Doctor Who: Classic 22x5: "Timelash" Parts 1-2 | Reaction!

Did they just write HG Wells as a self-insert? Who's being inserted? on Season 22 Serial 5 of Classic Doctor Who - Timelash Parts 1-2!
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
09:49 - Part 1: Snake Man
19:30 - Part 2: Man Snake
25:03 - Discussion
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[@joshuajoshua2732]

This adventure takes place years after an unseen event with the Third Doctor and Jo Grant off-screen with an unnamed male companion which is persumed to be Mike Yates who we never saw go inside or travel in the TARDIS. The previous Loch Ness monster episode your thinking of Alex is not a Third Doctor but a Fourth Doctor episode "Terror of the Zygons" and yes it is confirmed in the book version that the Borad does become a Loch Ness monster.

[@t43iavmoi]

The actor Paul Darrow appeared in another BBC sci-fi drama made by the same people who done Doctor Who. Terry Nation's 'Blakes 7' which ran from 1978-1981. This is perhaps one sci-fi show you should probably add to you watchlist.

[@whobp8]

Well done, Richard in catching on so early that Herbert was H. G. Wells, it's surprising how many people don't catch that after hearing the name Morlox (Morlocks). The Time Machine isn't the only Wells novel referenced in this story, there's also The War of the Worlds (the Bandrils threatening to invade), The Island of Dr Moreau (The Borad being an amalgam of man and beast), and even The Invisible Man (the Doctor's trick with the Kontron crystal and the time delayed image.) Paul Darrow previously appeared in Doctor Who in The Silurians as a UNIT Captain, but by this point he was most famous for playing Avon in the British sci-fi series Blake's Seven, a show that's well worth checking out. This story is generally not popular with fandom, partly because of the Borad dying and then coming back due to a cloning process that's never been mentioned before in the story and also due to the obvious cheapness of the production (the interior of the Timelash is literally made of tinfoil). Neither Colin Baker nor Nicola Bryant had very fond memories of this. And Colin actually found it hilarious that The Completely Useless Doctor Who Encyclopedia, (a book that pokes fun at the series in a loving way) pointed out that Timelash is actually an anagram for lame shit. 😂

[@TheZodiacz]

Not popular? One list of best to worst stories ranks it dead last at no.254. In most lists it's near the bottom.

[@keithsolley]

14: 44 Jo Grant in the Sarah Jane Adventures mentions she visited the planet Karfel

[@kemmdog4444]

The “Loch Ness Monster” you’re thinking about is the Skarasen from Terror of the Zygons with the Fourth Doctor.

[@kemmdog4444]

I always listen to the whole video

[@ftumschk]

Same here. Alex and Dad's preambles are always entertaining.

[@kierenevans2521]

Paul Darrow's overacting in this is legendary. Previously he was Captain Hawkins in Doctor Who and Silurians but is most well know as Avon in Blake's 7. And yeah, it's yet another story with Peri being leered at by the baddie...Well that's not going to change... And I generally listen to the whole video. 40:25 In terms of on-screen time, you're already over half way through the sixth doctor.

[@stickytapenrust6869]

He over-acted in this in revenge for Colin Baker’s hammy acting as Bayban the Butcher in an episode of Blake’s 7.

[@ftumschk]

@@stickytapenrust6869 I think Colin came close to out-hamming Darrow in this story. The Doctor's "BAD? BAAAAAD? BAAA-AAAAAD?!!!" still makes me cringe to this day.

[@jonathanmurphy3141]

The "padding" in episode 2, in the TARDIS, is just that. The episode was running a few minutes late. That was written and filmed after this story was edited,

[@alexbruce9499]

Apparently the depiction of HG Wells is very inaccurate, particularly with him supposedly being keen on spiritualism. The best guess is the writer somehow got Wells mixed up with Arthur Conan Doyle.

[@FarazIFM]

I love the long unrelated discussions it’s one of the things I look forward to about these reactions

[@Darren79]

Spot on with the padding - part two was massively underrunning. That second episode TARDIS scene was written later and recorded as part of the studio for the next story in production as pure padding.

[@michaelwebster8666]

The person Alex was refering to who was outspoken on violence in Dr Who was the late Mary Whitehouse who was the spokesperson for the National Viewers and Listeners Association. The ending of an episode of The Deadly Assasin (when The Doctor is being drowned by Goth), was re-edited because Whitehouse kicked up a stink about it!👍

[@MuchWhittering]

This story is one people always cite as one of the worst ever, but you know what? I like it. Certainly I like it more than a lot of this Season. 3:04 Michael Grade, controller of BBC One at the time. He hated Doctor Who, and is responsible for the 18 month long hiatus between Seasons 22 and 23. For what it's worth, he's gone on record as saying he likes Modern Doctor Who, and that his criticism of the old show was mostly due to it looking dirt cheap and not being able to stand up to other sci-fi like Star Wars or Back to the Future. He seems a reasonable man, he's interviewed on the Season 22 (I think) Blu-Ray set about his time working at the BBC and his relationship with Doctor Who. He isn't the one who cancelled it, as he'd left the post by 1989. Not sure if he's the one responsible for scheduling it in a death-slot against Coronation Street though. 3:50 Mary Whitehouse, described by Wikipedia as "a teacher and conservative activist". One of those "TV is corrupting our youth" types. I know she was vocal in the 70s a lot against Doctor Who. 5:39 Since you're talking about old weather, last week we had a single day of very heavy snowfall. Horrendous snow for one day, then the next day it was almost completely melted. I live on a hill, a few doors down from a school, so my road was full of parents' cars getting stuck as they tried to collect their kids. 23:04 "The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am." Paul Darrow played a UNIT guy in The Silurians, but he's most famous for being one of the regulars on Blake's 7.

[@ftumschk]

I believe the one who scheduled Doctor Who against Coronation Street was Jonathan Powell, who arguably had more disdain for the show than Michael Grade.

[@johnjeczalik8960]

The next story is the last serial to have each part be 45 minutes in length. For The Trial Of A Time Lord we’re back to 25 minute parts. But I would strongly recommend that you spread the 14 part story over four weeks.

[@davidbull7210]

The only good thing about Timelash is that it's not as boring as The Twin Dilemma. What a poorly written mess ...and for the second time since the Hartnell era this season, a real historical figure is gratuitously thrown into the mix. Btw the story massively underran so they had to film massive padding sequences set in the TARDIS during the filming of the next story. You'll notice Colin's hair is exactly the same here, and much longer than in other scenes.

[@Darren79]

Timelash is famously in fan circles an anagram of "Lame Shit"😎

[@davidbull7210]

Quite...and when the lame shit hits the fan circles...

[@DamnQuilty]

I really like this one.

[@robertdodd6561]

The book ends in a very different and much more disturbing way than the film.

[@Jaketherobonrd]

Ok you thought Two Doctors was bad well Timelash i think is bad even worse. To be honest when I first watched the episode I didn’t mind it and over the years after rewatching it again I can say it’s not great. I mean I can still watch it but at the same time i think it’s bad. The only merits I give are HG.Wells being involved in the story and I quite like Paul Darrows over the top acting and the Borad is a pretty interesting monster design. But I think the 6th Doctor and Peri together in this story are not great at all. Fun trivia for you, there is a big finish story with 8th Doctor, he meets Orson Wells called Invaders from Mars.

[@hbomb6775]

Two doctors is way worse

[@Joey15811]

​@@hbomb6775Agree. 2 doctors is probably the only classic stort id happily take in a time machine and junk it switching it for other episode.

[@ftumschk]

I actually mark it down for having HG Wells in it. Given that Wells was such an important figure in the history of SF, it's doubly insulting that an SF show portrayed him like a bumbling idiot and a pain in the arse.

[@benjaminwilson2945]

9:18 All the rest have thirty-one except February which has twenty-eight days clear, and twenty-nine on each leap year.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

"Timelash" is considered to be one of the worst of the worst in fandom you guys thought "The Two Doctors" was bad this story was very bad. I will say Tekker's over the top villainry was great his actor Paul Darrow was considered the worst guest star in fandom I personally thought he was great he is best known for the character Avon in "Blake's 7" a show I highly recommend you guys watch in a future reaction.

[@joshuaverran9443]

Richard I slightly disagree I personally don't mind the padding it's all part of the show's charm after 22 seasons you'd think you be use to that by now but I will say it's not one of the greatest stories ever but it's entertaingly goofy and fun if you don't study it too hard.

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

(1) Timelash is an awful story and the most crushingly disappointing thing about it is that it isn't just one or two massive flaws that sink the whole thing, it's almost everything being so thoroughly mediocre and underdeveloped and it all accumulates to make this story as bad as it is. The plot is incredibly derivative with a totalitarian regime controlling a planet and a band of rebels trying to fight back that we've seen too many times to count, but the issue is no effort is put in to develop any of it. We're given no reason to care. First of all, how did the Borad come into power? We find out later that he was a scientist, who was punished for his unethical experiments who then became mutated due to one of them going wrong. So how did he go from that to where we find him in this story? This story is also a structural mess. Throughout most of the story, Tekker was established as an arrogant, power hungry man that had no qualms about propping up the fascist regime and killing his own people, but then as soon as he hears the Borad's true plan he quickly changes tact and is immediately killed off and the story simply moves on. This doesn't work at all because there's no build up and the change is too quick and jarring and it isn't an end befitting a character that had been such a big part of the story up to that point. There's also the incredibly easy and anti-climactic way the Doctor defeats the Borad (or so we thought) that makes the Borad seem incredibly lame and stupid, only for it to be revealed that he had been working on a secret cloning project all this time that saved his skin. The problem is that none of that was foreshadowed or set up, so it feels like a very cheap and unearned twist that was shoehorned in to make the story seem more exciting than it actually is. On top of all this, there's the most unexciting race against time to stop a missile from destroying a world I think I've ever seen. There's no sense of urgency and the lack of world building means the situation feels like it has no stakes. To make matters worse, the story refuses to explain how the Doctor managed to stop the missile with the TARDIS without being destroyed himself with a "I'll explain later" joke that is getting very old and tired at this point of the season because we've heard it several times already in previous stories.

[@stickytapenrust6869]

I always say in this serial “He is the Bor*a*d and I am bor*e*d!”

[@Joey15811]

Bad but better than the Two Doctors. I don't think I'd like 2 doctors even as a 2 parter...

[@ftumschk]

The quality of the writing in this script is atrocious. Apart from being full of exposition and stereotypical "mwah-ha-ha" baddie lines, you get gems like these: _"This planet will rule this corner of the Universe with the power of a giant ocean!"_ Not an enormous ocean, mind you, just a giant one. Oceans, of course, being well known for having the power to rule. _"You gave me your word, you microcephalic apostate!"_ It seems the writer needed a synonym for "traitor", saw "apostate" listed in a Thesaurus, and went for that... without knowing that the word refers to someone who has betrayed their religion, not someone who's merely broken a gentleman's agreement. It looks like the writer wasn't too familiar with "microcephalic" either, and just chose a big word to make the Doctor sound erudite. Well, it didn't fool me :)

[@nickgriffiths7224]

Having looked at the info text on the DVD, I think a lot of the world salad inclusions were from Eric Saward

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

(2) The rebel part of the story is also very lame. We're introduced to two characters at the beginning, who are established as being opposed to the regime in place, but one of them is begrudgingly still working for it because he sees no other way. Presumably in a story like this, this would get further get explored and developed and this character would have a crucial part to play in the story, but about five minutes after all of this gets established, that character gets unceremoniously killed off. Well, what was the point of it then? Then there's all the time travel shenanigans that simply clashes with the rest of the story because it, again, has no chance to be developed and it just ends up being very wishy washy. Also, why is HG Wells in this story? He contributes nothing, there's literally no narrative purpose for him to be there. Especially because the story doesn't even acknowledge that it's him until the very end for a cheap joke. There are also the references to the third doctor and Jo, which add nothing besides allowing Peri to save her life because she's somehow conveniently aware of Jo, not because she's smart or can think on her feet. It's the sort of gratuitous fan wank this era is justifiably criticised for. Perhaps the worst part of the story though, is the way the sixth Doctor is written in this story. So far in this season, the sixth Doctor's character had been progressing quite nicely and a lot of the spikier elements that were present in The Twin Dilemma had been mellowed out and he's gradually started to become a warmer and more compassionate individual that wasn't quite as arrogant and brutish as he had initially seemed. Well, all of that development gets thrown out of the window in this story. He's suddenly back to being an egotistical asshole that has no regard anyone else's feelings or how he comes across. he's aggressive, rude and confrontational for absolutely no reason. There are also the abhorrent views he expresses about why Peri would never accept the Borad and why he's evil. The moral is that it doesn't matter what's on the inside, the surface is all that matters and if someone doesn't match up to the accepted beauty standards, they deserve to be cast aside because nobody wants, needs or cares about them. He essentially equates beauty with goodness and it's a hideous message to send in a show that has such a large kids audience. It's also horrible that Peri is given no agency in this situation and is literally told at one point that her opinion doesn't matter by the Doctor. This story treats Peri horribly and presents her as nothing more than an object to be lusted after. She's dragged around with a collar on her neck and chained up for a large part of the story, which unnecessarily sexualises her. Much is made of Peri's treatment by the show during her time on it, but this is absolutely the nadir. I'd like to end on a positive because there is someone that deserves praise and that's Paul Darrow as Tekker. He's the only good thing in it and gives a magnificently OTT and enjoyable performance. On the whole though, Timelash is a damp squib and fails at almost every storytelling fundamental you can think of. It's a highly unpopular story, which always finishes in the bottom five of any story ranking poll. I personally wouldn't put it that far down because there are just too many terrible Moffat and Chibnall era stories that I think are worse, but I can certainly understand why most fans put this one so far down.