More like Timegash amiright?
I hadn’t seen Timelash since UK Gold broadcast it at some point in the 1990s. I recall being intrigued by its initial premise, then disappointed and finally bored and irritated. But that was teenage me, perhaps I was being unfair?
Reader, I wasn’t.
At its heart, Glen McCoy’s script wants to be a traditional Doctor Who story which means that, much to our relief, it possesses little of the bitterness and gratuitous violence that dogged this era. However, it still exhibits all that is wrong with mid 80s Who in that it is overburdened with influences and fan service, poorly defined and irredeemably naff in terms of production values and performances.
It’s also yet another adventure in which Peri (Nicola Bryant) gets a very poor hand indeed, spending most of the story separated from the Doctor and tied up underground where she is terrorised by a monster. When she does finally resurface, it’s to face yet another unsuitable suitor who wants to mate with her. Look, we get it, Nicola Bryant is utterly gorgeous but just once could she have a story where she doesn’t have to fend off sexual predators?
Mind you, even in the company of the Doctor, Peri continues to get short shrift with an opening sequence dogged by the bickering that routinely played out between the pair and which someone in the production clearly thought amusing, entertaining or just a good idea, but actually has more than a whiff of an abusive relationship about it. Baker does his best to play up the eccentricity of his hectoring, but Bryant plays the cowed demeanour too well. It’s really anyone’s guess why she doesn’t leap at the opportunity of him returning her to 1985 America as he suggests really…unless Harvey Weinstein is hanging around waiting for her that is. Knowing Peri’s luck that would not be inconceivable.
The central premise of Timelash is essentially a sequel to an untelevised adventure featuring the Third Doctor, Jo Grant and one other (The Brigadier, Mike Yates or Benton accompanied them perhaps?) You see, the Doctor has been to the planet Karfel before, presumably when they were all much nicer as they even went to the trouble of painting a mural featuring him. However, we seem to be in some weirdly passive aggressive regime full of corrupt ministers and broad-shouldered, towering blue-faced and blonde haired android heavies who speak with an irritating sing-song voice and walk like they’re doing that 80s robot dance. More, the planet had developed a Year Zero approach, with all talk of the Doctor now banished, meaning that the nice mural has been decorated over, to be revealed later in the story. The Karfelons are at war with the Bandrills and are seemingly ruled over (via video link) by the Borad, a kindly looking old man who proves to be anything but benevolent, condemning those he deems rebels and traitors to the titular Timelash; a time corridor that transports the unfortunates to an unknown point in time and space, or indeed an unknown fate. Essentially it’s just a somewhat triangular box with a tinsel curtain, but our toga and 80s snoody-scarf-wearing Karfelons are giving it the full on RSC treatment to let us know that this prop may look crap, but it remains A Very Bad Thing. One of them by the way is a very young Steven Mackintosh (though to be fair, Mackintosh still looks very youthful even now) but he’s unfortunately the first through the Timelash and plays no further part in the story. Boo!
Over the course of the story, which sees the Doctor blackmailed by Blake’s 7‘s Paul Darrow (who seems to be giving us his Richard the Third) into chasing after one VIP Karfelon known as Vena who has passed through the Timelash. The Doctor tracks her down to 1880s Earth where she has materialised inside the cottage of a young gent known as Herbert whose identity will be rev—-Look, he’s HG Wells OK? You know that. I know that. Let’s not pretend that this is a spoiler. I tell you what he really is, he’s the most deeply irritating wet fart to appear in the series since Adric and we’re lumbered with him playing at being a companion because either McCoy clearly wasn’t interested in Peri or JNT/Eric Saward insisted she get tied up ‘for the dads’, I don’t know. Anyway, the Doctor collects Vena, who has an amulet that can kill the Borad, and sets off for Karfel once more, with Herbert stowing away on board the Tardis to join in the ‘fun’. On arrival, the Doctor aligns himself with the rebels and discovers that the Borad is actually a puppet. Kind of like The Wizard of Oz in reverse, the kindly harmless looking old duffer is merely an android front for a disfigured scientist who, following a botched experiment, has become half humanoid/half fish. Or Morlox to be precise, because yes Herbert is fucking HG Wells OK?
The Borad’s plan is to wipe all humanoid life from the planet Karfel so that he and his fellow Morlox can reign supreme and not feel shit about how they look. To further their existence, the Borad plans to marry Peri. Course he fucking does, because even a man who is half fishfinger likes big tits it seems. Meanwhile the Bandrills, pissed off at the Karfelons, have fired a missile at the planet because that’s exactly what this mess of a story needed right now, an 80s cold war analogy. The Doctor tricks the Borad, who perishes when his death ray reflects off Vena’s amulet and then heads out to try and stop the missile in what appears to be a suicide mission.
By this point, McCoy’s screenplay was clearly under-running because not only do we get a lengthy scene in which the Doctor must persuade the newly-rescued Peri to leave the Tardis because his plan means almost certain death, it’s then immediately followed by him doing exactly the same argument with Herbert who has, once again, sneaked onboard. Perhaps the Doctor isn’t much of a fan of HG Wells (too far-fetched for his tastes?) because he caves in rather easily at the prospect of allowing Herbert to join him in an heroic death. The Doctor places his Tardis in front of the approaching missile, thereby saving the planet but throwing away both his and Herbert’s life in the process and leaving Peri stranded. Now obviously that’s not the end and the Doctor does return, which – along with an explanation as to how he cheated certain death – should be the end of the adventure. But no, McCoy’s script is still under-running it seems, and rather than explain how the Doctor and Herbert are still alive – which is brushed away with “I’ll explain sometime”: translation, McCoy couldn’t come up with anything – he decides to bring another character back from the dead; the Borad. Apparently, the creature the Doctor saw off earlier was merely a clone. Yeah right. So now let’s fill up the remaining five minutes with a tacked-on ending that is not only ridiculous, it puts Peri in peril once more.
Faced with the Borad taking Peri hostage and determined to make her his bride (cos, tits) the Doctor must think fast. He makes a deal with the Borad; if he shows his disfigured face to Peri and she doesn’t scream then, he can marry her. Presumably the Doctor will walk her up the aisle and give her away, with Vena as bridesmaid and Herbert as page boy. Though I bet he’d want to be bridesmaid too because, as we have seen, he seemingly wants to geg in on everything that someone else is doing. HG Wells has some series FOMO. Naturally the Borad is concerned about this plan and even suggests taking Peri’s eyes if she finds him ugly. Even Peri, in her present predicament, manages to point out that this is a strange proposal. Now forgive me, but I’m struggling with McCoy’s logic here. It’s almost as if he’s trying to say that it would be OK to marry a genocidal abuser if he was attractive! Anyway, the Borad refuses to play dice, so the Doctor has to smash up his own mural to reveal a mirror that was conveniently placed behind it (why? And how does the Doctor know that it’s there? Again, no explanation). Now Peri sees the Borad and does what any Classic Who companion is renowned for and screams the place down. The Borad loosens his grip and the Doctor pushes him into the Timelash. His destination being the rural retreat that Herbert was residing in, which just so happens to be on Loch Ness. Yes, the Borad is the Loch Ness Monster. For a story that seems to want to pay fan service to the past, it’s ignoring the fact that Terror of the Zygons had already given us Nessie, buy hey ho. Herbert is revealed to be HG Wells and the Doctor and Peri depart meaning this tiresome bollocks is at an end. Honestly it’s like someone tried to make Dune on the set of Every Second Counts.
I can’t tell you how many times I have written the Board rather than the Borad during the course of this review.
The Penny University 