(577) Time-Flight - Part 2

I’ve come to the conclusion (already) that I am not going to like this story. Probably because at the end of the 25 minute episode, I fail to really see any positives to what I have just seen. The episode does feature a cameo from Matthew Waterhouse, this is only so that people flicking through the Radio Times wouldn’t panic when they didn’t see his name in the credits. The scene is a nice one because the reactions of Nyssa and Tegan are different and yet rational. It’s Nyssa that comes to the realisation that he’s not real when she notices that his star is on him when it was destroyed in the previous story. There is a cameo of the Melkur from ‘The Keeper of Traken’ which is dealt with in the same way. This is perhaps the most exciting thing in the whole episode. That’s a pretty sad thing to say considering that this story features the return of the Master.

It’s good that the Master is bought back but it’s a shame that Anthony Ainley spends most of the episode under the mask of Kalid. I do like Kalid because its still impressive that you wouldn’t be able to tell that it was Anthony Ainley. The only slight issue with this is that when Kalid starts talking it does sound a little bit like Ainley. The death of Kalid does seem to be a bit less simple that it probably would have been with a different writer but its done and the death is quite grim which follows in the traits of other deaths that occur during this season.

I really have trouble coming up with anything in terms of talking about the narrative and that’s because there is simply nothing there. The characters from the two concords are just chewing up the scene and its hard to take anything serious about them. The Professor is perhaps the best of the supporting characters in this episode.

I think the word that comes to mind when thinking about the next two episodes is ‘endurance’. I don’t think that this story is as bad as ‘Four to Doomsday’ but its quite close. The problem is that a) there is no concorde and b) the story is slow and boring and doesn’t grab me in the way that a Doctor Who story should and even with the arrival of the Master, I cant see how this story is going to improve in the next two episodes.