Save your breath for the Timelash, Doctor. Most people depart with a scream... (Maylin Tekker, Timelash)
Ah, Doctor Who. The bedrock of my childhood, and most of my life if I'm being honest. Over its 46 years, it has shown us some incredible sights, from the petrified forests of Skaro to the stormy peaks of Peladon. It is witty, it is wild, it is ambitious and it seems as though it will never stop enthralling children.
And sometimes it's awful.
In a recent review of Mark of the Rani, I mentioned the show's doldrums in the mid-1980s and held up that story as an episode that has been seized by both the era's persecutors and champions. Today, let's look at Timelash, which I'm sad to say is Exhibit A for the detractors.
I remember... doing the Timelash... The planet Karfel, ruled by the mysterious Borad, has banned mirrors, executes prisoners by throwing them into the mysterious 'Timelash' and only seems to have two rooms. The Doctor arrives in time to be forced to retrieve an amulet from 19th Century Scotland, while trusty and busty assistant Peri is tied to a stick and menaced by the Morlox (sounds painful). Oh, and the Bandrils on the planet next door are preparing to start a war for some food supplies.
Grabbing... that tinsel when... The money had run out. Whether it was the foreign filming for The Two Doctors, or the lavish sets and location work on Mark of the Rani that ate up the season's budget, Timelash is cheap TV, and by God it shows. The eponymous Timelash, a time corridor linking planet Karfel with 12th Century Earth (for reasons which are never even vaguely alluded to), is nothing more than a curtain of tinsel. There's little I love more than ingenious special effects solutions, but this looks like a curtain of tinsel, and that's a problem.
The sets are little more than flat panels, occasionally backlit. There's a dismal attempt to turn this into a plot point as reflective surfaces are banned on Karfel - presumably because the Borad is a bit ugly, but given that he never leaves his underground lair, why bother - and there's even an outing for that fan favourite line 'All these corridors look the same'.
The Bandrils are, famously, sock puppets, and even the odd bit of decent design is undermined by diminished resources. The Borad's androids look pretty striking, but they could only afford one costume (and then it starts smirking and making strange comments about Peri). The rest of the Borad's servants are dressed as beekeepers. No, really. The Morlox is pretty much a penis with teeth. On a stick. 19th Century Earth is represented by a single cheap cottage set, and the Doctor picks up a writer interested in time machines and science called Herbert. Guess who he turns out to be?
The one ray of light in the entire production is the Borad's prosthetic make-up, which is the sort of deformed villain that Doctor Who does so well, in the tradition of Sharaz Jek, Magnus Greel and the Master. The director of this story is Pennant Roberts, a chap who you might call a 'stalwart' of British TV directing, in that he did a lot of episodes of cult TV in the 70s and 80s. His other most notorious contribution to Doctor Who is the equally derided Warriors of the Deep, which has become known to fans as Warriors on the Cheap. Draw your own conclusions.
Let's do the Timelash again! The script is dreadful. The Timelash is supposed to be a scary form of execution, but it just transports people to Inverness. As 19th Century Inverness sounds a lot better to me than a mental planet where mirrors and Jon Pertwee stories are banned, it's hard to see why the various rebels are so bothered about being thrown into it. Jon Pertwee? Ah, yes, in a completely baffling and pointless plot element, it's revealed that the Doctor previously visited Karfel in an unseen adventure in his third incarnation, along with Jo Grant. This adds absolutely nothing to the story beyond a couple of pointless continuity references, and the alarming implication that the Doctor has a sideline in selling photos of his assistants.
There's also some AWFUL info-dumping as characters spend most of the first episode telling each other things they already know - 'What? All five hundred of us?' being the most famous example.
And the script was clearly too short, so we get some of the worst examples of 80s Doctor Who's worst idea - lengthy filler scenes in the TARDIS. The Doctor and Peri spend most of the first episode standing around sniping at each other, and then pretty much repeat the trick in part two. As if that wasn't bad enough, Herbert then appears for an even more excruciating and pointless argument.
All this blatant padding is particularly irritating given that certain key scenes are far too rushed, most notably the shifting loyalty of Maylin Tekker, of whom more later.
But then, we have the Borad. He's a stern old man, ruling through monitor screens. Fair enough. BUT WAIT, he's really a deformed half-Morlox! Fair enough. BUT WAIT, he's really a clone! I'm getting bored now. Apparently being hybridised with a brainless penis with teeth has boosted his intellect a hundred times. I'm... not sure how that's supposed to work. And fair enough if he wants to ban mirrors because he can't bear to look at himself, but why then does the mirror disrupt his androids?
The Borad wants to turn Peri into a disfigured half-Morlox so he can mate with her, continuing the unhealthy obsession of 80s villains with the character. Quite why he needs to mate with her given that he can clone himself is quite beyond the point. But it's at this point that the script takes its worse turn for me.
As soon as the Borad's true appearance is revealed, the Doctor starts taunting him about how ugly he is. For most of the second episode. Given that one of the central tenets of Doctor Who is that you shouldn't judge on appearances, it makes slightly odd viewing, and then you have a scene where the Borad is holding Peri hostage. The Doctor calls him an ugly silly person and then drop-kicks him into the Timelash while the villain's crying like a girl. Awful awful awful. Oh, and then there's a bizarre scene where Peri seems to kill a man with a pot plant.
Bring your knees in tight...
It would need fantastic performances to save a script and production so flawed, wouldn't it? Unlucky. We have the usual bad young actors as idealistic rebels, and then the bald rebel deputy leader with a porn star tache.
'Most people depart with a scream' into the Timelash, but they don't. Mostly it's a sort of disappointed groan. Some of the most half-hearted execution scenes in television history.
In fact half-hearted pretty much sums up the performances. Even Colin Baker's Doctor looks as though he can't really be bothered with this mess of a story, and all the Karfel councillors can't possibly really be as bad at acting as they are here, otherwise they'd never even have got an Equity card.
Luckily, though, one man decided to step up to the plate and put in a bit of effort in this sorry excuse for a Doctor Who story. Timelash is notable for one thing only, Mr Paul Darrow's performance as Maylin Tekker.
It's incredible that Darrow's performance has ever been criticised. For reasons best known to himself, the Blake's 7 star decided to base his portrayal of the Karfel politician on Sir Laurence Olivier's Richard III. And it's incredible. Just as you're bored out of your mind and your finger's hovering over the eject button on your DVD remote, Paul Darrow pops up to chew another piece of dull scenery. He is, quite literally, the only thing worth watching in Timelash and he's quite obviously having the time of his life.
Darrow can't save Timelash, but he does inject just enough fun to make it almost bearable viewing.
In conclusion Timelash is probably the worst Doctor Who story ever made. Clunking dialogue, dreadful special effects, an out of character Doctor, lacklustre performances from everyone who doesn't have the initials PD, and a pathetic plot. It's boring for casual viewers, and enraging for fans. Avoid.
Shiny DVD? The last thing Timelash needed was a DVD release. On fuzzy VHS and low-quality UK Gold repeats, it was bad enough. DVD just throws its many flaws into unpleasantly sharp focus. Hilariously, the sleeve notes for the DVD even acknowledge how bad the story is (the sleeve notes inside the case, obviously), before ending with the sentence:
"But, sandwiched between The Two Doctors and Revelation of the Daleks - two of the most popular Sixth Doctor stories - Timelash isn't all bad."
Absolutely no evidence is provided in the sleeve notes for this claim that the story isn't all bad, and it's almost as though the writer is making a case for it being watchable simply because the stories on either side of it are a lot better. Odd writing, but to be fair at least they didn't even try to polish the rubbish story.
I don't like DVD commentaries, I can't think who would actually sit down and watch a 90 minute film with people talking all over it, especially when those people are the actors you're watching. Timelash has possibly the unique distinction of being the only DVD in history where it's undeniably more fun to watch with the commentary track rolling. Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Paul Darrow are on lively form, and the banter between Baker and Darrow is excellent, and the whole thing sparkles with exactly the kind of energy that the actual episodes lack.
The making-of documentary is as well-produced as on any of the other Doctor Who releases, but it's a bit of a scramble to justify the serial. Not that, to be honest, anyone involved on the production side has any career to speak of any more. Once again, draw your own conclusions. Watching it, though, I was struck by how young writer Glen McCoy still is - it was virtually his first job in TV. Also, Robert Ashby played the Borad, and I used to have a flatmate called Rob Ashby. So that's interesting. For me.
Other than that, though, the DVD is quite stark on features, there's the standard subtitles, scene selection and photo galleries, a trailer for the Time Flight / Arc of Inifinity box set and some Radio Times scans. There's apparently an Easter Egg, but I can't find it (I never can).
The last word goes to Paul Darrow from the documentary: 'After I'm dead, switch off. It's boring.'
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