Review: Doctor Who Classic: Timelash

The Doctor faces the mutated Borad

Doctor Who - Season 22, Story Five - Timelash
Written between the 21st and 22nd April 2012

The Twin Dilemma, if you remember, was a story that I loved despite its terrible reputation, and while I recognised some of the shoddy acting I didn't really see what everyone found so offensive about it. This wasn't the story that its placing deserved. And it's happened again; Timelash is another competitor for one of the worst Who stories of all time, and yet I can't see that much wrong with it. My ability to love Doctor Who has made this season's set of reviews a lot more difficult for me. I was expecting to be ranting right now about how terrible this story is, but I just don't get it.
     The story is set on the planet Karfel, where the formerly peaceful planet has become a brutal dictatorship run by the elusive Borad, his chosen representative, the Maylin, and an army of robots disorientated by mirrors (which have been banned.) They execute their prisoners by throwing them into the titular Timelash, a time-tunnel which either disintegrates them or lands them in 12th Century England. The Doctor, seeing this time-tunnel, follows it backwards and ends up on Karfel just as the Borad has shifted his staff around. It turns out that Maylin Tekker (the wonderfully hammy Paul Darrow) wants The Doctor to retrieve Vena, the daughter of the last Maylin who rebelled against the Borad, from the Time-Lash. Before he can argue, the Doctor discovers that the Borad's forces have kidnapped Peri and are holding her hostage in the caves of the dreaded Morlox beasts.

Paul Darrow's Tekker is delightfully hammy.

     Sixy follows a diversion in the tunnel and ends up in the 19th Century, retrieving Vena and picking up a stowaway in the form of a young man named Herbert. Upon their return to Karfel they stage a coup and The Doctor takes time to retrieve a special crystal from the Time-lash that has the ability to absorb energy and release it exactly ten seconds later - allowing him to both deflect enemy weaponfire and make his image lag ten seconds behind. Sixy rescues Peri and finally confronts the Borad, a former politician called Megelen who was voted into power and then, after a horrific accident, became half-human, half-Morlock. It's his intention to kill all life on Karfel and mutate Peri into being his mutant bride. Luckily, the Doc is able to use the crystal to trick him, and after saving the day he takes his 18th century stowaway home, to become HG Wells.
     A mere two serials after we met George Stevenson in doontoon Nukassel, we get to meet HG Wells in a story that's heavy influenced by his work. The Doctor's machine lets him be The Invisible Man, the Morlox and the pure citizens of Karfel are very reminiscient of Wells' The Time Machine, the war between the Karfelons and the Bandrils is a War of the Worlds and the Borad's transformation is from The Island of Doctor Moreau. Like George Stevenson, his presence isn't really vital to the plot, but here it's an acknowledgement of the story's themes rather than a random cameo.

HG Wells marvels at all this technobabble.

     Near the end of the story The Doctor is forced to fly the TARDIS into a missile to prevent a war that Maylin Tekker inadvertantly started with neighbouring planet Bandril. The Doctor never explains how he survives this impact, and thus it's held up as an example of the story's poor writing. As far as I can see it, what's the problem? The TARDIS is damn indestructable - that's what he said before he went out, and that's the obvious reason why he's not space debris. Often it feels like people just try to find excuses not to like Timelash, and I really, really don't know why. They say the Time-Lash looks like tin-foil. Not as much as the Vardans. They say that the ending was already done once before. Go figure, we're on Year 22 by this point.
     Timelash doesn't deserve the scorn it gets by any means. It stands in between two a lot more epic stories and thus it's odd for some that it appears to be a simply told Doctor Who adventure, quite like The Twin Dilemma was. In its soul are some very good, consistant sci-fi ideas, as well as a few subtler nods towards the show's past than the others stories of the season mananged. Timelash is on par with the rest of the stories of this season - a bit fluffy, but absolutely perfect in tone and character. And you need to watch it to find that out.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: I finish off Season 22 as I receive the Revelation of the Daleks. Erm... Revisited. As part of Season 21 Fridays, I try not to get buried in Frontios.