The Randomiser: Time Flight
Jan. 4th, 2019 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatIt's 1980s Who with "Time" in the title. This never bodes well!
Actually, to be fair, there are bits of Time Flight that are quite reasonable. Most of the stuff at Heathrow is actually passable and sufficiently novel in terms of location and style to be quite interesting. One suspects if the story had managed to maintain its air of some kind of airport based procedural story it would have been much better. Both the Concorde crew and Professor Hayter are surprisingly good characters who manage (mostly) to be both interesting and competent, and the idea of a race that has converted itself into some kind of mental gestalt but still has warring "good" and "bad" sides is sufficiently interesting to have potential for good Doctor Who.
To be honest, in lots of ways, Time Flight's biggest sin is that it rather obviously ran out of money halfway through. Pretty much everything on prehistoric Earth looks shoddy and the story lacks the necessary charm or energy to overcome the general cheapness. Obviously there is also the issue of the Master and his entirely pointless disguise, but the Master obviously just likes dressing up so why not? especially since there is always a chance the Doctor will turn up. Tame Layman was genuinely surprised by his appearance so on some kind of basic level it was doing its job. It also provides a rather nice opportunity for Hayter and Captain Stapley's determined rationalism to trump the Doctor's vague assumption of more complex psychic forces, as they investigate "Khalid"'s crystal ball to reveal the electronics beneath.
I honestly think that with one more pass of the script to tighten it up, and enough money to realise its locations, Time Flight would be a much better liked story.
Actually, to be fair, there are bits of Time Flight that are quite reasonable. Most of the stuff at Heathrow is actually passable and sufficiently novel in terms of location and style to be quite interesting. One suspects if the story had managed to maintain its air of some kind of airport based procedural story it would have been much better. Both the Concorde crew and Professor Hayter are surprisingly good characters who manage (mostly) to be both interesting and competent, and the idea of a race that has converted itself into some kind of mental gestalt but still has warring "good" and "bad" sides is sufficiently interesting to have potential for good Doctor Who.
To be honest, in lots of ways, Time Flight's biggest sin is that it rather obviously ran out of money halfway through. Pretty much everything on prehistoric Earth looks shoddy and the story lacks the necessary charm or energy to overcome the general cheapness. Obviously there is also the issue of the Master and his entirely pointless disguise, but the Master obviously just likes dressing up so why not? especially since there is always a chance the Doctor will turn up. Tame Layman was genuinely surprised by his appearance so on some kind of basic level it was doing its job. It also provides a rather nice opportunity for Hayter and Captain Stapley's determined rationalism to trump the Doctor's vague assumption of more complex psychic forces, as they investigate "Khalid"'s crystal ball to reveal the electronics beneath.
I honestly think that with one more pass of the script to tighten it up, and enough money to realise its locations, Time Flight would be a much better liked story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-05 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-06 02:41 pm (UTC)