Doctor Who: Time-Flight

True confession time: I bought this one for the audio commentary.

The first time I saw Time-Flight in the mid-1980s, I found it dull as dirt and confusing as hell. Twenty-five years later, what was my impression? Well, I still think it's both boring and confusing.

The first episode of Time-Flight actually gets off to a good start. The Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa are morning the recent death of Adric in the previous story, Earthshock. In a really good scene, the Doctor explains that no matter how much he wants to, he cannot go back in time to undo Adric's death.

Meanwhile, on Earth in 1982, a Concord airplane bound for Heathrow Airport literally vanishes into thin air. Which is a pretty creepy concept. The Twilight Zone did at least a couple of really good stories around that premise.

Coincidentally, or not, the TARDIS arrives at Heathrow shortly after the airplane's vanishing. The Doctor cities his ties to UNIT to avoid getting arrested, since dropping a Police Box in the middle of an airport terminal is apparently frowned upon. The British government, realizing the Doctor is back on Earth, request that he investigates the disappearance of the Concord. So, with the TARDIS in the hold, and the Doctor, Tegan & Nyssa on board, a second Concord is sent up to follow the exact path of the first. And, like its predecessor, it vanishes, falling through a hole in time back 140 million years into the past.

When I was a kid, watching Time-Flight, I was disappointed that there were no dinosaurs. After all, what's the point of going to prehistoric Earth and not having dinosaurs? Of course, a few years later I saw the 1974 Doctor Who story Invasion of the Dinosaurs, and I realized the BBC, in those pre-CGI times, weren't really suited to convincingly presenting prehistoric reptiles, to say the least. So it's probably a good thing they didn't try to include any dinosaurs in Time-Flight!

I doubt I'm giving anything away in stating that the villain of Time-Flight is the Doctor's arch enemy, the Master. Inexplicably, the Master spends the first half of the story disguised as Kalid, a tubby Arabian magician with a skin condition. There 's absolutely no reason why the Master is in disguised, other than to provide a cliffhanger ending to episode two, when the Master rips off his mask. It almost felt like a Scooby Doo moment. ("Jinkies, so it was really the Master all along!")

The plot of Time-Flight is complicated. The Master wants to harness the power of the Xeraphin, an alien race trapped on prehistoric Earth that has merged into a gestalt entity, to re-energize his own TARDIS. Somehow achieving this involves him dressing up as a weird foreign sorcerer, snatching a Concord airplane 140 million years back in time, and then luring the Doctor to follow him. No, I don't get it either.

Time-Flight also contains enough technobabble to fill half a dozen episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the end, I'm not even sure exactly how the Doctor defeats the Master. It's all very confusing.

Now, given this story's questionable quality and dubious reputation among fans, I was very interested in listening to the audio commentary, to hear what the lead actors, Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, and script editor Eric Saward had to say about it. Indeed, the audio commentary turned out to be much more fun than Time-Flight itself.

Listening to the commentary, it's clear that Time-Flight was a story besieged with problems. First of all, the script had been submitted by writer Peter Grimwade to Doctor Who two times previously, and was finally accepted & commissioned right before Eric Saward came aboard as script editor. So, even though he wasn't overly enthusiastic about Time-Flight, Saward was stuck with it.

Second, Time-Flight was made at the end of the 1982 season, when there was practically no money left. And, believe me, it shows.

Third, even the actors didn't understand the script. Janet Fielding comments "This story is a bit of a mystery to me." Sarah Sutton expresses similar feelings. Peter Davison charitably suggests the story's problems don't lie with the writing, but rather there was no budget, and some of the effects needed were simply beyond what was achievable in the early 1980s. But even Davison, by the middle of the third episode, reluctantly admits "I have no idea what this story's about."

Eric Saward, commenting on the Master's disguise, asks "Why is he dressed as Fu Manchu's uglier brother? There's absolutely no reason for it." So even the script editor thought the Master's disguise was pointless, and couldn't figure out why it was needed. That's not a good sign.

There are innumerable gems in the commentary that I enjoyed. Peter Davison relates an anecdote about having an opportunity to fly on the Concord that is actually more entertaining than parts of Time-Flight. At one point the four commentators debate whether or not the story's CSO effects looked worse on British or American television screens. And when the story's rather sad looking monsters, the Plasmatons, show up, Janet Fielding cracks up, shouting "That is really crapola!" and Peter Davison sadly observes "I've just been taken over by polystyrene monsters."

Fielding and Saward agree that Doctor Who works better as a 45 minute long show, rather than the old 25 minute format. In that respect, the 2005 revival of the show definitely is an improvement, as it allows for better pacing and much greater character development. There's also a comparison to how the Doctor's companions were used (or misused) in the 1980s, as opposed to the new series, where they're more fully developed.

Really, Time-Flight is such a chore to watch, I think perhaps Davison & Co should get an award for sitting though all four episodes to record a commentary. At least I hope they got paid for it!

In addition to the commentary, the extra features include "Mouth On Legs," where Janet Fielding looks back on playing the role of Tegan Jovanka. It's very insightful. Fielding's main complaints concerning Tegan seem to be the lack of character development, her wardrobe, and the impractical hairstyle she was stuck with in her first year. I honestly can't say I blame her. Fielding was obviously frustrated by a lot of aspects of how the writers and producer John Nathan-Turner viewed the character. After watching this, and thinking it over, it occurred to me: Catherine Tate's Donna Noble from the new series is Tegan done right. Seriously. I really do love classic Doctor Who, but the revival of the show spearheaded by Russell T. Davies contains a lot of the character development for the Doctor's companions that had been severely lacking throughout much of the original run, especially the 1980s.

Unless you're a hardcore Doctor Who fan, I doubt that Time-Flight is worth picking up. But if you are, and you do, make sure to listen to the audio commentary. The story is a mess, but the commentary is an absolute riot. And Peter Davison, as always, does a good job as the Doctor. Even when he was saddled with poor stories, you could count on Davison to give a great performance.