Timelash.

 

"You don't seem to realise the effect that time particles colliding within a multi-dimensional implosion field can have." – The Doctor

It is my unfortunate duty to have to present to you my opinion of Timelash, where I could be doing more enjoyable activities. Drowning comes to mind.

As it is Glen McCoy (‘Dream Devils’) should be embarrassed he vomited this up after a bad Indian, let alone that he wrote it, proof read it and thought, “Yes, that’s a perfectly entertaining piece of television”. The story begins with Peri and the Doctor yet again arguing, which by this point is really starting to piss me off. Fortunately some time corridor thingy conveniently comes out of no where and threatens wild peril and imminent disaster, and so the Doctor advises they strap themselves in.

After the cameraman stops shaking the argumentative adventurers land on a planet with a ridiculous name that has the alien equivalent of Mugabe, who appears to the public as a wizened old man, who summarily tells his androids to execute rebels by throwing them into a Timelash. What was wrong with the noose god only knows.

The Borad’s rule has meant his subjects are miserable and rebellious, no doubt another jab at Maggie Thatcher. In addition to that Borad has snatched the grain away from the Bandrils who threaten war. I use the word ‘snatched’ because the metaphor is quite obvious.

So, we have a Conservative hating writer, which is fine by me, it’s just a pity he can’t actually write. The Doctor gets tangled up in this because he previously visited when he was Jon Pertwee, not that we saw it of course, it’s another one of those catching up with old pals stunts pulled in The Twin Dilemma and The Two Doctors. In this instance however it’s done with so little care its as if the editor of the Daily Star penned this episode.

Did someone say magic amulet? No? Well there is one and it’s a plastic triangle out of a Playskool set painted silver. This magic amulet does… you know what I get the feeling we never actually found out what it did. Big plot device where a silver plastic triangle gets chased across time and space and if it did do anything it wasn’t very memorable, because I can’t remember.

The same can be said for most of the episode. Maybe I should give a summary of the episode from someone who’s watched it, so the following are the memorable bits:

TARDIS lands. Old man. Death. Rebels. Worzel Gummige. Pointless companion capture. Bit of a fight. More death. H.G. Wells. Amulet. Mutant Mugabe. Shag Peri. All’s well again. End.

That’s the story as I saw it, and as such it’s really got no redeeming features, the writing is careless and rushed, and in trying to slag off the administration of the time, fails to even get that right. The plot is thin and completely uncaptivating, as is the principle villain. The story relies heavily on events that never actually occurred in Doctor Who and are so poorly explained that you’ll be confused as to where you’re up to. If I were you, I’d skip ahead to Daleks.