212: Timelash
Doctor : 6th (Colin Baker)
Companions : Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant)
Series : 22
Originally Transmitted: 9th - 16th March 1985
I swear this story has been hanging around my neck like an albatross so it feels good to finally get it out of the way. There are a couple of good things about this story, not enough to make it watchable but they are there. The first of those it that during series 22 the BBC made the decision to change the length of time the series ran for. So instead of showing 28 25 minute episodes per series they made 14 45 minute episodes instead. So thankfully fans only had to suffer this story for 2 weeks instead of the usual 4.
The story starts on the planet Karfel where an evil dictator called The Borad rules. He is never seen in person and only appears to the residents of Karfel on moniters as an old man.
At the beginning of the story we see a rebellion that wants to depose him. The Borad wants to use the all the electrical power on the planet for his own personal use depriving the citizens, his No 2 in command known as The Maylin, a man named Renis is angered by this as his wife is in hospital and allows the rebels to storm The Borad's chamber. However they are caught and are killed. Renis is aged to death by a beam from the Borad's chair, the ones that are left are to be sentenced to be thrown into the Timelash, a time corridor that nobody returns from.
If you think the outside of it looks silly wait till you see the inside.
A sycophantic creep called Tekker is named the new Maylin, Tekker is played by Paul Darrow most famous for his role as Avon in Blakes 7. More on this later.
As the Maylin he wears around his neck an amulet that is the key to the power on Karfel. As the remaining rebels are thrown into the Timelash a young woman called Vena who's husband and father were killed during the rebellion snatches the amulet and throws herself into the Timelash.
Also doing the Borad's bidding is a blue android played by an actor called Dean Hollingsworth. The only reason I mention that is because it turns out he only lives down the road from me and he was in an article in the local paper a couple of years ago about being in Doctor Who where he played the blue android here, and a robotic bus conductor in 'Greatest Show In The Galaxy'. You'd think looking rather intimidating as he does he'd have a voice to match but he has such a weedy high pitched camp voice he makes C3PO sound almost butch in comparison.
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l9...nH/who/tl9.jpg
Meanwhile on the Tardis The Doctor & Peri are arguing where to go on holiday when they are inadvertently caught up in the Timelash. During the commotion Peri sees the ghostly image on Vena with the amulet.
The Doctor tracks the ends of the time corridor/Timelash, one being in Scotland in 1179 the other being Karfel. The Doctor takes the Tardis to Karfel as he has been there before. We know he's been there before because there's a big picture of the 3rd Doctor behind one of the walls. Also one of the rebels has a locket with a picture of the 3rd Doctor's companion Jo Grant inside it.
On arrival they are met by Tekker who despite appearing hospitable knows that The Doctor is his chance to get the amulet so he quickly locks up Peri in a cave with full of Morlox creatures. A giant lizard native of Karfel. The Doctor follows the Timelash but the Tardis doesn't like it and ends up in 1888, where he meets a man called Herbert who believes the Doctor to be from the spirit world because he's just been holding a oujia board.
Herbert has been looking after Vena so all three go back to Karfel in the Tardis where they meet up with the rebels. The Doctor uses a rope to go into the Timelash to collect some Kontron crystals, where we finally see the inside of the dreaded Timelash..........
Yep, if you're thinking to yourself 'Hey this is a kids climbing wall with some Christmas decorations hanging from it' you would probably be right because that's exactly what it looks like.
So anyway the Doctor uses the crystals to make he and his posse to disappear a couple of seconds into the future thus making them invisible to get to the Borad's chamber where he is revealed to be half human / half morlox creature in one of the series better made visual effects for the time.
They confront each other and the Doctor recognises The Borad as Magellan, a mad scientist who's work he had stopped the last time he was on Karfel.
Now if you're wondering what happened to Peri here's a brief rundown.
She's taken for a walk by a beekeeper, tied up in a cave with menacing Morlox creatures, she's rescued by the rebels who in turn tie her up again and interrogate here. The Borad then takes a shine to her and wants her as a mate so he ties her up in the cave with the Morlox creatures again, this time with a cannister of Mustakozene-80, a gas that can fuse tissue together which is what the Borad was experimenting on when he turned into half Morlox creature. After Peri is freed by The Doctor and Herbert the Borad makes one last gasp to take Peri hostage but ends up being thrown into the Timelash when he is distracted by being shown his reflection.
Peri asks the Doctor if he's going after him but the Doctor implies that he'll be fine at the Timelash's destination..... Loch Ness.
But there's still no time to celebrate. It seems The Borad has pissed off the neighbouring planet of the Bandrills. The Bandrills are hilarious because the one we see is so obviously a sock puppet. In fact if Jim Henson had decided to make Kermit The Maggot instead of Kermit The Frog it might look a lot like a Bandrill. They've fired a load of missiles at Karfel.
The Doctor deflects the missiles in the Tardis and everybody lives happily ever after. Herbert asks if he can stay on Karfel but the Doctor says no and takes him home, Peri asks the Doctor why he won't let Herbert stay and so he shows he Herbert's business card with his full name on it .... H.G Wells.
As well as this only being on for 2 weeks there are 2 other good things about this story, 3 if you're a fan of Jon Pertwee era with him being mentioned.
The first is Paul Darrow playing Maylin Tekker. For some reason only known to himself Paul decided to play the role as William Shakespeare's Richard III and in every scene he's in he's practically chewing the scenery, in fact we're talking Gary Oldman as Norman Stansfield in the movie Leon style chewing the scenery. Watching him you forget just how bad this story really is. In fact he even says himself that he wanted to play the role as a hunchback but the production team thought that was going too far.
I also like the subtle H.G. Wells references that are dotted throughout the story, the main 4 of his books that everybody knows are referenced in the story here. The Morlox creatures and the Tardis (The Time Machine) The Doctor using the crystals to evade the guards (The Invisible Man) The Borad, the mad scientist (The Island of Doctor Moreau) and the Bandrill fleet invading (War Of The Worlds).. It's just a shame it's not done in a better script where people just seem to run along in corridors, get captured and then get rescued again only to be captured again, and why even bother having a companion. Peri does nothing whatsoever in this story, which is a shame because at least during the first episode they actually bother to mention that she's a botany student. The plant's she's looking at kill people with a toxic gas and they're taken off her as quickly as she picks them up but that's besides the point , at least they acknowledged something about her which is more can be said for the rest of the story where she just becomes a tripping screaming generic 20 years out of date female companion.
Trying to watch this again was so painful I couldn't even stomach watching the whole thing once more and I just skipped to the pivotal bits of the episode. A total waste of anyone's 90 minutes.
Just awful.