himself to his fate but then changes his mind at the last minute at a chance offer of the captain of the teselecta. I think it would have worked better if they didn't include that quick seen where the Doctor comes back into the bar after the captain made his offer. If it had just shown the Doctor in the teselecta that would have been enough and we would have known that he took it from the captain eventually but would have been left to ourselves to determine when he entered and when he devised the plan to trick everyone. This is just a bit too much for me.

For the most part all the actors did well. The dialogue for River at the end got a bit saccharine and that led to some melodrama in the delivery but it wasn't too bad. Madame Kovarian's plea for mercy at the end was also a bit melodramatic for my taste but I think that was to be expected. What probably increased the melodrama was that the end felt a bit rushed. The Doctor's tale to Churchill was well paced and built the interest in what was happening. But the scenes at the pyramid took on a feel of hurry up and get this done which meant that the emotional resonance both between the Doctor and River and between Amy and Rory had to be crammed into about fifteen minutes. Emotional development usually takes a bit more time and while this was building on existing canon, it still felt rushed and undeserved. Especially as it did not require River and the Doctor to get married just for her to look into his eye. For the marriage, there should have been a deeper and less melodramatic scene between them so that the marriage was a natural outgrowth and letting River in on the Doctor's secret was secondary.

Even the scenery had it's let downs at points. The team travelled to Utah to film the lake scenes there but apparently the close ups between the Doctor and River didn't come out so they reshot them with a rather poor looking blue screen behind them. It was a decent effort but the contrast was just so sharp as to be very noticeable. Similarly, while the scenes in the pyramid worked well with that claustrophobic sense, the scene at the top looked like a basic set with a blue screen in the background. It was just another little addition that made the final scene between River and the Doctor feel rushed and somewhat poorly prepared. Other direction, such as in the great hall with the Silence by contrast, was quite well done and set up the scenes quite well.

Overall I'd say the fundamental story is sound and the actors did reasonable jobs, but there were little misses here and there. The ending needed either a couple more rewrites or another couple of minutes to breathe. There needed to be extra motivation to drive the conclusion as it felt unearned. Good performances from earlier in the story were undercut by lesser performances much as with shortfalls in the production. It is not bad, but it does feel like a truly satisfying conclusion that one might have hoped for given the scope of the series arc.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5

Third Doctor Summary

When Barry Letts took over Doctor Who, he instituted a new era that had been set up by his predecessors as a means of making the show both more relatable and less expensive to produce. Thus the Third Doctor era, even when finally granted a repaired TARDIS, felt so much different than any other era of the show. It wasn't the Doctor and a companion(s) thumping around the universe but a Doctor with a home base and support staff on Earth. That brought about both pros and cons and I think for me, that is a good summary of the Third Doctor era, pros and cons.

When I look back on the Third Doctor era, I can't help but notice that although there are several stories I quite enjoyed, I could never go the full nine yards and say that these stories were deserving of the full 5 rating. There was always something that bugged me about each story. But on the other hand, I can recall very few stories that left me with a strong desire not to watch them again. In fact, several of the stories that are regarded as clunkers of the era (such as The Time Monster) I actually found reasonably enjoyable. So while the show didn't hit the highest of highs, it also avoided the lowest of lows.

What the Third Doctor era usually comes down to is how much James Bond you want in your Doctor? For the three seasons in which Barry Letts was in complete control and Jo Grant served as the companion, the Doctor was usually quite James Bond. My principle complaint about this is that the stories tended to take a similar tone and get meandering. The Doctor would rely a bit too much on defeating the enemy in a physical battle or in whipping up a quick device that would shut things down. What's more, these solutions tended to go very last minute which made the prior episodes (and often it was 5) feel like there was just a lot of wheel spinning.

The best third Doctor stories usually took a more intellectual tone and operated in the grey area where neither side was wholly good or evil, or were a snappy adventure which kept things bouncing from point to point and resolved themselves in a proper manner. Lesser stories wandered around too much with repeated action or slap-dash fixes that made the rest of the story pointless.

Similarly, the nature of the Third Doctor played a large role in the appreciation of his stories. Throughout his era, with perhaps the exception of his very first in which he is channeling the Second Doctor, the Third Doctor is a pompous ass. That can be played well for laughs from time to time or if he is challenged by those he sees as lessers but who are able to match him from time to time. One of the reasons Season 7 is so highly regarded is due to the intellectual heft that can be brought by Liz Shaw and to a lesser extent Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Even Jo brings a bit of practical grounding here and there which works with the Third Doctor, and even brings out his compassionate side from time to time. Stories where he is allowed to be pompous and have no checks usually fall a bit short.

The Third Doctor era should be recognized as one of the best in terms of the companion. The Brigadier is a constant and often good counterbalance to the Doctor. Lesser stories in this era slip into the trap of making the Brig seem like a shoot first buffoon, which is not within his character at all. He is at his best when he brings practicality against the Doctor's high mindedness and naiveté. Of the three regular companions, Liz Shaw is my favorite, being able to go toe to toe with the Doctor intellectually and meshing well with him in a Holmes-Watson like manner. Jo is also endearing, especially once they reduced the volume of "she's a klutz" jokes. She operates much like a ward for the Doctor, being instructed by him but also opening his mind to new possibilities here and there. Sarah Jane is Sarah Jane but she is sharper when first introduced. She's too much of the stereotypical view of Women's Lib so that while she is entertaining and enjoyable, she can also be grating while spouting tropes. So while I love Sarah Jane, I think she's probably my least favorite of the Third Doctor companions.

I think one of the grand ironys is that the Third Doctor era may end up as one of the highest average scores of any Doctor era and yet I think it would likely be one of the least likely for me to grab to randomly watch. I can appreciate consistency but when you get an itch to watch a story, its usually because there is a certain hook and a lot of the Third Doctor stories lack that hook. It's a good era, well made and well acted for the most part. But unless there is a certain draw from that particular characterization of the Doctor, I could see it considered as something of a lesser era. Unlike some of the later eras when there is open debate as to whether a certain era is good or note, if someone says they don't care for the Third Doctor era, it's usually let lie. People like it or they don't and there is a respect for those that don't. Of course, even those that don't usually point out that they think it a well made and acted segment of the show. So even when not caring for an era, it is respected and I think that's more where I fall. I respect it, think a number of stories are pretty good, but don't think of it ahead of other eras, even if they have stories that are more likely to be junk just because I feel the ride is more memorable.

Highest Rated Story: The Green Death - 4.5

Lowest Rated Story: The Dæmons - 1.5

Average overall rating: 3.375

Spearhead From Space
Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Inferno
Terror of the Autons
The Mind of Evil
The Claws of Axos
Colony in Space
The Dæmons
Day of the Daleks
The Curse of Peladon
The Sea Devils
The Mutants
The Time Monster
The Three Doctors
Carnival of Monsters
Frontier in Space
Planet of the Daleks
The Green Death
The Time Warrior
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
Death to the Daleks
The Monster of Peladon
Planet of the Spiders

Planet of the Spiders

A tear Sarah Jane?

As it happens, we close the Third Doctor segment with his final story. I remember seeing this one a while back and found it ok, though there were some aspects of it that were sub-par. Interestingly, I think the things that I found I didn't care for were not necessarily the same things others found unenjoyable. My opinion might change but the things I didn't care for stick out pretty hard and as most of them were performance based, I doubt they are going to improve on a second pass. Still, I always aim to keep an open mind.

Plot Summary

Mike Yates is attending a center for meditation therapy and observes a group of men using meditation to expand their power. He gets permission from the deputy abbot Cho-Je to invite Sarah to visit the center and investigate. After picking her up, he drives her back to the center but they are run off the road by a large tractor that appears in the road suddenly. When they look again, it is gone.

At the same time the Doctor and the Brigadier are investigating the telepathic abilities of Professor Clegg, a performer in a local vaudeville show. Clegg tries to deny his abilities, claiming they are just tricks, but the Doctor points out errors he made, revealing that his abilities are real. The Doctor attaches Clegg to several instruments and studies his thoughts and brain patterns as he gives him several tests, all of which he passes. While conducting the experiments, the Doctor receives a package from Jo. She has returned the blue crystal from Metebelis III as it continues to scare the local tribesmen and interfere's with their work. The Doctor reads over the letter while Clegg examines the crystal curiously.

Sarah and Yates speak with Cho-Je, who notes that there are demons within the self that can be tapped in to but that such things do not happen there. He leaves to oversee the meditation class and as Sarah and Yates walk around, they run into a man called Lupton. Lupton is the leader of the group and Yates pulls Sarah away making like he is going to take her back to the train. Lupton smugly tells another man that Yates won't be a problem as they seem to have scared him sufficiently. Yates however merely drives outside the grounds allowing Sarah and himself to walk back and investigate quietly.

Sarah and Yates enter back in to the complex, meeting a mentally challenged young man named Tommy who lives at the center. Sarah and Yates sneak into the cellar and are forced to hide when Lupton and his group enter. They begin to chant and an energy surge occurs on the center mat. The energy surge also manifests through the blue crystal in the Doctor's lab. The whole room shakes and Clegg is locked in a trance with the crystal. The Doctor pulls it out of his hands and the shock of withdrawal kills him. The energy beam in the cellar dies away leaving a giant spider sitting in the room.

The other members of the circle flee but Lupton stays. The spider orders Lupton to turn around and it hops on his back and disappears. The spider melds it's mind with Lupton and uses him to find the blue crystal the Doctor had taken from Metebelis III. Yates and Sarah slip out of the basement and Yates sends Sarah off to warn the Doctor and the Brigadier. Yates tries to tell the abbot, K'anpo, but he is prevented from disturbing him first by Tommy and then Lupton.

The Doctor examines the machine that Clegg was hooked up to when he died and sees images of spiders in the viewer. When Sarah arrives, she tells of the arrival of the spider which immediately piques the Doctor's curiosity. As she goes into further detail, Lupton arrives at UNIT headquarters under guidance of the spider. He stuns one guard as well as Sargent Benton and then uses mental power to teleport the crystal to him. The Doctor and Sarah notice the crystal's disappearance and chase after Lupton.

Lupton steals the Whomobile and drives up. The Brigadier, Benton and Sarah follow in Bessie while the Doctor spots Lupton in a micro-lite helicopter. Unable to lose his pursuers, Lupton ditches the car and hides in the grass. When his pursuers stop, he steals the helicopter and takes off. The Doctor and Sarah follow in the Whomobile which is capable of flight. Lupton is unable to go far due to the lack of fuel and is forced to land near the shore.

Lupton stuns a boat owner and steals a motor boat. The Doctor gives chase, taking a hovercraft that had been parked near the boat. The boat is faster but the Doctor cuts across land to cut Lupton off. Seeing themselves trapped, the spider orders Lupton to focus his mental energy and she transports them back to the meditation center. Lupton heads back to his room to recover. Along the way he is spotted pocketing the crystal by Tommy, who is instantly drawn to it. Once in the room, the spider disengages itself and sends a message back to the queen of their success.

Reuniting with Sarah, the Doctor heads to the meditation center to find Lupton. They are observed by the spider and one of Lupton's associates, Barnes. Barnes alerts Lupton, but Lupton is unafraid. While the two of them are talking, Tommy pokes through the window and steals the crystal which was on the table near the window. The spider returns and threatens Lupton if he does not obey her. Lupton turns his now enhanced mental powers on her and the two form an alliance to overthrow the queen spider and then conquer Earth. Lupton then notices that the crystal is gone. With no time to find it as they are expected on Metebelis III, Lupton opts to bluff. He heads down to the cellar to transport himself.

Cho-Je sends a man to look for Lupton but while he is gone, Tommy calls to Sarah and tells her he wants to give her a gift. He takes her to his closet where he keeps shiny things. While he pokes through, Sarah sees Lupton heading to the cellar. She tells Tommy to get the Doctor and Yates and runs off before Tommy can give her the crystal. Tommy then goes to the Doctor and Yates and tells them of Sarah and Lupton in the cellar.

In the cellar, Lupton chants and is teleported to Metebelis III. Sarah runs to tell the Doctor but accidentally steps on his meditation mat. She freezes and is also teleported to the planet just as the Doctor enters. She sees Lupton in the distance but is grabbed by a man named Tuar who drags her back to his village.

In the village, Tuar presents her and accuses her of being a spy. The town moves to kill her but is stopped by Arak, Tuar's brother, who is being hunted by the spiders. Before she can fully explain herself, the sound of the entourage of the spider queen is heard. Arak, Tuar and Sarah are all taken into the house to hide. The spider queen demands that Arak be surrendered for killing one of her human guards and if not, she will randomly kill a member from every family in the village.

Unwilling to let this happen, Arak's father, Sabor, abases himself and claims that he helped Arak escape into the mountains. The queen accepts this story and orders that Sabor will stand in Arak's place for punishment. Sabor's wife, Neska, comes out to plead for mercy and as she does, the queen spies Sarah in the house. Knowing she was seen and not wanting to expose Arak, Sarah comes out and surrenders.

Having seen Sarah disappear, the Doctor heads back to UNIT HQ and takes the TARDIS to Metebelis III. He arrives just as Sarah surrenders. The guards attack him but he overpowers them. One of the guards shoots energy at him as Lupton did earlier and the Doctor is knocked out outside the TARDIS. Sarah disguises herself and slips back in the house leaving the queen frustrated as she returns to the palace.

Sarah convinces Tuar to bring the Doctor in the house though he is sure the Doctor is dead or dying. The Doctor does come around but is very weak. He tells Sarah to get a machine in a bag from the TARDIS. She slips out after curfew and gets it but is captured by the guards, leaving it outside the TARDIS. After they leave, Arak slips out and grabs it. He activates it with help from the Doctor and the Doctor instantly begins to recover.

Back at the meditation center, Lupton's cronies meet in a room to figure out what to do next. They catch Tommy at the door trying to read the sign. They shoo him off but Yates comes over to listen. Yates is also discovered, knocked out and tied up. Tommy meanwhile heads back to his closet and tries to read a book his mother got him. As he does, he is distracted by the blue crystal starting to glow. He focuses on it and it sends a surge of power. The surge clarifies his mind, allowing him to learn as a normal adult.

Sarah is brought to the spider's palace and wrapped up. She is placed with Sabor who tells her how a spider came along with the original colonists but was blown into the mountains with the crystals. The crystals gave it power and made them larger. Four hundred years later, they now extract tribute from the colonists and control the planet.

Having learned the same story, the Doctor has a set of rocks brought in. Examining them, he is able to identify a type of stone that will absorb the power of the blue crystal weapons, giving the colonists the ability to fight the spider's guards. Fashioning a hand device of that stone, the Doctor heads to the palace to rescue Sarah and Sabor. He encounters guards but is able to fight them off. He is then cornered by Lupton, who had been dismissed by the queen after trying to claim a guarantee for securing the crystal. More guards appear and arrest both Lupton and the Doctor, once his stone shield is knocked from his hand. Lupton is taken away but the Doctor is taken to the same cell as Sarah and Sabor.

The queen of the spiders brings Lupton into the council where it is revealed that they know the crystal is still on Earth. Lupton tries to bargain to retrieve it but the spiders weaken him with their mental powers. However, there is dissent within the council as to whether to attack Earth directly or to pursue another course. The queen elects to visit the Great One to receive clarification. Instead she goes into another room and has Sarah brought to her. The queen offers her a deal that in exchange for the crystal, she will arrange that the invasion of Earth will be cancelled. She even agrees to Sarah's demand to leave the villages in peace.

After Sarah is taken away, the Doctor manages to extricate himself from his wrappings. He goes to look for Sarah and is lured away by the sound of her voice. He finds himself in a cave with the Great One, a spider of enormous size and mental power. The spider orders him to return to Earth and bring the crystal. When he tries to refuse, she manipulates his body to demonstrate her power of him, though he tries to fight back.

The Doctor leaves the chamber and meets Sarah leaving the queen's chamber. At the same time, Arak and some other men attack the spider's palace to rescue Sabor. Arak and his men have bound the special rocks to their foreheads to create shields from the crystal weapons of the guards. Arak and his men save Sabor but Sarah uses a teleportation technique taught to her by the queen of the spiders to take her and the Doctor back to the TARDIS. The Doctor tells Neska of Arak's success as he and Sarah enter the TARDIS and disappear.

Meanwhile, Barnes returns to his room and opts to untie Yates when Yates offers to help them reopen the passage to Metebelis III so that Sarah can be recovered. Tommy overhears this while looking for Yates to help him with his studies and goes to Cho-Je to warn him.

The group begin their chanting and open a passage for the spiders, but they appear elsewhere in the cellar rather than on the mat. When Cho-Je arrives to stop them, the spiders stun him. They do the same to Yates when he rises up. The four spiders then get on the backs of Barnes and the others and take hold of them.

The TARDIS arrives at this moment and the group attempt to stun the Doctor in the same way as Cho-Je and Yates but the Doctor is able to deflect the beams using his stone shield. Tommy calls to them and they flee the basement, buying some time by locking the group in. Tommy takes them to see the abbot K'anpo, whom the Doctor has a strange feeling he has met before. The Doctor tells K'anpo of what has been going on while Tommy stands guard outside the door.

K'anpo reveals that he has the crystal, which is attracting the spider controlled men. The reveal also prompts the queen spider, who had taken control of Sarah, to reveal herself. The Doctor urges Sarah to retake control of her mind and uses the crystal as a focusing device. Sarah rejects the queen's control and the feedback kills the queen, prompting her to fall off Sarah's back and disappear. The Doctor then realizes that K'anpo is the same hermit Time Lord he was instructed by long ago (see Episode Six of The Time Monster and that Cho-Je is only a mental projection of his next regeneration. K'anpo also chides the Doctor for giving in to his thirst for knowledge and rejecting his fears, knowing what he must do.

While all this is happening, the four spider controlled men try to get by Tommy standing guard. Tommy holds them off, his innocence acting as a shield to the energy bursts of the spiders. They unite and contact Metebelis III for more power. Lupton, in a fit of pique, tries to take control and the spiders kill him with an energy blast. They are given more power, but the time involved gives Yates and Cho-Je time to come around. Yates throws himself in front of the blast, stunning him again. Tommy rushes to his side, allowing the men to burst through. The Doctor uses the crystal to mentally transport himself back to the cellar and then into the TARDIS. The men fire a bolt to try and stop him but hit K'anpo instead. They then rush to the cellar to find the TARDIS gone.

On Metebelis III, the Doctor runs into Arak and Tuar who offer to lead him in. They instead take him to the spider warren, having been mentally taken over during their raid. The Doctor produces the crystal but states that he will present it to the Great One himself. The spiders allow this, expecting the Doctor to be killed by the Great One.

He goes into the chamber and is bombarded by the radiation of a crystal web the Great One has built. She takes the crystal from him to complete the lattice which will expand her mind. The Doctor warns her that she has built a positive feedback loop and it will kill her but she ignores him. The lattice activates and does indeed begin to burn her mind. The connection expands outwards, killing the other spiders on Metebelis III and the four controlling the humans on Earth. Arak and the rest of the guards come back to their normal selves and flee the mountain along with the Doctor. Weakened, the Doctor enters the TARDIS and heads back to Earth.

In the meditation center, Yates recovers, having been shielded by his selflessness but K'anpo is too weak and instead regenerates into the Cho-Je form, Cho-Je disappearing with the regeneration. Sarah heads back to UNIT headquarters three weeks later with no sign of the Doctor. However after meeting with the Brigadier, the TARDIS appears and the Doctor stumbles out, the radiation having dealt him a mortal blow. The regenerated K'anpo appears and helps initiate the regeneration as the Third Doctor morphs into the Fourth.

Analysis

Although Barry Letts stayed on to oversee the production of Robot, the final Third Doctor story was also his true ending. As would be mimicked by RTD nearly 35 years later, Letts put in all of the elements that were noted from his era into this story: UNIT, alien invasion of Earth, humans delusional for power, CSO, adventure chases, fight sequences involving the Doctor, etc. In fact, had Roger Delgado not died, it is very likely that he would have been in the place of Lupton to complete the swan song. So in many ways, if you have any hang-ups about the Barry Letts era, this story is not necessarily going to sit well with you. For me, I think it summed up my feelings on the era as a whole with an overly middling outlook.

In many aspects, this isn't a bad set up for a story with an interesting way of tying in a lot of loose elements from prior stories. Nearly everything is brought in in a way that makes sense and does have a natural flow. Where the story falls down is in it's indulgences, certain performances and design. Had this story been tightened up a bit so as to cut down in a few places as well as a little more time in the final design, I think this story could have been much better.

In terms of the Doctor, I think he did very well. He was a bit looser and more natural, but he usually is in the 11th season with Sarah Jane. Perhaps it was just the responsibility with Jo that made him go a bit tight-assed in earlier stories. But the Doctor is enjoyable here. He's presented with a mystery, he is forced to solve it and at no point do things get fouled up because of a mistake on the Doctor's part. The attack on the spider's lair was a bit short-sighted as he should have avoided capture, but it's only a small niggle.

About the only other part that I didn't care for with the Doctor was in Episode Six and that was all about the writing. K'anpo chastises the Doctor for being greedy with knowledge. That makes no sense. It is not greed that has been his shortfall but pride. He has gotten into a number of scrapes and even gotten people killed because he is too prideful to admit that he is wrong or needs help. That is his true failing and humility should be the lesson he must learn. It is overcoming pride and acceptance of the needs of the situation, which means accepting that he might die, that propels things forward. Greed of knowledge has nothing to do with any of that. But again, that is writing, not performance.

Sarah did well and was quite enjoyable. I liked the way the hook of her being a journalist was actually used to kick this story into motion and also gave her agency towards acting the role of Nancy Drew. I also liked the subtle change in acting that was used after the queen spider took possession of her. It shows how comfortable you can get with a performance when small changes just set off little bells in your head. When Sarah emerged after being taken over by the queen, she was just too happy-go-lucky and eager. It reminded me of someone who had just taken some uppers and I knew that something was off. When it was revealed that the queen had control of her, it put everything into focus and made the change in performance pay off.

Most of the other protagonist performances were fairly decent, though I wouldn't say that any were of a particularly high caliber with perhaps the exception of Tommy. He is an endearing character as someone with a learning difficulty and he becomes only more interesting when the crystal clears his mind and makes him more articulate. The huge exception to the acting rule is Neska. That performance is downright atrocious. I have arguably seen better performances in plays my kids have been in and as neither one is in high school yet, that tells you about the caliber of acting typically seen. Fortunately she only has two scenes but in both she just sticks out, especially as everyone else around her is at least trying, even if they are lesser quality actors themselves.

I'm a bit mixed on the villains. Of the humans, only Lupton is really worth noting. The others are of such small scale and small acting quality that they are barely worth noting. Lupton himself starts well, but diminishes after the first two episodes. Once the action shifts to Metebelis III and the spiders take over as the true villains, Lupton is almost lost as a figure. He only comes about a few more times, mostly to protest his treatment by the spiders and try to bluff his way to a better role. In many ways, he really is a stand in for the Master. I have a very hard time believing that Barry Letts and Robert Sloman did not have a visual of someone like Roger Delgado in that role, even though Delgado had been dead for nearly a year at the point of initial broadcast.

As for the spiders, I thought the spider puppets themselves weren't bad and I liked their mental powers overcoming the obvious physical superiority that humans would have. I did not like the fact that although three different women supplied voices for the spiders, they were modulated and sounded very similar to me. It made listening to conversations between the spiders rather difficult to follow. I would rather have had a bit more distinction in the voices as having them unmodulated would have helped. I also wish the settings for the spiders had been changed. The exterior showed mounds of rock with webbing. But inside it was clean hallways and manufactured tables. I also thought it was too well lit. Spiders should operate in the dark and they should have been arranged in council in a giant web in a dank cave. That would have upped the creepiness factor as well. It just seems like a missed opportunity where the production made the spiders look more fake by putting them in such an out of place setting.

There are a lot of ups and downs in this story with some good production values and acting and some poor production values and acting. A lot of people don't like the self-indulgent car chase that takes up half of Episode Two. I didn't mind it because I grew up watching car chase shows and it's arguably more fun to fill time chasing after the bad guy in a car that just in running down an empty corridor. Granted the swapping of the Whomobile and the microlite was a bit silly as well as the comedy moment of the Doctor nearly running over the tramp in a hovercraft, but it was still fairly entertaining. Really, as long as the story was on Earth, it move fairly well and was engaging. It wasn't until the story shifted to Metebelis III that the time-filling elements began to creep in and the story began to bog down.

But even with the limitations here and there, I think this story would pass as a slightly above average story if it weren't for the overall resolution. This story spend five and a half episodes where the Doctor and others worked to keep the crystal away from the Great One. In the end, the Doctor brings it to them and the Great One's arrogance destroys herself. So all the fighting, injury and death was for nothing. If Lupton had been transported with the crystal and presented it to the Great One in Episode Three, the story would have ended and the spiders would have been destroyed. The Doctor's involvement was essentially pointless.

It gets even worse when you factor in that standing in the belt of radiation emanating from the crystal web the Great One had created is what kills the Third Doctor. It is not an act of heroism or being mortally wounded to prevent the villain from triumphing. He dies while watching his enemy destroy itself, with no help from him at all. To make it more aggravating, there is a chance to make a case for regenerating built into the story. The Doctor is zapped and appears to be mortally wounded at the beginning of Episode Four. His gadget zaps him back to health about halfway through. If he had made a comment that all the gadget did was buy him some time but that his body was still dying, that would have set things up better for the end (such as was done in The Caves of Androzani). He was dying and so facing that death nobly by setting up the spiders for destruction would have made the scene play better. As is, the story just feels like a waste of time.

Again, if you discount the ending, I think this story can be enjoyable, especially if you like the overall nature of the Third Doctor stories. If I were judging it up until the halfway mark of Episode Six, I think I would have gone easily with a three and could have seen the merit of considering a 3.5. Not great but an average to good story. But the ending leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't quite overcome. It's not a complete killer but when you spend six episodes and feel like nothing was accomplished other than the Doctor getting himself killed, the journey just wasn't worth it. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of the Third Doctor era, but this is not one that I would rush for a rewatch, especially now that I've seen it twice.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

The Brain of Morbius

That squalid brood of harpies, the Sisterhood. That accursed hag Maren found out I was holding a Time Lord and rescued him. May her stinking bones rot! I'll see her die Condo! I'll see that palsied harridan scream for death before Morbius and I are finished with her.

Continuing in the trend of taking old stories and putting a Doctor Who spin on them, we now go to Frankenstein. This is another story that is highly regarded as a classic but for which I didn't care as much on my first watch. Granted, I'm not that big on the story of Frankenstein (original or the various movie adaptations) so the setting for this one put me a little off right from the get go. But we shall have to see if a second visit improves my opinion of things.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet Karn, the Doctor highly put out as he suspects the Time Lords to have redirected him there. Although he tries to sit things out, he can't overcome his curiosity when Sarah discovers the decapitated body of an insectoid who crashed on planet. In fact, they discover a number of ships crashed into the surface of the planet. They also spy a small castle nearby and head towards it as it begins to rain.

Their movements are observed by Ohica, an acolyte in the Sisterhood of Karn, a society of women that tends a sacred flame that produces a special "Elixir of Life" which they share with the Time Lords. Ohica reports to the leader Maren and Maren discloses that the flame is dying and hasn't produced Elixir in over a year. She suspects that the Time Lords are interfering and summons the other acolytes to investigate.

The Doctor and Sarah arrive at the castle where lives a surgeon named Solon and his dimwitted servant, Condo. Solon invites them in and attempts to appear welcoming. He is in fact only interested in the Doctor's head, having been looking for a suitable specimen for some time. In fact, the decapitated body found was Condo's work, Condo having been promised a replacement arm after Solon completes his work. Solon takes them in and offers them drugged wine. The Doctor drinks it but Sarah does not. The Doctor recognizes Solon and also manages to recognize a bust of the renegade Time Lord Morbius just before he passes out. Sarah mimics doing the same.

Solon has Condo take the Doctor to his lab but elects not to operate until they repair the generator as he does not wish to operate by candlelight. Sarah gets up and sneaks down the hall, hiding as they pass. Unbeknownst to any of them, the Sisterhood has gathered together and using their power, teleported the TARDIS to their cave. Feeling vindicated in her suspicions, Maren has the Sisterhood use their power once again and teleports the Doctor to their cave. Sarah enters the lab a minute later but instead of finding the Doctor, finds a body constructed from various creatures by Solon.

Sarah hides as Solon and Condo reenter. They notice that the Doctor is missing but Condo assures Solon that he put the full vial of the drug in the wine. Solon immediately suspects the Sisterhood and he and Condo leave to see what they plan to do with the Doctor. Sarah follows behind them.

In the Sisterhood's temple, the Doctor comes to and Maren offers him a chance to admit his collusion with the Time Lords. The Doctor admits that he might have been sent by the Time Lords though he isn't sure but denies any plan to steal the Elixir of Life. The Doctor also tells them that he thought he felt the presence of Morbius just before he passed out. Maren scoffs at this, stating that she was present when Morbius was executed and is certain he is dead.

Solon and Condo observe a couple of Sisters entering their cave with wood and follow them. They enter just as the Doctor is being tied to a pole with a pyre built around him. Solon intercedes for the Doctor, first offering Condo as a replacement and then begging for just the head of the Doctor if he must die. Maren denies both and shoos them off. However, while they are distracted, Sarah, disguised as a member of the Sisterhood, reaches up and cuts the ropes binding the Doctor to the pole. As the Sisterhood lights the pyre, the Doctor leaps off and he and Sarah make a run for it. Maren sends a bolt of energy after them from her ring which hits Sarah but they still manage to loose them.

Solon and Condo return to their castle and Condo attacks Solon for offering him as a replacement. Solon only placates him by offering to restore his arm. Condo relents and goes to prepare the lab. Solon then goes downstairs and speaks to Morbius for whom he is building the new body. Morbius is becoming impatient and wants implantation immediately. They are interrupted by the sound of the door opening upstairs.

Condo and Solon enter the main hall and find the Doctor and Sarah sitting at the table. The Doctor tells Solon that Sarah was blinded by Maren's ring and wants him to examine her eyes. They head to the lab where Solon looks closely. He has Condo take her back to the main hall and informs the Doctor that the retinas are almost completely destroyed. Her only hope of regaining her sight is to drink the Elixir of Life which can restore tissue. The Doctor leaves, leaving Sarah at the castle.

Solon then writes a note and calls Condo. He tells him to give it to Maren and to get there before the Doctor. Condo rushes off. This leaves Sarah alone in the hall where she hears a voice calling for Solon. She follows it down the stairs but is unable to see the brain of Morbius speaking from within a jar. Morbius cries out and Solon shoves her out of the room. Sarah however stays in the stairwell to listen.

Solon tells Morbius that he has offered a deal with the Sisterhood that will return the Doctor's head to him. Morbius is alarmed when Solon mentions that the Doctor is a Time Lord and fears that the Time Lords have discovered him. Also fearing that the Doctor has made a deal with the Sisterhood, Morbius orders Solon to put him in the artificial brain case that Solon manufactured. Solon objects noting that he never got it working right and the risk might be too great but Morbius overrides him. Before he can continue, Sarah pulls the door shut and locks Solon in. She then wanders out to warn the Doctor.

The Doctor arrives at the Sisterhood's cave, is captured and brought before Maren. She had just received the letter from Solon warning her of his approach and offering a deal in exchange for his head. The Doctor explains his problem but Maren laughs, telling the Doctor he has been tricked as the ring's effects are only temporary. She also notes that the fire is dying and they have no more elixir anyway. The Doctor examines the flame and pops a firecracker down into the hole. The fire goes out for a moment and then a burst of flame erupts. The Doctor notes that there was a build up of soot and that should have cleared things out. Still suspicious and disbelieving of the Doctor's theory regarding Morbius, Maren renders the Doctor unconscious and has her acolytes bear him to Solon.

While looking for the Doctor, Sarah is discovered by Condo who drags her back to the castle. He frees Solon who ties her up in his lab. Condo strokes her hair but Solon orders him to get the lab ready. As he does, Condo discovers his arm attached to the body Solon had put together. Condo attacks Solon and knocks Morbius' brain out of its jar and on to the floor. Solon shoots him and rescues the brain, replacing it in the jar. Gut-shot, Condo stumbles off but Solon, not wanting to let the brain die, frees Sarah and forces her to assist him in the operation.

With the operation nearly finished, Solon is interrupted by the Sisterhood depositing the Doctor. He goes up to examine the Doctor but Morbius rises up off the table, controlled only by animal instinct. He advances and attacks Sarah, who had just regained her sight. She dodges away and runs upstairs, warning Solon. Solon runs downstairs and tries to stop Morbius but he knocks him down and lurches upstairs.

The Doctor comes to and Sarah warns him of Morbius' approach. Morbius emerges and knocks the Doctor down. He then turns on Sarah but Condo, still wounded, lurches to help her. Morbius overpowers and kills him. He then stumbles out toward the cave of the Sisterhood. The Doctor revives and carries Sarah down to the room where Morbius was to let her recover. He then returns to the lab where Solon has revived and arming a stun gun. Together they pursue Morbius.

Morbius discovers a member of the Sisterhood watching and kills her. After discovering her, the Doctor and Solon split up to look for Morbius and Morbius attacks the Doctor. Solon shoots Morbius, knocking him out and together they take him back to the castle. The Doctor threatens Solon to disconnect Morbius so that he can take him back to Gallifrey. He then leaves to check on Sarah but Solon follows him and locks the two of them in the room. Solon then resumes the surgery, correcting what was missed before.

Trapped in the room with no escape, the Doctor devises a plan. He mixes several chemicals in a dish and places them in a ventilation shaft. He then adds cyanide to the mixture. The mixture creates a gas which drifts up and kills Solon. However Morbius is unharmed. He comes down to the room where the Doctor challenges him to a mental battle. Morbius accepts, promising to kill him.

The Doctor and Morbius engage their minds using equipment in the lab. Morbius overpowers the Doctor but the mental strain is too much after the surgery and there is an electrical discharge in his brain case, forcing him to break off. The Doctor collapses into a coma, the strain too much for him. Morbius however stumbles upstairs, trying to clear the haze.

Meanwhile, the Sisterhood discovers the body of their murdered sister. Ohica becomes convinced that the Doctor was telling the truth that Solon has resurrected Morbius. She gets permission from Maren to lead the Sisterhood against Solon and Morbius. They gather torches and enter Solon's castle just as Morbius emerges from his battle with the Doctor. Already weak from his battle with the Doctor, Morbius flees from the torch-welding mob. The Sisterhood corners him on the edge of a cliff and drive him over the side to be smashed to pieces below.

Ohica finds Sarah and the Doctor. Noting that the Doctor is dying, they take him to the Sisterhood's cave for Maren to examine him. Maren notes that only the elixir can save him. A small amount had been created after the Doctor cleared the flame. Though she needs it, Maren orders Ohica to give it to the Doctor. The Doctor drinks it and recovers. Maren then passes into the sacred fire where she becomes young and then disappears.

The Doctor gives Ohica a couple more firecrackers to clean out the fire pit should it be required. He and Sarah then enter into the TARDIS and disappear, though the Doctor has the TARDIS leave in a bang and flash rather than it's usual vanishing act as a final joke.

Analysis

Unfortunately, a second pass through The Brain of Morbius did not improve the story for me. There are several small nits to pick here and there but the fundamental flaw of the overall story is that the Doctor acts like a childish moron throughout the story. If the Doctor was written in any way that was halfway competent, the story would have been over within one episode. Having your main character be deliberately stupid does not make for a good hook to draw one in.

So let's start with the Doctor. We always expect a certain level of naivety and some childishness, especially with the Fourth Doctor. His petulance at being tossed into a situation to do a job for the Time Lords is understandable and even entertaining. But after that, things go downhill. Sarah has the good sense to avoid the drugged wine but the Doctor does not, even though Solon might as well have "creepy bad guy" tattooed on his head. He continually dismisses the danger posed by Solon and Morbius. His playing around nearly kills Sarah when Morbius breaks loose the first time and does get Condo killed. He also allows Solon to finish his work on Morbius by being stupid and letting himself and Sarah get locked in a room, a trick that Sarah pulled on Solon. This actually forces the Doctor to become a blatant murder as he had to have been aware that Solon would have been in the room with Morbius and breathing the same cyanide gas. Even the final battle was a failure on the Doctor's part as he is mortally wounded by Morbius. It is only the flaws in the braincase (which Solon pointed out) that weaken Morbius to the point where he is easily driven over a cliff by the Sisterhood. Doctor Who is at its best when the Doctor is the central hero. Here he isn't even playing the helper role. All the critical actions (except the murder of Solon) are done by others.

On the flip side of things Sarah is very strong and this even includes her being without sight for nearly two episodes. Sarah has the presence of mind to see Solon for what he was and avoid the drugged wine. She rescues the Doctor from the Sisterhood at the cost of her own sight (temporarily) and manages to cage Solon to try and warn the Doctor a second time. She is constantly there for the Doctor and is never rescued by him. Her one instance of being in trouble is a direct result of the Doctor and it is Condo that saves her. If you are fond of Sarah Jane, this is a very strong story for her, but with the Doctor being as stupid as he is, she's being forced to make up for his shortcomings.

There are a lot of roles where I like Philip Madoc but this story is one where he goes up to eleven and never comes back down again. He's clearly trying to play the mad but frustrated genius but there is no subtlety in his performance. His constant irritation at Condo makes you question why Condo would ever believe or listen to him. Similarly, his lack of subtlety only makes the Doctor look that much dumber for not seeing him as he is at the start of the story. His only moment where he pulls it in is when the Doctor has him cornered and forces him to examine Sarah's eyes. He keeps things in check to the point where the lie is believable and that sends the Doctor off again. Knowing that this performance is obtainable, it makes the other moments where Solon goes to the extreme seem that much more out of place. I just couldn't get into it.

Condo, again by contrast, is quite enjoyable. He is the typical Igor type character but doesn't go over the top. He give you the strong impression that while a slow person, he has his own level of intelligence about him. He has things he cares about and things that he wants, which keeps him tied to Solon. Of course he is not above violence and even going after Solon whom he knows deep down is a liar and foul person. It would have been very easy to go too far in Condo's portrayal but I think it was done well and sets up one of the most believable characters in the story.

The Sisterhood was pretty good for the most part. Maven was quite good and most of the Sisterhood seems to perform well but I thought Ohica was a bit too stiff. I get that she was trying to be formal but it still seemed more like someone who wasn't quite comfortable with their lines. I thought the Sisterhood did fairly well in their plot as well but I had a hang up with the idea that they would be so ignorant of what Solon was up to. They knew he was cutting up corpses and if Morbius was such a significant enemy to them, I find it hard to believe that he could have shielded himself completely from them. This gives them the appearance of being a bit more inept that you might have expected from a society that freely interacted with the Time Lords.

I thought about saying something about Morbius but he's not much more than a MacGuffin so there's little to say outside of the Time Lord brain match. This always sticks in the fan's craw as anyone can clearly see both in direction and in dialogue that the faces of the crew shown are meant to be prior versions of the Doctor. People attempt to retcon them to Morbius but that does go against the nature of the scene. Still, I can bring myself to care that much. It does throw a wrench into things from a continuity standpoint, but so do a lot of things and this scene at least has some dramatic tension. The real question is why does Solon just have one of these devices lying around?

I will praise the set design and the overall atmosphere of the story. It is completely studio and looks it at times, but the overall atmosphere is very enjoyable. There is the gloom and sense of fear pervading the story that you would need to give the story an extra sense of dread and call back to the old Universal 1931 version of Frankenstein. I wish the direction had been at the same caliber. It's not bad but it is fairly pedestrian and doesn't draw the eye in any significant way. I also blame the director for some of the failures of the acting performances as that would be his job to tell them to reign it in or ramp it up as the situation requires.

There are all the little things but I think the ultimate problem of the story is the writing. Terrence Dicks wrote the original treatment but it got reworked by Robert Holmes. Between the two men, changes were either introduced or old holes were not covered up that ultimately bring it down. People always seem to talk about the atmosphere and the quips, especially by Solon, in this story but when you boil it down, there are a lot of flaws in the overall plot and you can't wave those away by simply talking about how moody or intelligent things sound.

Ultimately, my trepidation for this story was somewhat justified. It's not painful and there are some things to enjoy about it. But it does have deep flaws that are all around and can't be overlooked. On a basic level, the story can be enjoyed, especially if the watcher is not overly familiar with some of the better written stories. But once you've been exposed to either the tighter plotlines or devious, intelligent nature of the Doctor in other stories, it's hard to not see the warts that are freely visible in this story.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

The Time Monster

You are like a child trying to control an elephant.

I'm a little sad to be posting this. Although I have three stories remaining for me to cover, this is the last of the classic era stories that I have not seen. When I first started this, I'm sure The Time Monster was not the story that I would have picked to finish on, but things just always seem to divert to other stories. My preference for watching four-part stories or longer stories from the black and white era did keep pushing this one further and further down the list. But now the list is empty and here we are.

My expectations for this story are low. Boring is the word I've heard most often to describe it but that's a matter of preference. Of course, it's also a Barry Letts and Robert Sloman script and that gives me pause. I really liked The Green Death but I think my patience for The Dæmons was lower than the standard Doctor Who fan so those balance each other out. I don't think I minded Planet of the Spiders that much the first time I watched it but I need to reserve judgment until I go for the re-watch. So we shall just have to see if this either lives down to its reputation or if I am pleasantly surprised.

Plot Summary

The Doctor wakes from a nightmare where there were a great number of natural disasters and the Master taking command of the Earth using a three-pronged crystal. Unsettled by this dream, he ask Jo to look for any news of recent earthquakes or volcanoes. Jo scoffs a bit as she had read him a news article on such activity happening in Greece only yesterday. He again doesn't pay much attention until Jo notes that the site was in the vicinity where archaeologists believe that the island that inspired Atlantis was. Upon hearing that, the Doctor alerts the Brigadier, though the Brigadier notes that UNIT is already on high alert looking for the Master.

The Brigadier prepares to leave for a meeting at a university near Cambridge to observe experiments being done with time and the transport of matter. The Doctor begs off, wanting to work on looking for the Master so the Brigadier pulls Sargent Benton in. At the university, the experiments are being done by the Master, who is going under the pseudonym Professor Thascalos. He prepares to meet with the observing delegation and leaves the equipment to his two colleagues: Dr. Ingram and Stuart Hyde. While the Master is hypnotizing Dr. Percival, the head of the department who has become suspicious of the Master, Ingram and Hyde conduct a test run of the equipment. They successfully transport an object from one terminal to the other but cause a strange phenomena with time. This phenomena causes a window washer to fall off his ladder though he is not killed.

The tests register on a detector that the Doctor has managed to put together. However, the range is too broad to hone in on the signal. The Doctor and Jo get into Bessie and drive around in the range zone, hoping for another signal that will allow them to locate the Master.

Though he is displeased by Ingram and Hyde's experiments without him, the Master plays it off. Seeing that UNIT has come along on the inspection, the Master sends Ingram off to meet them while he tinkers with the equipment. When they arrive after lunch for the experiment, the Master has donned a radiation suit to hide his appearance from the Brigadier. The Master activates the equipment, alerting the Doctor to his location. The Doctor and Jo race to the college while the Master throws the equipment into overdrive, calling out for the appearance of Kronos.

Ingram rushes to shut down the machine after Hyde collapses. The Master rushes out of the room as the Doctor rushes in, having noticed that time has slowed down outside the room. They manage to deactivate the machine but find that Hyde has aged from his twenties to his eighties in only a few minutes.

After leaving Hyde in the care of Jo, the Doctor and Ingram return to the lab to investigate the equipment. The Brigadier returns to a makeshift headquarters where he takes command of the place, requests that additional munitions be brought up and that all non-essential personnel leave the college. In the lab, the Doctor examines the equipment and discovers the Master’s TARDIS. He also examines the crystal but believes it’s only a temporal projection of the real crystal. The Doctor explains to Ingram that Kronos, as called for by the Master, is a creature known as a cronovore and was trapped in the crystal by the people of Atlantis. This eventually gave rise to the legend of Cronos, father of the Greek gods.

The Master retreats to Dr. Percival’s office where he reinforces his hypnotic control. After working out some calculations, the Master pretends to be the Brigadier to lure Benton out of the lab where he is standing guard. Suspecting the ruse, Benton leaves but doubles back to get the drop on the Master. However, the Master knocks Benton out and reactivates the machine. As it ramps up, a man from Atlantis begins to appear next to the crystal.

The man is Krasis, high priest of Poseidon in Atlantis and is rather put out at the Master's cavalier attitude towards being able to control Kronos. Benton comes to and rushes out to warn the Doctor. The Master lets him go, being more interested in the medallion Krasis gives him when speaking of Kronos. Realizing that the medallion has information imbedded in it, the Master begins to encode that into his machine.

Benton warns everyone as they are outside, loading Hyde on to an ambulance to be taken away. The Brigadier, Benton and Dr. Ingram rush forward to stop him just as the Master reactivates the machine. The Doctor notices that Hyde is regressing back to his normal age while the Brigadier, Benton and Ingram are now running in slow motion. The Doctor runs up and pulls each of them back to the ambulance, out of the bubble of the machine where they snap back to normal time.

Inside the lab, Kronos is released from the crystal and flies about as a glowing humanoid-birdlike creature. It consumes Dr. Percival but is unable to escape the lab. The Master is able to hold off Kronos by using the medallion, which it seems to fear. He steadily powers down the machine and Kronos is sucked back into the crystal. Using this new information, the Master reprograms the machine to allow him to bring other small objects from outside of time.

Unable to get to the lab, the Doctor orders the Brigadier to bring up his TARDIS, to which the Brigadier orders Captain Yates to do. To buy time, the Doctor constructs a device from refuse that interferes with the time bubble the Master is creating. This causes the crystal to power up again but the Master sends a surge of energy which destroys the device.

Aware that the Doctor is having his TARDIS brought up, the Master brings forward things from the past to slow Captain Yates' convoy down. First an Arthurian knight and then a squad of Roundheads. Yates radios about the distractions and the Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier ride out to grab the TARDIS directly. Seeing this, the Master pulls forward a V-1 rocket which bombs Yates' convoy. Yates and his men survive but their trucks are damaged and the TARDIS lands on its side in a pit. Yates and his men begin to haul it upright again while the Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier assess the damage.

The Master makes preparations to leave for Atlantis in his TARDIS, telling Krasis to wait inside. This activation sends a signal to the Doctor's original detector device and he and Jo decide to try and trap the Master within the Doctor's own TARDIS. The Brigadier takes the rest of the men and takes them back to the college.

As the Master grabs the last bit of equipment, he notices the Brigadier and his men preparing to storm the building. The Master activates the device and the Brigadier and his men are caught in a frozen bubble. Just as he is about to leave, Dr. Ingram, Hyde and Benton get the drop on the Master. He manages to throw Hyde in Benton's path, dash into his TARDIS and take off. Ingram and Hyde activate the remaining equipment to at least unfreeze the Brigadier and his men but something goes wrong and instead of them being unfrozen, Benton is age reversed into a baby.

As the Master takes off, Krasis points out the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor had made a slight mistake and the two TARDISs are now situated inside each other. The Doctor communicates to the Master via the scanner but the Master turns the sound off. The Doctor tries another way but the Master scrambles the signal. With no other alternative, the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS to try and warn the Master. The Master ignores him and instead extracts Kronos from the crystal. Kronos envelops the Doctor, who disappears. The Master then pushes Kronos back into the crystal.

He informs Jo that the Doctor has been cast into the time vortex and he then disengages his TARDIS from the Doctor's. Jo passes out briefly only to hear the voice of the Doctor. He tells her that the TARDIS has linked with him and can bring him back. He instructs her to pull a lever on the control panel and he materializes within the TARDIS.

The Master arrives in Atlantis as King Dalios is holding court. The Master emerges and claims to be a messenger from the gods with Krasis supporting him. Dalios takes the Master back to his private chambers to question him. The Master attempts to hypnotize him but Dalios is unaffected and laughingly dismisses the Master as a trickster. The Master is further shocked to see the Doctor and Jo being escorted to the king, having been arrested by the guards upon landing next to the Master's TARDIS.

Dalios takes to the Doctor immediately, perceiving his honesty. He sends Jo to the company of his wife, Queen Galleia. Galleia accepts Jo and has her change to more customary attire. She then sends her handmaiden to summon the Master, whom she is attracted to. After the Master arrives, Jo and the handmaiden eavesdrop on their conversation.

The Master convinces Galleia that he should get the crystal and allow her to assume power, taking over from her husband. He also promises to stay and rule by her side. She tells him that while Krasis has a key to the vault, the crystal is also guarded by a monster. King Dalios informs the Doctor that this monster was a friend of his but was transformed into a minotaur. The Master and Galleia devise a plan to send the acolyte Hippias in as a distraction.

The handmaiden, smitten with Hippias, and agrees to help Jo warn him. They follow Hippias in the dark as he approaches the vault where the crystal is held. Jo goes to warn him but Krasis grabs her and shoves her into the vault. The handmaiden runs back and tells the Doctor who knocks Krasis out of the way and runs into the vault.

The Minotaur moves to attack Jo but Hippias attacks it. However, the Minotaur kills Hippias and resumes its attack on Jo. The Doctor however draws its attention and lures it into a wall, knocking the creature out. In the center of the vault, they find the original crystal and go to warn the king. But when they emerge, they find that the Master and Galleia have performed a coup and taken over. The Doctor and Jo are sent to the dungeon.

In the dungeon, the Doctor comforts Jo with a story of his youth when King Dalios is brought in. He resists and the guard knocks him to the floor. Dalios warns the Doctor of visions he has had of Atlantis being destroyed before he dies.

In the morning the Doctor and Jo are brought before the Master and Galleia to be executed. The Doctor asks where most of the council is and if they have been killed like Dalios. Galleia is shocked to learn that Dallios was killed and accuses the Master of betraying her as he had promised that he would be allowed to live. The Master then orders Krasis to activate the machine, releasing Kronos who begins to destroy Atlantis.

The Master grabs the original crystal and runs for his TARDIS. Jo manages to get herself free and jumps on his back. He drags her into his TARDIS and disappears. Galleia frees the Doctor and the Doctor runs to his TARDIS to chase them down while Atlantis crumbles. In the time vortex, he contacts the Master and threatens to conduct a time ram, the merging of their two TARDISs to stop him. The Master doesn't believe he will do it as long as Jo is there but Jo grabs the controls and forces the merger when the Doctor hesitates.

The Doctor and Jo wake to find themselves on the edge of reality. Kronos appears to them as a woman as the time ram destroyed the crystal and freeing her. In exchange, she offers them whatever they want. The Doctor opts to return to Earth with Jo and the TARDIS. Kronos agrees and promises to keep the Master where he will be tormented for eternity. The Master begs mercy and the Doctor asks for him to be freed to the Doctor's custody. Kronos agrees but the Master shakes the Doctor lose and flees in his TARDIS. Kronos refuses to stop him as the Doctor had asked for him to be freed to the Doctor.

The Doctor returns to the lab just as Dr. Ingram and Hyde are finishing repairs to the machine. They manage to free the Brigadier and his men from the bubble as well as return Sargent Benton to his normal self. But without the crystal to stabilize it, the machine is destroyed.

Analysis

If I had to pick a single word to describe this story, I think I would pick "meandering". It's not to the point of being bad, in fact in many ways the story is fairly entertaining, but it lacks focus and just seems to drift from point to point without much thought to its direction.

Although filled with rather obvious padding, the first four episodes are a fairly direct line of adventure with the Master fooling around in his lab and the Doctor and UNIT trying to breach it. It's actually a reverse base-under-siege story which is somewhat refreshing. There is good interaction between the Doctor and the various UNIT personnel and although peppered with a bit of silliness here and there, it slowly progresses towards an ultimate breach.

The last two episodes leave something to be desired. None of the events in Atlantis make much sense and what little plot there is there seems rushed and poorly developed. Everything in the first four episodes is banished as it just becomes a race for the original crystal which is something you think the Master should have been aware of from the beginning. The intrigue of court politics and battles with mythological beasts is both uninteresting and unengaging.

From an emotional standpoint, this is one of the Third Doctor's best stories. His intimate moment about his childhood in Episode Six is still seen as one of his best moments. He also doesn't go either over-the-top or off-the-handle with the Brigadier as he so often does in other UNIT stories. He has a nice rapport with Jo and seems to have fully developed into a fatherly, caring figure for her. It is rather telling that the Master is correct and that the Doctor is unwilling to complete the time ram because he doesn't want to hurt Jo. There's also very little martial arts from the Doctor which is a nice change of pace, forcing him to think his way out of problems rather than forcing the issue.

Again, from an emotional standpoint, this was quite a good story for Jo. She does very little otherwise but as this is less of an action story, that sort of fits. She is also shown as less dumb than in other stories, needing to ask questions for the audience purposes but also being a bit more intuitive about the answers. There are at least a couple of instances where she gets the answer before other "smarter" people and the Doctor's pleasure at her understanding is quite obvious. Jo is just very pleasant in this story, although I'm not a fan of her yellow go-go boots but you can't have everything.

Most of the rest of the regular cast hits their normal notes. The Brigadier plays dumb and is interested in shooting things, Yates does his "aw shucks" routine and Benton is the loveable doofus. I prefer it when the Brigadier is much more intelligent, as shown in Season 7 stories, but by this point its a pretty standard format for the Brig to be more interested in blowing things up and you just get used to it.

The guest cast of this story left a lot to be desired. Ingram and Hyde are very shallow characters with Ingram being the standard middle-aged white male view of a feminist (man-hater) while Hyde is a late-style hippie. Although, as shallow as their characters are, they are played well. The same cannot be said for nearly all of the Atlantean cast. Both Hippias and Galleia are extremely wooden in their delivery and attempts to flesh them out or give them the remotest sense of character just fall flat on their face. Dallius and Krasis are played better by their actors but they are also dropped after about one episode. Krasis is the assistant in Episode Four but aside from a couple of menial tasks, he is forgotten about. Similarly, Dallius refutes the Master while becoming friendly with the Doctor in Episode Five but then dies early in Episode Six. They are just not given enough to work with to make a stronger impression.

I do like the Master in this story, though he does indulge in a bit of over-the-top-ness. For once, he has a plan that actually works. He successfully manages to unlock Kronos from its prison and manages to control it through the use of the medallion. He also manages to get the original crystal as well as defeat the Doctor twice. It is only Jo's push of his TARDIS into the Doctor's and the resultant Deus Ex Machina that defeats him. Had the TARDIS not seen fit to rescue the Doctor in Episode Five or Kronos not been freed and grateful for it at the end of Episode Six, the Master would have triumphed.

And then there is Kronos. I don't know who came up with the design for Kronos but I'm not sure a dumber one could have been imagined. Greek myth has Cronos as a humanoid titan from whom the Greek gods came. At no point does that inspire the thought of a radioactive, humanoid pigeon. I also don't care for how the freeing of Kronos by destroying the crystal at the end is the magic solution. Everything given about Kronos to that point is that Kronos is a destroyer, feasting upon time. It consumes everything it comes in contact with and yet we are to believe that it was actually a benevolent creature, willing to live peacefully in the voids between time? If that is the case, why was it trapped in the crystal and why did it manifest as a glow-in-the-dark chicken? Something more humanoid and forced to do the Master's bidding because of the medallion would have made so much more sense in the overall context of the story.

From a production standpoint, this isn't a bad story. There was some nice location footage and enough background detail to make it appear that it wasn't completely on a stage. I didn't even mind the bowls used to decorate the TARDIS, though that was a touch jarring when first observed. The overall direction was a bit pedestrian as a few shots seemed badly framed and others did nothing to catch the eye.

The other point that was jarring to me were the moments of silliness that kept cropping up throughout the story. I've already mentioned Kronos but even beyond that there were wild swings in mood. You open the story with this dream the Doctor has of doom and destruction and yet later Bessie zooms off like Benny Hill or the Munsters. The Master poses a dire threat but the Doctor builds a device to thwart him out of junk and makes a joke about tea being the missing ingredient. The Brigadier and his men are frozen in time but we'll make a joke about Benton being turned into a baby. Jo is threatened by a creature yet the Doctor turns into a bullfighter and defeats the monster in the same manner as Bugs Bunny when he faced off against a bull. It's all these little things peppered in where you can't decide if this is supposed to be a dramatic, tension-filled story or a comedy romp. It creates emotional whiplash and satisfies neither side.

Overall, I'm not going to say that this is bad but neither is it particularly good. There are good moments and even with the obvious padding, the success of the Master and the rapport between him and the Doctor draw you in. I just wish this story could have decided what it wanted to be. Once that is down, the rest of it would have popped into place with greater ease. It's not the horrible dreck that I've heard some folks try to make it out to be, but neither is it something I would gravitate towards. I certainly would not select it as something to introduce a newbie to the Third Doctor era as their confusion would probably only irritate them beyond what a regular fan would take.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5