Timelash

I didn't see Timelash when it was originally broadcast (probably because series 2 of Robin of Sherwood started on the same day) so my first exposure to it was as an adult. I must start by saying that I have never found this story particularly painful to watch- but this does not stop me from thinking that it's a load of rubbish. The script has a story that could easily have been made into a reasonably good adventure. However, the pacing is all over the place and the overall flow is terrible- too much happens in the first episode, too little in the second, which means that it runs out of plot too soon, meaning a second ending has to be grafted on. This brings to mind The Creature from the Pit- hardly an illustrious antecedent! There are numerous plot holes and poorly thought out developments which should never have made it past first draft. The dialogue is atrocious in places, with clumsy info-dumping and terrible metaphors; McCoy seems to be aiming to do for scripted drama what William McGonnagal did for poetry!

However, the script is by no means the story's greatest problem. This is clearly the cheap story of the season, but even so, a creative director can work wonders. So why on earth was Pennant Roberts brought back? At his best, he is competent, but it was largely due to his ineptitude that Warriors of the Deep slipped from mediocrity to travesty. Here, Roberts is given bland sets and a Timelash prop that is full of tinsel. Roberts amplifies the blandness by overlighting the sets and, in a decision of staggering incompetence, draws attention to the tinsel in the Timelash by having the door open, showing us the unlit interior and then turning the light on- as if the Timelash were a very Christmassy fridge! Fight scenes are pathetically staged and the TARDIS scenes, although they start nicely, get sillier as they go on, culminating in the ridiculous 'seat belts' which makes the console look like a rubbish chair-o-plane! Roberts, as I have said many times before, goes to pieces whenever actors actually have to move- in fact the only thing that he directed that I thought was actually good is the first scene of Shada- where all the characters were catatonic!

Roberts' attitude to casting and directing actors is similarly poor. A typical piece of inept casting is that of both Christine Cavanagh and Tracy Ward- although they play different characters, they are dressed identically and look quite similar, which must have made the appearance of Ward's character unnecessarily confusing to the casual viewer, as Cavanagh's character was killed off in the first five minutes. Roberts casts actors fresh out of drama school for the first scenes (including Stephen Mackintosh, who would eventually become a very fine actor) whose lack of experience is obvious. Then, there are more experienced actors who are basically left to find the character on their own- Jeananne Crowley, a very accomplished actress, gives a terrible performance. Perhaps Roberts was too concerned with reigning in Paul Darrow's hugely florid performance as Tekker. Darrow is fun to watch, though. The best performance by a country mile is Pakistan's finest, Robert Ashby as the Borad. Even though he is hidden under extensive make-up (the only production triumph of the story) Ashby is terrifying- his voice is the most chilling for a Doctor Who villain since Gabriel Woolf as Sutekh.

Colin Baker had clearly found his feet as the Doctor and he successfully wins against what the script and production throw at him. Nicola Bryant is again the object of bizarre lust- enough has been written about her being chained up and molested by the (laughable) Morlox. Which brings me to Herbert. If H G Wells had really gone through all that before becoming a writer, he would probably have written respectable and forgettable bildungsromans.

It's reasonable fun and passes the time, but then a microwaved pork pie is tasty- but I would be very unwise to make them a key part of my diet.

NEXT: Revelation of the Daleks