Doctor Who (TV Series) The Time Monster: Episode Six (1972) User Reviews

It's a decent last episode. No more Tomtit.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 27 October 2019]

The Doctor and Jo are thrown in to face The Minotaur.

It's been an ok story up until now, it's not been an absorbing watch, but it's had a few points of interest, the best being the appearance of Ingrid Pitt, she's fierce. Such a shame she only appeared in two episodes, she was a cut above.

There's a really nice scene where The Doctor recounts his childhood, and the tale of the hermit, it's a lovely moment.

The sets look really nice, but sadly they're the cursed wobbly sets. The Minotaur isn't the greatest in appearance, and he's... to be frank an absolute moron, as threatening as a potato. Nice costumes, Katy Manning looks amazing. Unfortunately we have more Kronos, although I assume they intentionally showed less of him, the camera work was better then in earlier episodes.

It was better then I remembered, better paced then I remembered. 6/10

Time Muddle

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 7/10 · 10 October 2014]

Review of all 6 episodes:

This 6 part story can be roughly described as having a largely unimpressive opening 4 parts (including a poor 3rd part) and a more decent final 2 parts. The overall story is a mess with some very poorly thought through ideas in a jumble with only the final 2 episodes reaching more of a quality you would expect from the average Doctor Who adventure. Episode 3 of this story is among the worst Doctor Who episodes yet there are some decent, fun aspects throughout the story, particularly in episodes 5 and 6 to thankfully stop the whole thing from being a disaster.

The story has The Master, well played as usual by Roger Delgado, using a special crystal to try to contact and control an immensely powerful being from 'outside time'. This being, Kronos, is the basis of the mythical Greek God and is the most dangerous example of a 'time eater' (which in 2 different revised forms later appear in audio adventures and the 2005 story 'Father's Day). He wishes to use Kronos' powers to control the universe but the dangers are that Kronos could destroy the known universe entirely. The Doctor tries to stop him in contemporary Britain with UNIT but also following The Master to the ancient civilization on Atlantis.

The script and story are muddled and silly until finally reaching a greater quality in episodes 5 and 6. There are some good aspects in episodes 1 and 2 but they are silly in some ways. The Doctor's precognitive dream being one strange and inexplicable plot point but also racing along in Bessie, quoting of Venusian measurements and clumsy plot setup. It is below the standard of dialogue and story you expect from Doctor Who but is saved by some decent touches mostly thanks to The Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Benton and The Master all being acted enjoyably by the great regular cast.

Things get worse though in episode 3 which is often embarrassing in its nonsensical dialogue and ridiculous ideas such as the Doctor's home made contraption and the Master bringing attacks by knights on horseback and cannonfire. The production is also below par with the manifestation of Kronos not great. It is one of the weakest episodes of Doctor Who with its fun/camp qualities being outweighed by badly thought through ideas and disappointing scripting.

Episode 4 is not as bad but is also below par by the high standards of the show. Once things settle down in Atlantis with great guest characters Galleia and Dalios beautifully played by Ingrid Pitt and George Cormack the story finally manages to get more to a quality level you would expect and there is an enjoyable final third to the adventure. The Minotaur idea and its attack scene is not good but it looks pretty OK for the day and is played by Darth Vader actor Dave Prowse before he became known in Star Wars so that is kind of fun.

Taken as a whole this is clearly the weakest Pertwee era story but has quite a bit of fun along the way with some decent stuff that partly counteracts the sillier bits.

My ratings: Part 1 - 6.5/10, Part 2 - 6/10, Part 3 - 3.5/10, Part 4 - 6/10, Part 5 - 7.5/10, Part 6 - 7/10. Overall - 6.08/10.

Following on from another disappointing story The Mutants this season got dragged down after a good start. The normally consistent quality of the Pertwee era was let down with these 2 stories, particularly The Time Monster. Therefore Season 9 stands as the lowest Pertwee season for me but is still a mid table season thanks to the strong first 3 stories.

My Season 9 Average Rating: 8.21/10.

S9: The Time Monster: Messy, unengaging, uneven – a disappointing ending to the season of two halves (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 22 November 2014]

The Doctor has a vision of the Master destroying the world but unfortunately the powers that be at UNIT are not moved by this dream. Instead they head off to see a new device that is experimenting with moving matter through time – a device built by Professor Thascalos, who despite nobody ever seeing him, nobody for a minute thinks it might be the Master. Although his hovercraft is nowhere to be seen, Thascalos is indeed the Master and soon enough his plot is clear (well, reasonably so) as he aims to use a crystal to gain access to an even larger version in Atlanta, so that he can summoned a big white bird, who is also a time-devouring god called Kronos.

It is indeed an odd way to bow out the season – by finishing with the weakest serial of the lot, having delivered a great one at great expense in the middle of the run. This serial starts out with the Master experimenting with a time device, which he seeks to summon and control a god to do his bidding. Despite the fact that the Doctor, Jo and all of UNIT are all running around the same Stately Home, nobody can see to stop the Master and soon he is slowing time, summoning people from Atlantis and trying to control what appears to be some sort of deity that a seagull may worship. After this we pop briefly to Atlantis just for long enough to destroy it, then the Doctor and Master kill each other but are granted their lives back by the seagull god (who is much better looking when viewed in context). And of course, as usual, nobody keeps an eye on the Master and he shows his massive intellect by pushing Jo in the back and legging it into his own TARDIS and off he goes.

With the previous serial, I had felt that there was a lot of good ideas going on, but that they just didn't come together. With The Time Monster, the feeling is only half the same – in that the ideas didn't come together, but in this case none of them seem to be good ideas in the first place. The pot is messy to the point of being unnecessarily complex, and it felt that maybe aspects of 2 or 3 other shorter stories had been forced together and the had other bad ideas sprinkled on top of them. The resulting mess is surprisingly boring and hard to care about. It doesn't help that the smaller details and characters are also bad – whether it be a hammy Atlantian priest, a scientist fed up being pushed around by men, a cheeky cockney lab assistant or indeed the aforementioned seagull god.

The main cast do their normal level of work, and I enjoyed Pertwee, Manning and Delgado. Courtney and Levene return, but outside of this main group mostly people are poor. The choice of location makes the first 4 episodes feel like everything is happening within a 2-minute walk of everything else, which makes the struggle difficult to buy. The move to Atlantis feels like a couple of very cheap sets thrown up in a few minutes and it gives it a low-rent feel that doesn't sit well with the conclusion to the season. Generally it is a sinking feeling to bring the ninth season to a close; the first two serials were pretty good, with the third being very enjoyable, only for these final two to come over as successive steps down. Hopefully the tenth season will see the show return shake this serial off and try to emulate what worked best from this season of two halves.