The Time Monster

Dear Gary—

“Having picked us all up by the scruff of the neck and bundled us all in here, what do you propose to do with us?” I feel rather like the Brigadier in watching The Time Monster, bundled up and set down in a story with no real purpose or direction.

The Time Monster feels like a story that was made up as they went along, with one actor providing a starting scene and each actor in turn picking up the thread of the story where the previous actor left off, taking the plot in whatever direction their whim fancied.

Jon Pertwee: The Doctor has a dream that the Master is causing global devastation and warns the Brigadier to issue a worldwide alert.

Nicholas Courtney: “A dream—really Doctor, you’ll be consulting the entrails of a sheep next.”

Roger Delgado: The Master has disguised himself as a professor and is working on a TOMTIT (Transmission of Matter Through Interstitial Time) experiment.

Katy Manning: “I know I’m exceedingly dim, but would you mind explaining?”

John Levene: The Brigadier and Benton decide to observe the TOMTIT demonstration.

Pertwee: The Doctor devises a ‘TARDIS sniffer outer’ to locate the Master.

Delgado: The Master has hypnotized the Director of the Institute and proceeds with his time experiments to recall a mysterious creature that seems to be trapped in a crystal.

Courtney: “That’s a fearsome looking load of electronic nonsense you’ve got together.  . . .How does it all work, in words of one syllable?”

Pertwee: The Doctor uses Bessie’s Super Drive to catch the Master before he can complete his TOMTIT experiment.

Levene: The Master’s time experiments go wrong and age his assistant past 80 years.

Pertwee: The Doctor rushes in just in time: “Reverse the polarity!”

Courtney: “Doctor I wish you wouldn’t talk in riddles.”

Delgado: The Master slips out in the confusion.

Courtney: The Brigadier calls for UNIT reinforcements; “I feel as naked as a baby in its bath.”

Pertwee: The Master’s creature is Kronos who comes from a place outside of time, “a place that is no place; a dangerous place where creatures live beyond your wildest imagination.” Kronos poses a danger “to the entire created universe.”

Manning: “And a Merry Michaelmas to you too.”

Delgado: The Master calculates why his experiment has gone wrong and returns to the lab to correct TOMTIT.

Levene: Benton is on guard in the lab and foils the Master’s attempts to lure him away. “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

Delgado: “You’re wrong Sergeant Benton, that is the oldest trick in the book.” The Master knocks out Benton, and transports High Priest Krasis from Atlantis using his TOMTIT and seizes the priest’s Seal of Kronos that will control Kronos so that he can obtain complete power over the Earth.

Levene: Benton wakes up and escapes to warn the Doctor.

Delgado: The Master calls forth Kronos.

Pertwee: The Master can’t control Kronos; he only has a partial crystal. The other half of the crystal is located in ancient Atlantis.

Levene: Benton would love a spot of tea and a marmalade sandwich.

Courtney: “This isn’t a picnic.”

Pertwee: The Doctor devises an instrument using bottles and corks and forks to interfere with the Master’s time experiments.

Courtney: “Doctor, I must insist, what are you up to?”

Manning: “You just wait and see.”

Courtney: “Doctor, please stop this silly game at once.”

Pertwee: “It was fun while it lasted.”

Courtney: UNIT forces are on the way; “Get your skates on, will you.”

Delgado: The Master calls forth historical soldiers through time to fight the UNIT forces and blows up the convoy escorting the TARDIS.

Pertwee: The TARDIS cannot be destroyed; it just needs to be up righted.

Delgado: The Master and Krasis escape in his TARDIS: “My power is greater than your imagination can encompass.”

Pertwee: The Doctor chases the Master in his TARDIS and lands inside the Master’s TARDIS so that “wherever it goes, I’ll go with it.”

Manning: “The TARDIS looks different.”

Delgado: “Good, now I’ve got him really trapped.”

Manning:”Oh, I think I’ve bruised my tailbone.”

Pertwee: “Sorry about your coccyx, Jo, but these little things are set to try us.”

Delgado: “Oh dear, what a bore the fellow is.” The Master tunes out the Doctor.

Pertwee: Old Venusian proverb: “If the Thraskin puts his fingers in his ears it is polite to shout.”  

Manning: “I just don’t get it.”

Levene: TOMTIT turns Benton into a baby and traps the Brigadier in a slow motion time bubble.

Delgado: The Master flings the Doctor out into the time vortex.

Manning: Jo saves the Doctor.

Delgado: The Master lands in ancient Atlantis and seduces Queen Galleia.

Pertwee: The Doctor and Jo arrive in Atlantis and ally with King Dalios.

Manning: Jo gets an Atlantian makeover and buddies up to the Queen’s handmaid.

Delgado: The Master sends a patsy in to retrieve the second half of the crystal that is guarded by a Minotaur.

Manning: Jo follows the patsy.

Pertwee: The Doctor fights the Minotaur thus saving both Jo and the ancient crystal that controls Kronos. “That’s what all the fuss has been about.”

Manning: “Gives me a funny feeling.”

Delgado: The Master has the Doctor and Jo imprisoned with the dying king.

Pertwee: The Doctor shares a tender Zen moment with Jo in which he describes a boyhood memory of a wise old man and “the daisiest daisy I’d ever seen.”

Delgado: The Queen introduces the Master as King to the Atlantian council.

Pertwee: The Queen turns on the Master when she learns Dalios is dead.

Delgado: The Master calls forth Kronos.

Pertwee: “He’s uncontrollable” and Kronos destroys Atlantis.

Delgado: The Master escapes in his TARDIS.

Pertwee: The Doctor chases the Master in his own TARDIS and threatens a Time Ram to destroy them all.

Delgado: “Do you think I’m going to dance to the Doctor’s tune like some performing poodle?” The Master calls the Doctor’s bluff; the Doctor can’t bring himself to destroy Jo Grant.

Manning: Jo puts an end to it all by flipping the switch.

Pertwee: The Time Ram frees Kronos who gratefully spares their lives and seeks revenge on the Master.

Delgado: The Doctor pleads for mercy for the Master and Kronos lets him go.

Levene: TOMTIT is activated and Benton reverts to his normal age still in his nappy.

The End.

Or so I imagine it going.

It’s an entertaining enough story, this strange little “gap between the now and the now;” this “hiatus in time;” this “ontological absurdity.” “The whole of creation is very delicately balanced in cosmic terms,” and it seems that a little bit of Kronos’ chaos has seeped through, sweeping order and structure away in terms of The Time Monster.  But it results in great fun.

I hope  a little bit of that fun seeps through the Doctor’s time swirl to reach you, Dear Gary . . .