The Time Monster - Episode 6

Like a bolt of lightning, the final episode of the ninth season is upon us. I said in the review of the previous episode that it didn’t feel like the story was building to anything and that’s still true. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see the big finale that it was heading towards. The Master has been named King in this episode, its now less than he deserves. King Master and Queen Galleia are a formidable duo. In fact there is a shot of the pair of them on their thrones and it suits them even though Galleia is dressed properly but the Master is still in his black suit.

There is a nice little scene where the Doctor talks about his blackest day and we get a lovely little story about an old person he encountered on Gallifrey. There is the strangest line that I have heard in Doctor Who for sometime when the line “The Daiesiest daisy I’ve ever scene.” Is uttered by the Doctor. There is another nice scene between the Master and Jo after Atlantis has started to crumble where the Master wishes he had finished him off a long time ago. It’s a thought echoed by many people. The scene ends with Jo doing what she did in ‘The Daemons’ and sacrifice herself to save the day. What follows it is a rather odd CSO shot where at one or two moments, Katy Manning actually disappears. This is what happens when too much faith is put in CSO.

The thing is that the first half of the story doesn’t really interest me and its only in the closing moments where the Doctor and Jo are talking to Kronos that is starts to pick up. I think that the way that the Master was able to escape was rather poor as everyone could have seen it coming and it doesn’t have quite the elegance that his exit in ‘The Sea Devils’ did.

I had forgotten about baby Benton, this meant that we got a rather nice amusing end to the story with the Brigadier finally out of the time bubble and storms into the lab expecting to see the Master but instead sees Jo in a different costume and a naked (not really) Benton. With everyone giggling away as the theme tune starts to play it seems like a pleasant way to end the season which has at best been patchy. If this story hadn’t moved to Atlantis then I could argue quite happily that this is a fine story and a fine way to end the ninth season however as I found the Atlantis material to be a bit dull I cant make that argument.