Time-Flight Part Four

The one where Tegan's left behind...

So that's that, then. The Master has the power of the Xeraphin at the heart of his TARDIS, so the Doctor simply gives up. He admits that the Master has finally defeated him, and prepares to shrug off all responsibility, claiming nothing can be done. It's the most pathetic and defeatist this Doctor has been, but made me see one of Time-Flight's biggest flaws (there are so many that it's hard to tell them apart sometimes). The fact is the Doctor is pretty useless in this story. He doesn't do very much at all. He seems almost completely superfluous.

Superfluity is a common complaint in this story as a whole. Keith Drinkel's Scobie spends much of his time looking and watching other people do things; Nyssa and Tegan are pretty ineffectual throughout, as is the Doctor; the Xeraphin appear in part 3, have an argument, then completely disappear for the rest of the story. Even the presence of the Master seems pointless. His role could have been any old bad guy, there's no good reason for it to be the Master. It might as well have been a real Arabian conjurer trapped in time for all that Anthony Ainley brings to the story. The best thing about the Master being in Time-Flight is the part 2 cliffhanger twist, after which he might as well be Scaroth or Monarch or the Terileptil android!

Time-Flight Part Three

The one where Professor Hayter becomes a Plasmaton...

My hope that things would improve now that the Master's on the scene seemed to be misplaced. For most of this episode the Master is trotting in and out of the Doctor's TARDIS with various bits of circuitry, achieving very little but chuckling an awful lot. Stapley and Bilton's attempts to derail the Master's plans are shockingly inept too. In fact, there's very little about the aircrew that impresses me. The actors are passable at best, with Michael Cashman and Judith Byfield particularly poor ("Nyssa and Tegan dead?"), and Richard Easton and Keith Drinkel struggling to make anything they say or do believable. Drinkel's delivery of the line "Oh no..." when the Master steals the TARDIS is truly awful.

I mean, this whole thing is awful. What's going on, and why? We learn that the Master is stranded in prehistory and managed to harness the psychic powers of the mysterious intelligence he found in the Jurassic to reach forward in time, accidentally abducting Concorde. We later learn that the entity, "an immeasurable intelligence at the centre of a psychic vortex", came to Earth in search of a new home after its planet Xeriphas was destroyed in the Vardon-Kosnax War. The Xeraphin were poisoned by radiation, and so merged into one gestalt being, an entire race absorbed into one bioplasmic body.

Time-Flight Part Two

The one where Kalid's true identity is revealed...

Is Time-Flight the story with the very worst merchandise design history of all? I remember when the Time-Flight/ Arc of Infinity DVD box set came out how appalling the sleeve designs were (by Dan Budden). On the Time-Flight cover, Nyssa looks like she's just been dug up, and the cut-and-paste techniques used were worthy of an eight-year-old with Gloy glue and rounded scissors. The heart of the DVD sleeve's "design" is a close-up of a Concorde cockpit. The VHS cover was better, but you can tell that Budden simply glanced at that and tried to copy it (and failed). The bluray disc opted for a shot of Kalid and a plasma-poo, while the box set's booklet tries to make a play on the Fairy liquid bubbles. The Target book had one of those rubbish photographic covers, showing the Doctor smiling in front of Concorde. At least someone was happy.

Anyway, back to the story. It's too easy to get distracted from it because there's so little on offer. We rejoin our heroes as the Plasmatons (for that is what they are) encase the Doctor in soapy bubbles, and while he's in there he hears a spooky voice ask him for help. Despite the fact he was encased while standing, he re-emerges from the bubbles lying down. Not sure why.

Time-Flight Part One

The one where Concorde flies back in time...

Ah, good. How clever that this next story should be written by the man who directed Earthshock. That means there should be a nice transitional through-line dealing with Adric's tragic death and the impact it has on the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa. Peter Grimwade was an excellent director, so should have a firm and realistic grasp of what's possible on a television budget.

Ha ha! I know, I'm being facetious, but that is what you'd think if going into all this with no foreknowledge. One of Doctor Who's companions has just died, and this sort of thing virtually never happens, so you'd think it would be dealt with in a mature, reflective and sensitive way. But no, the best we get is a half-hearted scene trying to wrap up everybody's "feelings" as quickly as possible so that the new story can get underway.

Earthshock Part Four

The one where Adric dies...

Peter Grimwade was such a good director. Maybe he wasn't so great with his cast (according to reports from actors), but he knew how to shoot a scene, or set up a shot, to get the best visual impact. It feels like there are lots of Cybermen in Earthshock thanks to his clever camera angles and how he blocks out the scenes. You have Cybermen in the background and foreground, you have others moving past and through scenes, giving the impression of number and might. The Cybermen haven't seemed this numerous since the Troughton era.

Another triumph of this story is Malcolm Clarke's powerful incidental score. He has a beautifully weird underscore, a kind of glassy soundscape which reminds me very much of Jacques Lasry and Francois Baschet's Les Structures Sonores, used as library music in 1965's The Web Planet. Clarke also uses squelchy synths when the Cybermen are on the move, and all of this combined makes the episode feel tense and dangerous. And writer Eric Saward's narrative compounds this danger: the viewer's never quite sure what's going to happen next.

Earthshock Part Three

The one where the Cybermen massacre the freighter's crew...

Bernard Lloyd-Jones's set design for the freighter bridge is really impressive. It's big and chunky, with plenty of space for the characters to move around in, and the dressing of the control panels is satisfyingly busy and realistic. Lots of switches, buttons and dials for the actors to play with. It looks lived in, worked in, used.

Captain Briggs continues to have a chip on her shoulder when it comes to Ringway, and perhaps men in particular. She really does not like Ringway, mocking the way he says "apprehended" instead of "caught" (a bit much coming from Eric Saward, the prince of purple prose), and later on she's very reluctant to take anything the Doctor or Adric say seriously. She will listen to her female first officer though.

Earthshock Part Two

The one where we meet a space freighter captain played by Beryl Reid...

Pretty much every time the Cybermen appeared, they had a different look. This is their seventh Doctor Who story, and their seventh different look. It works in the sense the Cybermen would always be trying to update and upgrade themselves, and their latest look brings the tin soldiers straight into the 1980s with their silver flight suits and power-fists. It's a chunkier, more durable design which would stand the Cybermen in good stead for the rest of the classic series. I particularly like the transparent mouthpiece, through which we can see a silvered human jaw speaking within. This reminds us that we're dealing with cybernetic humans, part-man and part-machine. These are the least robotic Cybermen since their debut in The Tenth Planet.

Their voices are different too, much less robotic than in the 1960s when sometimes their modulated dialogue was hard to make out. In 1975's Revenge of the Cybermen, actor Christopher Robbie debuted the deep, resonant, masculine voice, but here David Banks adds more intonation, and essentially makes the Cyberleader more emotional in his speech patterns. I like this too, I think it makes sense to demonstrate a balance between the human and the cybernetic elements of these monsters. It's a human-like voice, but one almost - but not quite - consumed by the cold, calculated logic of cybernetic conversion.

Earthshock Part One

The one where an old enemy makes a surprise return...

The year is 2526, but some things don't change. They still have quarries in the 26th century, and this is where we find Lieutenant Scott and his band of refreshingly mixed-sex troopers as they investigate a case of missing palaeontologists (and geologists). A band of ologists searching for fossils in a newly discovered cave system were attacked, and presumably killed, with just one - Professor Kyle - escaping to tell the tale. Scott remains suspicious.

There's almost five minutes spent with these guest characters, and it's directed with urgency and pace by Peter Grimwade, one of Doctor Who's best in years. It's particularly pleasing to see so many female actors in the military roles, including Suzi Arden's Snyder, Anne Clements' Baines, and Scott's deputy, Ann Holloway's Sergeant Mitchell. This is the 26th century after all, and it's great to see some forward-thinking and equality in the casting (in fact, eight of this story's 18 credited actors are female, which is pretty marvellous).