Timelash

Dear Gary—

I know I am beginning to appreciate Colin Baker’s Doctor when I can sit through a truly awful story like Timelash and not be completely fed up, disgusted, or angered. What partly helps is that Peri is held captive for much of the time. Normally I would resent the trivializing of a companion in this way. However, hooray! For once Peri’s incessant and moronic questions are directed at someone other than the Doctor, and at last her constant carping has some relevancy; “You’re hurting me” is a much more legitimate complaint than “I’m bored.” (Really Peri? You’re traveling with the Doctor and you’re bored more often than not?)

Timelash is bad, though. There’s no getting around that. The sets are laughable, the plot thin, and much of the acting uninspired. If ever there was a bargain basement bottom of the barrel story this is it, right down there with The Web Planet, The Underwater Menace, The Time Monster, The Horns of Nimon, and Warriors of the Deep (to pick one from every Doctor). Some of these clearance rack stories work better than others; some relish in the bad, some manage to survive the bad, and some are just bad. Timelash manages to keep its head above water. Barely.

I want to start with the Timelash of our title. Calling the story ‘Timelash’ is rather like calling ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ ‘Time Corridor.’  I don’t mind that the physical depiction of the Timelash is lame. However, I do mind that it is lame in practice. The worst punishment a Karfel traitor faces is to be forcibly stumbled backwards into the Timelash; not execution, not disfigurement, not torture; they are sent to 12^thC Earth. First of all, why Earth? But never mind. Secondly, we never see the end of the time (and apparently space) tunnel; we never see a Karfel rebel falling out of the Timelash onto 12^thC Earth. OK, we do get a ghost Vena (not much different than in person Vena) wafting through the TARDIS on her way to 1865 Scotland via the Timelash, but does this justify naming rights? I want to know what’s happened to all of those exiles. Is there a colony of Karfelons somewhere on our planet, and if so, where do they fit in my family tree? And wait a minute—Doctor . . . TARDIS . . . Karfelons wantonly sentenced to life on Earth. Does no one think to ask the mighty Time Lord to collect those penal colonists and return them to their proper home once The Borad is overthrown?

Ah, The Borad. Here is something that is right. Here is something worth naming a Doctor Who serial after. All of the show’s budget must have gone into the makeup for The Borad; and even confined to a chair and disfigured, The Borad manages to out act most of the cast around him.

However the Borad is given short shrift. He only has a few scenes, and even then he has to share his lines with the old man persona he has created. We never get an explanation of how exactly he is holding the planet under his tyranny or how he was able to mastermind his great deception.  And then all at once the Doctor kills him. But wait—that was only a clone. The real Borad reveals himself (as well as revealing that he can actually walk) and grabs Peri. Much like the Mara in Kinda, however, he is done in by a mirror and all that is left is for the Doctor to push him into the Timelash and that is the end of that; the Borad is now a worry for 12^thC Earth; out of sight, out of mind. I don’t for a minute buy the hinted at Loch Ness Monster angle, especially since the Doctor has already met Nessie in Terror of the Zygons.

That’s the main problem with Timelash; it has some interesting nuggets of ideas but doesn’t seem to know where to go with them. The Borad’s banishment of mirrors and his desire to kill all life and repopulate the planet with offspring from a reconstituted Peri screams of some deep psychological angst. But there is no room in this script for any Sharaz Jek like pathos. Instead we have the Doctor callously taunting him with, “You’re nothing, Borad. Just a self-degenerating mutation. You’re finished, Borad. Your reign of terror’s over. Nobody wants you. Nobody needs you. Nobody cares!” A mirror and a little bullying and it’s all over. If it was that easy . . . .

Now let us consider the puppet army of Bandrils. It took me several viewings to get the logic behind this subplot. The Bandrils have a bomb that will wipe out all life on the planet excepting the Morlox. The Borad is banking on the fact that he is half Morlox and will survive the bomb. Seems a big risk to take, given that he is also still half Karfelon, but he’s desperate. It seems farfetched to assume that a single bomb will do the trick, but then planets in the Doctor Who universe do tend to be tiny, only big enough to contain one major city, so I’ll accept it. The Bandrils, claiming to be peaceful, are planning this genocide because Karfel has reneged on a trade agreement. Technically it’s one of the terms of a treaty, so I guess there is a history of hostility between the two planets, but that is pure speculation. The Bandrils need the grain of Karfel to feed their starving people, which I guess is some small justification for mass murder (and to jump ahead a story, there apparently is a famine in the galaxy at one point in time so this might be the case in our current story). I have to wonder, though, how long it will be before it is safe for the Bandrils to collect the grain. (Or are they also immune to the effects of the bomb as the Morlox are?) And once they have the current grain supply, do they have a plan to colonize Karfel with their own farmers? I wonder if the Borad ever thought of that.

With the Borad disposed of, however, the Bandrils no longer have a reason to attack. The Karfelons frantically try to communicate this fact to them but the Bandrils ignore the message. It is only when the Doctor raises the threat of Time Lord retaliation that these peace loving Bandrils respond. Even then they demand proof and when the Doctor hesitates: “Then there is little we can do.” If you ask me, the only reason there is little they can do is because the writer gave them no other choice so that the Doctor can have a chance for some derring-do in order to pad out the ending. Then when the Doctor averts the missile the Bandril leader is suddenly contrite, suggests diplomatic relations to resume, and pledges to explain to the Time Lords. That’s one explanation I would like to hear: ‘Well, we were going to kill your Lord President along with all Karfelons with our bomb, but instead he went on a suicide mission to intercept it and save the Karfelons but blew himself up in the process, so you can’t really blame us now can you?’

And excuse me, but who elected Mykros as the new Maylin?

Now to get my ram chip I’ll say something good about Timelash: Herbert. “Do you realize there is an intergalactic law expressly forbidding stowaways?”  The Doctor really pulled that one out of his hat, and Herbert isn’t buying it either. Herbert, with his constant note-taking, is ever under foot. You’d think after being fooled twice by the overzealous Herbert the Doctor wouldn’t be surprised when he pops up for a third time as tag-along. Herbert’s eagerness could easily become annoying if it were not for the fact that he is in the middle of a flat plot dressed with a dull backdrop and surrounded by bland characters. His boyish charm becomes positively delightful under these circumstances. Even the placid Vena is carried away by him in a detached sort of way. He is a much better alternative to Peri (who by the way spends an inordinate amount of time screaming in our story, although I have to say she is at least dressed for the first time both appropriately and attractively). I’m undecided about how I feel when it is divulged that Herbert is actually HG Wells. It is an intriguing concept; however it also feels slightly like an amateurish ‘wah, wah, wah’ moment.

A couple of other good points to our tale: the tie in with the Third Doctor and the singing androids. These are small little unnecessary details that bring some life to an otherwise listless serial. (However I can only shake my head when the one android is flummoxed by a hand mirror.)

One last word about the Timelash of our title. Again it is an interesting notion to have the Doctor tie a rope around his waist and jump in, but it is totally wasted. There is no sense of impending peril in this venture. Visually it is as flat as the rest of the sets, and I can only wonder why the gang on the other end of the rope are tugging with all their might as though they had a great load on the line when the Doctor is very clearly sitting on an outcropping of crystal taking his weight off of the rope. And then, why the need for the rope at all when first Herbert and then  Mykros hop in without benefit of the lifeline to no ill effect?

And finally, the crystals the Doctor fetches out of the Timelash. “Without the Kontron crystals,” the Doctor states, “we’ve got no chance of getting out of here alive.” Really? Seems like the Doctor went through all of the trouble just to make some elaborate toys. Mykros and the rebels do a decent job of holding off the beekeeper guards on their own while the Doctor has to wait for his gadget to be useful. When it has finally booted up it does take out one android but that’s it. He later uses the other device he constructed to outwit the Borad, but he would have had to have some drastic foresight to know how that would come into play. Ultimately, it is not either of his crystal contraptions that save the day but as discussed before a mirror and a little bullying. (And by the way, how is it that the Timelash is still operational to zap  the Borad off to Earth when the Doctor had Mykros and Sezon take out “every last nut and bolt” in the control panel to create his doohickeys?)

Overall a bad story; but a bad Doctor Who is still Doctor Who, even with the Sixth Doctor and Peri. I have to say, too, that sometimes cheap sets and overacting help rather than hinder ill-conceived plots. Much like The Horns of Nimon, if this had been played serious it could have been dreadfully dreary; a little camp and shoddiness sometimes goes a long way in overshadowing the inadequacies of the script. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m just feeling generous.

As ever, Gary . . .