The Time Monster Episode Five

The one where the Doctor revisits Atlantis...

The Doctor, last seen thrown out into the time vortex by Kronos at the Master's behest, tries to contact the hopeless Jo using the TARDIS's telepathic circuits. We hear his voice, but also the whispered babblings of his subconscious thoughts, and I must say that whispering Pertwee is just a little bit creepy! There's also a female voice in there somewhere (possibly saying something about singing a song?), which makes me wonder if that is a memory of the Doctor's mother, or Susan? More radical thinkers might suggest that if they are his own subconscious thoughts, that the voice is the Doctor's - a female Doctor's!

The two Time Lords both head for Atlantis, a mythical land the Doctor has visited before, of course. The events of The Underwater Menace are neither mentioned or respected in The Time Monster though, which is perhaps just as well as the Atlantis of the earlier adventure was nowhere near as well-realised as it is by designer Tim Gleeson here.

Gleeson's Atlantis is magnificent, even if little else in The Time Monster is. You can tell he's put his heart and soul into the main amphitheatre set in particular, with its columns and raised stages, and Barbara Lane's costuming is sumptuous too. It's the first time the Pertwee era has attempted an historical setting, and the first opportunity for the programme's design team to show off their skills in this way since the 1960s. Neither must we ignore Joan Barrett's elegant make-up. Barrett is actually one of the unsung stars of this story, when you think about her impressive aged make-up for Ian Collier too.

Atlantis is also well-populated with plenty of extras (my heart sank a little when Queen Galleia was carried on by four burly black men - the only black men on set were cast as mute slaves). George Cormack is great as King Dalios, a man with wisdom and acuity. He's the second fruity old man from Atlantis we've met, but Cormack has much more presence and fun with the role than Donald Eccles as Krasis. Cormack injects a knowingness and a Shakespearean grandiosity into his performance, despite looking like an effete Dumbledore.

I love the way Dalios refuses to take any nonsense from the Master, who announces himself as an emissary of the gods. "Indeed?" replies a dubious Dalios. "Any god in particular?" Later, when talking with the Master, Dalios gives him short shrift, having seen right through his ruse ("What is the latest gossip from Mount Olympus, do tell me") and defying the Time Lord's attempt to hypnotise him.

Then there's Dalios's queen, the stunning Galleia, played by Ingrid Pitt. Casting Pitt was a major coup for Doctor Who in 1972 (less so in 1984, when she returned to the show). Pitt was at this time a major film star, known to British audiences for her iconic roles in horror films such as The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula, and she was about to start filming another legendary British horror film, The Wicker Man. Ingrid Pitt looks simply stunning here, perhaps the most beautiful any woman has ever looked in Doctor Who. Lane's gorgeous blue dress with plunging neckline leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and Pitt's cleavage steals almost every scene she's in (you can see a good few of the male actors enjoying the view too, particularly Roger Delgado!).

There's plenty to enjoy for fans of the male form too, as Atlantis is sprinkled with bare-chested fellas, the most handsome of which is undoubtedly Miseus, played by Michael Walker (who'd previously appeared all dashing and handsome as a radar operator in The Claws of Axos). As for Aidan Murphy as Hippias, his make-up looks more Egyptian than Atlantean (like I'm an expert!) and makes him look like the sixth member of Girls Aloud.

Once Jo Jo Grant changes into her Atlantean gear, she too looks stunning, although I'm not sure where all that hair of hers comes from! It's nice for her to get a young girl of similar age to play against too, in Susan Penhaligon's Lakis. It's hard to think of any other story in which Jo gets to relate to someone of her own age and gender. She's usually paired up with men who take a shine to her (and more often than not, she to them!).

The episode focuses very much on the people of Atlantis, with the Doctor taking a back seat (Pertwee's barely in it) while the Master tries to squeeze his way into Galleia's affections. He promises her power, and a resurrected Atlantis, in return for the crystal of Kronos, but little does he know that the crystal is guarded by a beast which is half-man, half-bull - the Minotaur of legend! Of course, the Doctor's encountered the Minotaur before too, although that was an imaginary one, whereas this one is very real indeed. Dalios reveals that the man who became the Minotaur was once his friend, a councillor and athlete, who craved the sporting prowess and physical power of the bull. So Kronos granted it to him, but with the head of a bull too, and he has been jealously guarding the crystal for 500 years.

The origin of the Minotaur in Doctor Who's Atlantean mythology is quite different to that of Greek mythology, and it's perhaps just as well. It's much easier and family-friendly to say the gods made the Minotaur that way, rather than say it was the result of a sexual liaison between a real bull and a woman called Pasiphae, who had been made to fall in love with the bull by Poseidon and hid inside a hollow wooden cow so that she could mate with it!

The cliffhanger sees Jo grabbed by Krasis and pushed from videotape onto film and into the Minotaur's lair. We zoom in on Jo's frightened face as the sound of an angry bull-like creature bellows in the background. We don't see the Minotaur, we don't even see its shadow or silhouette, which strikes me as a rather lame and half-hearted way to end the episode.

First broadcast: June 17th, 1972

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Tim Gleeson's grand Atlantean sets marry beautifully with Barbara Lane's sumptuous costumes and Joan Barrett's glamorous make-up.
The Bad: Aidan Murphy is less than impressive as shouty Hippias.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 20
Neck-rub tally: 9

NEXT TIME: Episode Six...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Six

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-time-monster.html

The Time Monster is available on BBC DVD as part of the Myths and Legends box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Legends-Monster-Underworld/dp/B002SZQC98