By Roy Mathur, on 2025-03-28, at 23:41:52 to 00:29:29 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
It's been a very tiring week, I'm physically wrecked.
I awoke a few hours ago from a nightmare about feeling excruciating intruder syndrome on the estate of some gothy 60s rockstar combo of Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore, but I'm back and on a roll... just not fully rock'n'roll.
Notable Cast: Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker, Peri Brown: Nicola Bryant, Tekker: Paul Darrow (Doctor Who and the Silurians, Blake's 7, Hammer House of Horror: Guardian of the Abyss pod 548)
Director: Pennant Roberts (Doomwatch, Doctor Who (6 stories), Survivors, Blake's 7)
Writer: Glen McCoy
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush 1984--1985
Broadcast: Story 141, season 22, serial 5, following Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (571), 2 x c. 45 min, 9--16 Mar 1985
Media: Target novelization by Glen McCoy 1985, VHS 1998, DVD 2007, Blu-ray 2022, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive's poppy earworm is still the UK no. 1 single.
Guardian headline: Miners to heal rift with Labour: Kinnock supports struggle to save 'victimised' strikers
The Doctor consults a star chart and argues with Peri about where to go on holiday, when a time corridor (Kontron) appears. The Doctor tries to avoid it by fiddling with wires in a roundel.
On Karfel, during the disposal of rebels through the Timelash into a random time and place, a struggle ensues. Vena, the daughter of the senior, though now deposed, politician (under their leader, the Borad), accidentally falls into the Timelash carrying with her the seal of office.
The Doctor and Peri harness (lash... ha ha) themselves to the console to ride out the turbulence, enter a large room on Karfel through the Timelash. The Karfelons greet their old friend. Tekker, the Borad's new man, holds Peri hostage and compels the Doctor to retrieve the amulet using his Tardis. The Doctor finds Vena in the care of Herbert on retreat in Scotland and returns with them to Karfel. The rebels rescue Peri from being eaten by a dragon-like Morlox. The Doctor, Peri, and rebels are captured, though they take control of the Timelash room. Awaiting attack, the Doctor climbs into the Timelash and retrieves Kontron crystals from which he fashions a time slip machine. He uses it to defeat a Borad clone, who plans to annihilate humanoid life on Karfel through a resource war with the Bandrills who need Karfel's supplies to avoid starvation, to make way for his new race of super Karfelon-Morlox hybrids. The Doctor shields the planet from a Bandrill missile with the Tardis. Returning, the Doctor throws the original Borad into the Timelash and says he becomes the Loch Ness Monster.
Last time Jacqueline Pearce, this time Paul Darrow guest stars. Darrow is no stranger to DW, he portrayed UNIT Captain Hawkins, who dies bravely in Pertwee's Doctor Who and the Silurians in 1970 (pod 182). As I said last time about Pearce, his is the only face I can remember from watching this in 1985. Whether that's because he is a memorable actor or I'm a slavering fanatic of Blake's 7 is debatable. While Darrow's performance is less Avon than Pearce is Servalan, his character Tekker exaggerates Avon's ruthlessness, sadism, and penchant for treachery (like Servalan/Chessene). The first time I saw this, I also had not noticed Darrow wearing a wig. Back in the days of low-def TV, I thought he looked cool.
When the Doctor is welcomed back, we see a picture of Jo Grant in a locket, and eventually a picture of the third Doctor. I wracked my brain thinking I'd forgotten a past story set on Karfel. Was I going mad? No, though it is referenced as something the Borad has wiped from the history, it only happens off-screen.
The Roman Senate-like meeting is only achieved though the actors' movements. The simple chairs and small hall setting, by themselves, don't convey enough grandeur. Well done, actors.
The pastels and off-whites of the sets and costumes and the dull goblets that Peri comments on may be part of the story, but it make proceedings feel drab and boring.
Poor hapless Peri is given little to do in the script, but flee and be captured and menaced as usual.
The menacing acidic potted plants underwhelms. The scene where Peri throws one into a screaming guard's face is farcical.
I found the blue-skinned blonde android, with it's child-like sing-song voice, very sinister. Nice one, Dean Hollingsworth, you give me the willies.
The Borad monster creature design of a humanoid melding badly with a giant serpent is effective, though the flipper hand was comedic. The Borad's rapid ageing beam is nasty, fatal, and a great effect.
Apropos of nothing, the amulet of office is a a triangle with a disk in it; a bit like Harry's Potter's Deathly Hallows.
Plot confusion! I can understand why the Borad might be put off by his repulsive warped reptilian reflection, but why the android in that ludicrous mirror fight with the Doctor? The Loch Ness monster is huge, not a half-reptile man.
Herbert George Wells' meeting and aid of Vena (Jeananne Crowley) thrown through the Timelash is an obvious nod to HG Wells' unnamed protagonist, who rescues the Eloi Weena in The Time Machine. The serpentine beasts are even called Morlox (instead of Morlocks) in the script.
It's an ambitious and creative script, but overly convoluted and needs a severe pruning. There's simply too much going on; a mad scientist, imminent invasion, time malarkey, political intrigue, rebels, and monsters. Though, give Glen McCoy his due, he tried to damnedest to make this very much in the Doctor's purview as a story all about time; the Timelash, the Borad's "Time acceleration beam", the Doctor's time slip machine, and HG Wells. At one point, Herbert says, "It's science fiction." If nothing else we get value for money.
Drab settings (even the usually suave Darrow is a frump), a monstrous dictator, ragged rebels, a political putsch that puts a gleeful henchman in charge, yet again (as in The Two Doctors) another lesser species messes with time travel technology they don't fully understand and require a Time Lord to fix things, and guest starring another Blake's 7 actor. Unjustifiably judged as the worst story by Gizmodo, Timelash is at worse an average Doctor Who story and more memorable that some, if merely for the presence of a bewigged Paul Darrow.
Referring to Howe, walker, and Stammer's Handbook: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who, let's hear from Colin Baker.
...Timelash...never quite gelled for me. It was...much better than I thought it would be. Pennant Roberts did a good job...it's just that...it didn't work for me. I don't think...the Doctor's element was...strong...---Hopkins P., 1986, Interview in Doctor Who Magazine 118An absurd statement given how many lines he has and his many action scenes.
I have another two sets of shownotes in the process of being written. So subscribe and don't miss out on a lot of classic Doctor Who and a huge amount of more contemporary geekdom.
Regarding upcoming New Who, I'm looking forward to it and will talk about it, though not in as much detail as my classic revisits or occasional long reviews.