Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: Timelash

Doctor Who: 

Timelash 

By Glenn McCoy

“Rejection. You can alter Peri's outward appearance, but you can't change the brain in her head. Whatever you do, she will always find you repulsive”

The Doctor and Peri are as usual arguing in the TARDIS about where to go when they appear to have been caught in a time corridor.  The Doctor tries to get them out of it when they see Vena float through the TARDIS.  The TARDIS finally arrives on Karfel which happens to be at one end of the tunnel.   

Karfel is ruled by the Borad who happens to be a human that has been infused with the dna of a Morlock.  The people of Karfel do not know this and believe him to be a human in appearance.  Maylin Tekker lulls The Doctor into false sense of welcome when he in actuality wants him to get the amulet back that Vena took with her when she fell into the Timelash.  The Doctor refuses but eventually agrees when Tekker says if he doesn’t he will have Peri killed.  The Doctor calculates that Vena is in 1885 and ends up in Scotland where he finds here in a cabin of a man named Herbert. The Doctorsprings to action after listening to Vena’s story about what is really going on and with Vena and Herbert head back to Karfel to save Peri and to free the planet from the Borad’s reign.

Timelash is not a very good story.  While season 22 was pretty entertaining and quite good this story is the true clunker of the season.  It is just a poor story and then having a young H. G. Wells acting like a buffoon does not help either.  I just find it hard to believe that he would act like that.  Plus it is kinda funny for him to be there to get the idea for his book that he is known for.

Timelash is the story that Paul Darrow and Colin Baker try to over the top each other.  It is pretty funny to watch seeing these two hams trying to out do one another.  Both actors are way over the top in this story that at first is funny but then gets boring after a while.  Sort of like when they were in Blakes 7 and Colin Baker was the guest star.  I guess since the story was bad the actors must of thought to do something to make it tolerable.

Timelash does not have many good points about it.  The purple blueish robot that talks funny is well pretty funny to listen to and does not look all that threatening even with the bad yellow hair.  The guards on Karfel look like they are beekeepers and everytime they appear I keep wondering if they are going out to get honey from the hive. It is surely one of the cheapest designs for a guard costume ever.  The Timelash itself is a box with tinsel in front of the opening.  But I do have to give credit that inside the Timelash the crystal set did look pretty decent and I was surprised they held up to Colin Bakers weight. 

So if you are in the mood for a Colin Baker story then I would choose any story but Timelash but then there are some of the Trial stories and maybe you could watch this one instead of those but unfortunately Colin Baker's era had so few to choose from.

Grade D +