The Time Monster (TV story)

That was the daisest daisy I'd ever seen...The Doctor

The Time Monster was the fifth and final story of Season 9. It marked the return of the Master after an absence of a year.

Synopsis

The Master, in the guise of Professor Thascalos, has constructed at the Newton Institute in Wootton a device known as TOMTIT - Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time - with which to gain control over Kronos, a creature from outside time. The creature is summoned but the effect proves uncontrollable.

Plot

The Doctor has a foreshadowing dream in which he sees the Master, a trident-shaped crystal, and images of ancient Atlantean culture.

The Master, adopting the alias of Professor Thascalos, uses his cover to tap into the resources of the Newton Research Unit at Cambridge University to conduct time experiments. His TOMTIT (Transmission of Matter through Interstitial Time) experiment, assisted by Ruth Ingram and Stuart Hyde, is focused around transmitting matter by breaking it down into light waves. Having hypnotized Dr Percival, the Director of the Institute, into doing his bidding, the Master’s cover is maintained. He is particularly interested in examining a trident-shaped crystal in his possession, which he uses to power the TOMTIT device, attempting to summon an entity called Kronos.

The Doctor and Jo Grant visit the Institute following a signal from a time-field detector. He finds time moving slowly as the TOMTIT experiments disrupt the normal flow while Hyde, who is caught in the field of the experiment, ages to more than eighty years. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who also witnessed the TOMTIT experiment, has the project evacuated and begins to hunt for the Master, whose cover has now been blown. The Doctor explains to Ruth and Jo that Kronos is a powerful Chronovore, a creature from outside time that feeds on time itself, who was once attracted from the vortex to ancient Atlantis using a crystal trident larger than the one used by the Master. That one remains in Atlantis. The Doctor suspects capturing the Chronovore is the Master’s aim too, forecasting such a step to be a danger to the entire created universe.

Meanwhile Krasis, Atlantean High Priest of Kronos, is transported through interstitial time by the Master to the present. The Master seizes the Seal of Kronos from the priest and uses it to summon the chronovore. A white, feathered, bird-like figure, Kronos exudes power and devours Percival without compunction. It is contained briefly by the Master, but breaks free and Krasis surmises this is because the Master only has the smaller fragment of the original crystal.

The Doctor and his allies have been alerted by the actions of the Master and he builds a time flow analogue to interrupt his rival’s experiments. The two enemies attempt to outwit each other, often with strange consequences: historical characters (and a V2 rocket) are transported into the present; Stuart Hyde is restored to youth, though Sergeant Benton is reverted to a baby when he is caught in TOMTIT’s flow; and several UNIT troops, led by the Brigadier, are frozen in a time bubble. The two Time Lords even pit their TARDISes against one another, and the Doctor is ejected into the vortex, but survives thanks to Jo and his TARDIS.

In ancient Atlantis the aged and wise King Dalios is troubled by the disappearance of Krasis and the threat to the true crystal of Kronos, which is guarded by the Minotaur at the heart of a maze. The Master has traveled to Atlantis in search of the true crystal and soon inveigles himself at the Atlantean court, wooing the vain and gullible Queen Galleia and embroiling her in plots and schemes. Dalios warns of the dangers of the time when Kronos served Atlantis, but his wife is not moved by his pleas or his suspicions of the Master, whom he knows not to be an emissary of the gods. When the Doctor and Jo arrive, the old King – far older than he looks, since Kronos gave him the power of longevity – forms a bond of trust with the Doctor. The Doctor then faces the Minotaur to rescue Jo, duped into the maze by Krasis, and the creature is destroyed. The crystal is now produced from the maze – but the Master’s plotting with Galleia has borne fruit and he has usurped the throne, with Dalios deposed and arrested. Jo and the Doctor are soon detained too, and witness Dalios' sad death after mistreatment and torture.

When the Council of Atlantis meets, Galleia's faith in the Master is broken when the Doctor informs her of Dalios' death. Krasis, however, is still in his thrall and uses the great crystal to summon Kronos to Atlantis once more. In the resulting melee the Master flees in his TARDIS with Jo Grant in tow. The Doctor heads off in his TARDIS in pursuit while Kronos destroys the city and people of Atlantis.

In the Vortex, the Doctor threatens their mutual destruction by causing a Time Ram by which both TARDISes would occupy the same space/time co-ordinates. The Master, knowing the Doctor could never cause Jo's death, calls his bluff. Jo, however, has no such hesitation, and initiates the Time Ram. Kronos is set free and, thankful for this action, saves the Doctor and Jo and returns them to their TARDIS. Kronos intends to subject the Master to endless torment for his imprisonment, and the Master begs for mercy. The Doctor appeals successfully for the Master's life, who then flees in his own TARDIS. The Doctor and Jo return to the Institute as Ingram and Hyde operate the TOMTIT machine one last time, thereby returning the UNIT men to normality, albeit leaving Benton in a nappy. The machine then overloads, its time experiments at an end.

Cast

The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
Jo Grant - Katy Manning
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
Sergeant Benton - John Levene
Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
The Master - Roger Delgado
Dr. Ruth Ingram - Wanda Moore
Stuart Hyde - Ian Collier
Dr. Percival - John Wyse
Dr. Cook - Neville Barber
Proctor - Barry Ashton
Window Cleaner - Terry Walsh
Krasis - Donald Eccles
Hippias - Aidan Murphy
Neophite - Keith Dalton
UNIT Sergeant - Simon Legree
Kronos - Marc Boyle
Dalios - George Cormack
Knight - Greg Powell
Roundhead Officer - Dave Carter
Farmworker - George Lee
Galleia - Ingrid Pitt
Crito - Derek Murcott
Lakis - Susan Penhaligon
Miseus - Michael Walker
Guard - Melville Jones
Minotaur - Dave Prowse
Face of Kronos - Ingrid Bower

Crew

References

The TOMTIT machine works with assistance from the Master.
The Doctor has built a time sensor which detects disturbances in the time field.
The Master uses his TARDIS to Time Ram the Doctor's.
A Chronovore spares the Master.
The Doctor gets ejected into the time vortex and speaks to Jo through the TARDIS telepathic circuits.
This is one of the stories referencing the destruction of Atlantis.
The Seventh Enabling Act allows the Brigadier to take over from government forces.
The Doctor makes a Time flow analogue from a Moroccan burgundy bottle, spoons, forks, corks, keyrings, tea leaves and a mug.
The Doctor talks to Jo (while they're tied up) about his home; "When I was a little boy, we used to live in a house that was perched halfway up the top of a mountain. Behind our house, there sat under a tree an old man. A hermit, a monk. He'd lived under this tree for half his lifetime, so they said, and had learned the secret of life. So, when my black day came, I went and asked him to help me.'" The hermit appears on screen in DW: Planet of the Spiders.
Kronos knows of the Doctor.

Story Notes

This is the only appearance of the "washing up bowl" interior for the TARDIS (designed by Tim Gleeson).
Dave Prowse, later to play (but not voice) the masked Darth Vader in the Star Wars films, features in an equally incognito role as the Minotaur.

Ratings

Episode 1 - 7.6 million viewers
Episode 2 - 7.4 million viewers
Episode 3 - 8.1 million viewers
Episode 4 - 7.6 million viewers
Episode 5 - 6.0 million viewers
Episode 6 - 7.6 million viewers

Myths

Well-known actress Susan Penhaligon, making an early television appearance as Galleia's handmaiden Lakis, was originally to have been credited as Virginia Mull. (Virginia Mull was a different actress who had a small uncredited walk-on role as a serving girl in the Atlantis scenes of this story. Susan Penhaligon, who was a late replacement for actress Ann Michelle, was always to have been credited under her own name.)
The Master's alias is 'Thascales'. (The majority of printed and online episode guides say this. Unfortunately, (a) 'Thascales' isn't the Greek for 'Master', and (b) no-one in the story says 'Thascales'. They all say 'Thascalos', which is the Greek for 'Master'. The error first appears in the second edition of Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke's The Making of Doctor Who, and presumably has been taken from there by all subsequent episode guides, without checking against the broadcast episodes. Terrance Dicks, however, has the correct spelling in the novelization.)

Filming Locations

Swallowfield Park, Swallowfield, Berkshire
Stratfield Saye Park, Stratfield Saye, Hampshire
Old Church Farm (road), Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
Park Lane, Fair Cross, Berkshire
School Lane, Heckfield Heath/Riseley, Hampshire
Ealing Television Film Studios, Ealing Green, Ealing
BBC Television Centre (Studio 3 & 4), Shepherd's Bush, London

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

In episode one, the interior of the police box prop is visible.
The V1 is on black and white film.
Since the V1 is moved forward through time while in mid-air, so that it explodes in the programme's present, how can it be that the local remembers it having fallen in the past?
The Doctor's supposedly backwards dialogue when played backwards is still gibberish.

Continuity

PDA: The Quantum Archangel is a sequel to this story.
Another Chronovore appears in NA: No Future.
This features (another) explanation of how Atlantis was destroyed; DW: The Underwater Menace and DW: The Dæmons also featured explanations of this.
The Doctor goes for another 'dip' in the time vortex in DW/WC: Shada and BFA: Seasons of Fear.
The Doctor builds a similar device to his time sensor in DW: Blink.