The Time Monster

The Master is at it again, this time in the guise of Professor Thascales, a scientist working on a time travel theory. But the plan goes further, and the Master seeks to control a ferocious creature named Kronos - the most powerful of the Chronovores. The Doctor realizes that the Master is on the move again and takes steps to stop him, chasing him from his laboratory in Wooten to the lost civilization of Atlantis where they key to controlling Kronos lies. But as the name implies, a Chronovore is a creature that feeds on time, and if unleased on Earth it could be the end for everything.

At first I thought that this was a far more complicated plot, but after summing it up there it's not really, is it? It's a six part story so it's long and more or less epic with the switch in episode five to Atlantis. Gorgeous huge set they had for that - must have been leftover from I Claudius or something. In fact it's the visuals which distract from the slow pace of the story and the splintered chunks of cast in their own subplots: in episode four we see the inside of the TARDIS again and it's dramatically been changed, and coincidentally so has the inside of the Master's ship; the only difference between them is where the main doors are and the time rotor. But episode four is also nothing but the Doctor and the Master talking at each other from their console rooms. It's pure padding but it's all ooh ahh look at the inside of the TARDIS so no-one seems to care much. Sadly we never see that TARDIS interior again. And then there's this quick not even two full episodes adventure in Atlantis which it turns out wasn't destroyed by the Daemons after all despite Azal telling the Master it was. Unless Atlantis was a planet in that reference.

UNIT are in the story as well but not all of it; the Brigadier gets frozen in time, Yates gets blown up (almost) and Benton ends up naked. Is it just me or are the UNIT guys starting to be less prominent? They were there at the season opener to battle the Daleks but after that this is all we have seen of them, aside from The Face of the Enemy. Aside from the UNIT crew the supporting cast is quite large, from the Master's unsuspecting assistants at Wooten (and one of them has a bit too much women's lib in her to be taken seriously) to the peoples of Atlantis and Kronos his/herself. And the Minotaur.

Somewhere in episode six we get a fantastic moment with the Doctor speaking of his childhood to Jo, the content of which would be the basis of a novel called Lungbarrow published in 1997; the Doctor remembers being a little boy living in a house halfway up a mountain. This is the third time that the Doctor's past is brought up so far in the series, first being Susan on board the TARDIS and the second being the Doctor's late night chat with Victoria in Tomb of the Cybermen. It's a small glimpse into his life before he left his home planet, just enough to remind anyone that there's more to him than just the exile on Earth and no more.

As for the Master he is shown at his demented best; he wants power and naively believes he can put one of the wildest creatures on a leash and who cares what happens to anyone else. Well of course he cares what happens to the Doctor - he wants him dead and almost succeeds, then tosses Jo into the time vortex for good measure. All the time he is doing this though he still maintains a certain style, and a bit of charm which he uses on Queen Galleia of Atlantis to gain power there. And get her to betray her husband. The bitch. Still, the Master's powers work best on the weak willed and the universe is full of those. Such a shame, though, that this is the second last time we will see this incarnation of the Master.

So the season closes with the ensemble having a good laugh at a naked Sergeant Benton, which is a good time to head back into the expanded universe for some more good times...

NEXT EPISODE: THE MEGA

The Mutants

The Time Lords have a mission for the Doctor and Jo:  take a sealed container to the planet Solos in the far future and deliver it to its intended recipient. The trouble is they do not know who to give it to, and Solos is in turmoil as it is about to become independent from the crumbling Earth Empire. The Marshal of Skybase, overlord of Solos, does not want to relinquish his power and is using the recent outbreak of mutations on the planet as a means to retain control. The Doctor knows that the Time Lords would not send him here unless it was of the utmost importance, but before he can complete his mission he must survive the megalomania of the Marshal, and the savage primal ferocity of the Mutants themselves.

As with a lot of the stories of this era of the show, The Mutants is not purely an entertaining adventure but also a commentary on the colonial mindset and those who are desperate to see it continue. The DVD extras say it best really - don't miss those. In the far future Earth can’t support an empire anymore and as it recedes it graciously grants independence to its fringe colonies, although this is not so much a magnanimous gesture as it is an economic one. As the announcement is made there are no real admissions that anything was done wrong and that the Empire should have just left Solos alone, it is dressed up as a friendly partnership now dissolving on good terms. The truth of course is far from that, and the native representative, Ky, just wants the Earth people gone so his people can try to salvage their planet. On the other side of this is Varan, whose warrior sect have enjoyed the freedom the Earth rule – particularly the Marshal’s crooked ways – has allowed for them to wage war and live like rulers themselves – and this includes terrorizing their own fellow Solonians and hunting down Mutants. Varan's ways are fine by the Marshal as it saves him the trouble of doing the dirty work while he can rule from Skybase and not actually have to set foot on Solos unless he absolutely needs to.

The Mutants themselves are Solonians, their change from humanoid to insectoid being blamed on

experiments by the Marshal and his chief scientist, Jaegar, in an attempt to make the Solonian atmosphere breatheable; by day the air is poison to humans and no-one can go outside without a mask. Why would the Earth empire want to control such a place then? Mineral resources! What else? But now it’s effectively run out and the Marshal is desperate to retain control of the planet to secure his own future; and if that means exterminating the Mutants, so be it. They’re not exactly the prettiest thing to look at and the mutation from humanoid looks downright painful as their backs swell up and split open. Among Varan’s people the mutation is a curse, a badge of shame to be purged, and while Ky doesn’t exactly advocate for Mutant rights he doesn’t want them murdered either. But what is going on with Solos is obviously important - important enough for the Time Lords to get involved, and the package sent with the Doctor will be of paramount importance if only he can deliver it to the right person. Is it weapons to beat back the oppressors? Is is a means for the Earth Empire to retain control over Solos rather than let it go? Or is it something else?

As far as timeline goes with this one the Doctor says this is the late 30^th century, and as far as fitting this one in with other episodes The Mutants would be set not too far before The Curse of Peladon when the Earth Empire has faded and the Galactic Federation has been formed. At the other end of this would be Colony in Space when the Empire was barely starting off. When these were written, though, there was no real plan to connect any of the stories in a proper timeline so it’s not going to fit together perfectly, although the New Adventures series does its best to link them up where possible. The next time the Doctor goes into the future in this continuity it will be at the height of the Earth Empire, when it is coming into collision with another one.

But that is, of course, in the future.

NEXT EPISODE: THE TIME MONSTER

The Sea Devils

The Doctor and Jo pay the Master a visit in his high security prison on an island. Escape is impossible – the facility is state of the art and run by a crusty former colonial governor named Trenchard. But nearby there have been a series of mysterious ship sinkings, and the Doctor is compelled to investigate for himself. Allying himself with the Royal Navy, the Doctor discovers that not only has the Master taken control of the prison and can walk out whenever he wants, but he has contacted a colony of marine Earth Reptiles like the Silurians. The world is on the verge of another war between species with the planet once again as the prize.

It was just a matter of time before the Silurians returned, but this time a completely new species was created instead of repeating the same formula of monsters in caves. After all, prehistoric amphibians are just as much fun to write for as reptiles. Adding a new species to the pre-human era of Earth was a terrific idea as so often alien species are homogenized and there is little in the way of variation; just look at the Ice Warriors for that proof. They don’t exactly resemble fish, not entirely; the design is more based on a snapping turtle. I thought they looked a bit comical when I first saw them on a Target book cover to be honest.

The Master is back on the scene – there was no way he was going to be kept locked up, but he’s subverted order at the prison and is effectively running it, keeping up the illusion of being captive while he makes his plans. The notion was picked up and used in The Face of the Enemy already, but given when things were written, this was the first time it was used as a device. It didn’t take much to get control though; Trenchard is gullible and believes the Master is onto some international spies and willingly works with him. The rest of the guards (oddly attired in berets and capes) just do as they are told.

UNIT is swapped for the Royal Navy this time, which leads to some fantastic use of a real naval base and ships… as well as some less than convincing model work with a submarine. Captain Hart steps in as the lead military man in place of the old Brigadier, and he’s just as sceptical as his UNIT counterpart ever was, and just as mired by meddling civil servants. Yes, there’s always one of those getting in the way; it was Chinn in Claws of Axos and this time it’s Private Parliamentary Undersecretary Walker who proceeds to demand constant meals while playing at being in charge of the situation. The situation is, of course, right out of his control; the Doctor wants to try brokering peace again but with the Master stirring things up the Sea Devils are not as easily convinced as the Silurians were.

The Sea Devils themselves do not get as much development as the Silurians did; given that their story is effectively the same there’s not much expansion on their culture. One might think that the aquatic species might be different from the landbound ones seeing as their interactions with primal humans would have been different, if they interacted with them at all out in the oceans. Gary Russell took a swing at that when he retconned them to an extent in The Scales of Injustice but it doesn’t impact these ones at all, nor the Doctor’s meeting with them. Oddly though they wear what look like discarded fishing nets as a sort of clothing whereas the Silurians were absolute nudists. And they carry weapons and don’t reply on the third eye as the Silurians did. 

But now that we have seen the Sea Devils, they won’t get used again for quite some time, which is a disappointment, and when they do come back… well, it’s never as good the second time is it?

NEXT EPISODE: THE MUTANTS

Rags

There’s a hot new music ticket in town and they are making waves wherever they play. The music is loud and crude, the attitude is snarky and violent, and the deaths that follow every gig are making the authorities nervous. The Doctor is not interested in the music at all but in the strange energy waves he is detecting from the area when the band plays. As the mobile horror show rolls along gathering a caravan of the dispossessed, UNIT are called in to oversee national security. Jo falls under the thrall of the band and finds herself reveling in the blood lust. And when they need him the most, the Doctor becomes trapped in the nightmare void world of the Ragman, and there he will stay while the world is torn apart to the beat of the music.

It’s nothing new, this premise of sex drugs and rock ‘n roll spelling doom for the world as we know it. Woodstock was heralded by frightened conservatives as the beginning of the end of society with its message of free love and peace, and the same fears are usually stoked anytime a band starts to gain following among those who might be a bit different from the conservative norms. The events in Rags, or at least those which take place during the concerts, are probably what was going through the heads of people who feared Marilyn Manson’s rise to popularity; the outbreaks of violence, the sudden sexual passion between some of the revellers and a decrepit depraved singer screaming messages of hate to all who will listen.

The problem here is Rags can’t really pull off the whole “doomsday band” deal, even if the band is just being reanimated by some old monster stuck on Earth for centuries. I remember reading this once before when it was first published in 2001 and thinking that I don’t remember enjoying it. I was right. I didn’t. It was actually a struggle to finish it, and the reasons are simple: it didn’t feel like Doctor Who.

The Doctor has had moments of crisis and self doubt but it’s tremendously out of character for him – in this incarnation especially – to submit to despair, and especially to the simple parlour tricks of the Ragman. Sure the Ragman has a reality trap inside the back of the cattle truck leading the procession across the countryside, but it’s just not a convincing domain at all. I’m not sure what it is about it that did not come together for me but I found myself bored by the Doctor’s plight and when he eventually does rally to take on the evil I found it hard to swallow that all it takes is a good telling-off.

The UNIT folks are not really themselves either, especially Jo who is left behind to go under cover and just gets swept up with the rest of the hysterical masses, even turning on Mike Yates and the Doctor himself. The Brigadier even falls to the hysteria eventually and orders his troops to open fire on an unarmed mass of hippies and punks. “Hippies and punks”. The phrase gets used a bit too much to describe the crowd of music fans. And really, if UNIT clashed with a civilian mass to this extent there would be no more UNIT; the Brig would be out on his ass along with his senior staff. The level of violence that follows each of the music concerts makes the national news each time as well so it’s hard to imagine that this would simply be forgotten.

The job of the expanded universe novels is to add new adventures to the established series but not to come along and go so off into left field that the events described couldn’t help but create massive waves. There’s the odd one that comes along with a dramatically different narrative style but so far none of it has come close to impacting the stories around it; some have given some characters a bit of a shake up but what’s described in Rags – local police being physically torn apart by mobs amongst other things – would change the landscape. It’s sloppy and careless writing in my opinion – Mick Lewis and whoever was editing this range should have known a lot better.

Back to the TV series now where things will have magically returned to normal…

NEXT EPISODE: THE SEA DEVILS

The Switching

The Doctor wakes up on a floor, wondering how he got there. He doesn’t recognize his surroundings but deduces that he is in a cell somewhere, and may have been for a few days. He thinks his voice is oddly distorted by the cell and then when he finds a reflective surface realizes that somehow he is in the Master’s body, locked up for his crimes. Back at UNIT HQ, the Master enjoys his new freedom in the Doctor’s body and sets about putting together a plan to ensure that it is permanent, and that the Doctor will be left behind.

Ah the old body swap story. Every now and again this comes along as a device for a series episode and we are equal parts amused by the way a villain tries to imitate the hero and horrified at how the hero suffers trying to make people see that they have been tricked. And then there’s the frustration with the hero’s friends for not noticing right away that something is wrong. As this is one of the Big Finish short trips rarities range (meaning it was released as part of a compilation but now the stories can be picked up separately) there’s not enough time to make this an epic along those lines, and the whole thing feels a little like a wasted opportunity. This is a huge deal as far as plot developments go – when did the Master get this kind of skill? Isn’t this more like voodoo than science? I remember when this was done in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Faith swapped bodies with Buffy – they needed two episodes to do it properly and could get away with a magical device as a means to make it happen, but here the Master clunks together some objects with no notion as to how he even got them in his cell and pow, body swap.

The story is almost more of a Master tale as he gets more of the script, and that makes a sort of sense as a story about the Doctor in a cell under these circumstances wouldn’t really go very far. Here we have the Master confounded by the malfunctioning TARDIS and surrounded by the Doctor’s colleagues at UNIT; he tries to blend in but makes slips here and there that make Jo, the Brigadier and Benton suspicious but never enough to really tip things over. And then when it all gets wound up quickly there’s some quick moment between Jo and Mike Yates which spells out where this one really should be in continuity: this would be the day before the Doctor and Jo leave in The Curse of Peladon.

So Big Finish fell for a cliché, but no real harm done, a few fun moments and an unnecessary snog between workmates later and we can move on to another BBC Novel.

NEXT EPISODE: RAGS

The Face of the Enemy

While the Doctor and Jo are off in the TARDIS, the Brigadier finds himself faced with a series of robberies and raids and a mysterious aircraft crash. Without his scientific adviser, the Brigadier looks further afield and recruits science lecturer Ian Chesterton and his wife, Barbara, to assist with the crisis. As former associates of the Doctor they have experience like no-one else but as the mystery deepens the Brigadier realizes he has little choice than to consult the Master in his prison cell. The Brigadier is no fool and knows that the Master cannot be trusted, but with what seems like an alien incursion underway and the Master himself a target of the enemy, he realizes that the enemy of his enemy may have to become an ally.

Brace yourselves for this one because it is a major continuity buffet with threads from all over the series coming together to form a fast paced and well executed narrative by David A. McIntee. Craftily plunked in the absence of the Doctor while on Peladon, Face looks at the inevitible moment when the Doctor is not around to help out and how the people around him will have to cope without his help. The angle itself has been worked effectively in the new series, particularly in crossover episodes with spin-off series Torchwood, but as it is here, written in 1998, there is only the UNIT family and a few others who can band together to combat the menace. Like so many other expanded universe novels set during the UNIT era there are references galore to the televised series in an effort to link them properly in time and put the whole debate about UNIT as a 1980s vs 1970s setting to rest; and of course with the power of retcon the 1970s is winning even if things like the Mars Probes launched by the British Space Agency are still years away by our own current technological capabilities. UNIT is once again linked with the Intrusion Countermeasures Group (eventually to become the Countermeasures series from Big Finish) which will not actually feature on the series at all save for its "genesis" if you will in Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988, and it is that organization which is credited with looking after Ian and Barbara after their return to Earth following The Chase.

One of the most fun things here is the future of Ian and Barbara; a lot of the expanded universe material through the various novels and the Big Finish line made a point of steering them closer together than they were on television, having them fall in love and get married and raise children, but as far as who did it first this is where it happened (and had they made their cameo at the end of The War Machines as was originally planned this would somehow be even more poignant). And their connections with the Doctor have certainly greased the wheels where their employment futures are concerned; despite their flimsy story of doing charity work in Africa they were eventually reinstated as teachers and went on to raise a son, John. Being consulted by UNIT isn't really something they are used to but once they realize that the Doctor is peripherally involved they rejoin the fight on his behalf. Barbara had hoped this was all behind her, but Ian shows little hesitation in getting involved, almost as if he is enjoying himself.

The Master comes across once again as one of the most stylish villains of the series, taking everything around him in stride and dispatching his own enemies without a moment's hesitation. Yes, Face is a very violent novel with a body count unlike any others, but that's what one comes to expect from McIntee. But in among the slaughter is also the Master's cold scientific side coming to the surface as he steps into the Doctor's place to aid UNIT against this mysterious enemy who look less and less like an alien force and more like something homegrown, just with slightly edgier technology and even access to limited time travel capabilities. This suits the Master fine; at this point he is still imprisoned and is looking for a way to escape once he recovers his TARDIS. Unlike in Harvest of Time (which was written some time after this one) the Master is in a more comfortable prison setting, treated more like a permanent guest than a prisoner, but he's no-one's prisoner and has the place running to his design and could walk out any time he felt like it.

The men and women of UNIT (well, single woman - Corporal Bell) are forced to up their game with the Doctor gone and with the Brigadier's leadership they do excel eventually. McIntee can't resist the lure of retcon, though, and uses his novel to give insight into why Corporal Carol Bell was never seen again after Day of the Daleks, as well as offering an introduction to future companion Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan. Normally I get annoyed at this sort of thing, writing it off to the ego of the author, but here McIntee makes it make sense and captures Harry perfectly on page, and there is just enough of him to make it worthwhile; Harry is not immersed in the action so deep that he would not be taken aback when the day comes for him to finally enter the TARDIS.

And I would love to say how brilliant the whole reveal is of the real enemy and where they came from and what they are doing, but it's a mega spoiler and all McIntee's careful build up would just be for nothing. By the time the truth does come out though the reader would be almost there anyways, picking up the breadcrumbs scattered through the narrative. And it's not a cop-out at all; it all makes sense, such perfect beautiful sense. And in the end it's a bit of a reveal about how UNIT will cope without the Doctor when the day comes for him to actually leave the planet and start travelling again; his exile will not last forever and UNIT, indeed the Earth as a whole, will need to be ready.

NEXT EPISODE: THE SWITCHING