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Cast
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The Master has adopted the alias of Professor Thascales (the Greek
version of his name) and is using this cover to tap into the resources
of the Newton Research Unit at Cambridge University to conduct time
experiments. His TOMTIT (Transmission of Matter through Interstitial
Time) experiment, assisted by Ruth Ingram and Stuart Hyde, is focussed
around transmitting matter by breaking them down into light waves.
Having hypnotised Dr Perceval, the Director of the Institute, into
doing his bidding, the Master’s cover is maintained. He is particularly
interested in examining a trident-shaped crystal in his possession,
using it to attract a being he addresses with the words "Come,
Kronos, come!" The Doctor and his allies have been alerted by the actions of the Master and he builds a time flow analogue to interrupt his rival’s experiments. The two enemies then spend time using time to trap each other, often with strange consequences: historical characters are transported into the present; Stuart Hyde is restored to youth, though Sergeant Benton is reverted to a baby when he is caught in TOMTIT’s flow; and the Brigadier is frozen in a time bubble. They even pit their TARDISes against one another and the Doctor is ejected into the vortex, but survives thanks to Jo and his TARDIS. In ancient Atlantis the aged and wise King Dalios is troubled by the disappearance of Krasis and the threat to the true crystal of Kronos, which is guarded by the Minotaur at the heart of a maze. The Master has travelled to Atlantis in search of the true crystal and soon inveigles himself at the Atlantean court, wooing the vain and gullible Queen Galleia and embroiling her in plots and schemes. Dalios warns of the dangers of the time when Kronos served Atlantis, but his wife is not moved by his pleas or his suspicions of the Master, whom he knows not to be an emissary of the gods. When the Doctor and Jo arrive, the old King – far older than even his looks, since Kronos gave him the power of longevity – forms a bond of trust with the Doctor and confides that when Atlantis turned from Kronos, the civilisation sought to end the link by which the Chronovore could be enslaved. But the crystal is in two pieces because it cannot be destroyed but only split. Dalios also tells the Doctor that the Minotaur was once his friend, but grew eager for the strength of a bull, and Kronos in blind sport gave this man his desire. The Doctor then faces the Minotaur to rescue Jo, duped into the maze by Krasis, and the creature is destroyed. The crystal is now produced from the maze – but the Master’s plotting with Galleia has borne fruit and he has usurped the throne, with Dalios deposed and arrested. Jo and the Doctor are soon detained too, and witness Dalios' sad death after mistreatment and torture. When the Council of Atlantis meets, Galleia finds that Dalios is dead and, having loved and respected him, his end is enough to break her faith in the Master. Krasis, however, is still in his thrall and uses the great crystal to summon Kronos to Atlantis once more. The enraged Chronovore begins to destroy Atlantis and to survive the Master flees in his TARDIS, with Jo Grant in tow. The Doctor heads off in his TARDIS in hot pursuit while Kronos destroys the city and people of Atlantis. The two TARDISes are now in the vortex, where the Doctor threatens their mutual assured destruction by causing a Time Ram by which both vehicles would occupy the same space/time co-ordinates. When he carries this threat out Kronos is set free and, thankful for this action, saves the Doctor and Jo and returns them to their TARDIS. On the Doctor’s insistence, the Master is spared too, but he flees in his own TARDIS before he can be apprehended. The Doctor and Jo return to the Institute as Ingram and Hyde operate the TOMTIT machine one last time, thereby returning the Brigadier and Benton to normality. The machine then overloads, its time experiments at an end.
Analysis by Cuisle Not quite as confusing a story as the Wikipedia plot outline suggests. The changes back and forward in time from ancient Atlantis to 1970s Cambridge are not as difficult to cope with on TV. The Master has escaped again and come back to Earth to cause trouble! It is getting to be a tedious plot line it has to be said, and contemporaneous critics were starting to comment about that. A warning to the writers to ring the changes a bit. Other than that, there is some originality about this story. The Master’s interference in the ancient city of Atlantis, using hypnotism and deception to get in with the leaders of the city was masterful, though since we’d seen him do it just as well in Terror of the Autons and Sea Devils already this season it lost some impact. The Atlantis set and the costumes were impressive for their time, though they all look like fashion victims with the benefit of hindsight. The plot is complicated and there is a lot of padding in it to stretch it to the six episodes. That seems obvious looking at it from a modern perspective, but I think it was less so at the time. The things that stand out memorably in this episode are what make it worth watching from this point of view. The various effects of The Master’s time experiments, Professor Hyde first aged horribly and then brought back to youth, the Brigadier caught in a time bubble, the slowed down time around the facility when the TOMTIT machine is used, and of course, Sergeant Benton reduced to a baby, all emphasise how dangerous messing with time is. The long sequences in which The Doctor and The Master ‘duel’ in time and space using their TARDISes and the interaction between The Master and the kidnapped Jo in his TARDIS are very well played. Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado gel together very well and it is easy to believe that their characters were old school friends from a shared cultural background. Their hatred of each other is tempered by a strange kind of mutual respect, although it would be dangerous to interpret that as ‘liking’. In the course of the ‘duel’ quite a lot is said about how the TARDIS technology and the time vortex work, much of it technotalk that is hard to follow, and some of it later contradicted, but for Doctor Who fans it is fascinating stuff. We love to see him do his stuff. The idea of a Time Ram, basically playing chicken with the two TARDISes, and leading to almost certain death is frightening. Even more frightening that it is The Doctor who threatens to use this last resort against The Master, even though Jo is with him. We keep saying ‘he’s bluffing, he won’t. He never would’. When The Doctor resorts to such ends he has to have a trick up his sleeve. The question is ‘did he?’ When he operates the Time Ram they are all saved from obliteration by the godlike Kronos. Did The Doctor know that would happen or was he prepared to kill himself and Jo to prevent The Master’s destruction of everything else? Suicidal tendencies are out of character for Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. But I can’t quite see that it was all part of the plan. I suspect he was simply trusting to luck. And after all of the high drama and the destruction of Atlantis,
we end on a great fun, down to Earth note when Sergeant Benton is
restored to full manhood, stark naked. A bit of British “Carry
On” humour to contrast with the melodrama and possibly scupper
any chance Benton thought to have of scoring with Jo.
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