The Time Monster

Liking "The Time Monster" is a rare thing. There are some stories that you can be respected for liking because they are smart - "Ghost Light" or "Warriors Gate" are confusing enough to make you look intelligent for seeming to understand them, for example. And likewise there are some stories which are so dumb it's cool to like in a knowing, wittily ironic way - like "Creature from the Pit". "The Time Monster" is not okay to like, because everyone knows its rubbish. Except me, because I love it.

The thing is, I can't see what's wrong with it. The Doctor/companion relationship has never been closer than here, as Jo "Cretan jazz" Grant rides across the countryside at hyperdrive speed with Uncle Who and the phallic-shaped TARDIS sniffer-outer. There is a great outward plot about beings from outside time - a creature that feeds on time itself! - and such intriguing devices as characters being aged and youthed, a wall of frozen time and an object which can exist in one time period while an immovable "shadow" of it exists in another. The inner theme is even better - the best exploration of the Doctor/Master relationship we ever got. The Master's hatred of the Doctor somehow comes through here better than in any other pre-"Deadly Assassin" story, yet his core motivation is still to taunt him by "risking everything". It nevertheless ends with the Doctor pleading for the Master's life. What better scene with which to sum up our hero?

It's perfectly definable in "The Time Monster" just what it is that sets the Doctor and the Master against one another, motivation lacking since the latter turned up seemingly on a whim in "Terror of the Autons" to destroy his nemesis. His re-appearance back then suggested some age-old feud, yet this is clearly not the case. The Master never once refers to something the Doctor has DONE to incur his wrath, barbed comments perhaps relating back to the beginning of his vendetta. No, it's who the Doctor actually IS that rattles the Master's cage. The Doctor doesn't inspire hatred in the Master as much as irritate the tits off him. The Doctor is cast here as the ultimate do-gooder, the moral crusader who, in the Masters warped perspective (perhaps), risks his life not to save his friend but simply to have the last word.

Thus the Doctor's actions become akin to cheating at poker against a trigger happy opponent. The Master doesn't care if the stakes are high, in fact he's getting off on the power trip, but his motivational gain is only in getting one over on the Doctor. People criticise "The Time Monster" because it's played flippantly. The Doctors time jammer, the Master's gleeful hand-rubbing and even Jo Grant's wig all give proceedings the air of a Christmas Jolly, and Doctor Who fans are annoyed by nothing more than characters on-screen not taking the programme seriously; in a sense, it's seen as mockery of Doctor Who, which by association means mockery of them. Doctor Who is obviously the most serious, important thing on TV, so why are you clowning around?

The catch with "The Time Monster" is that the story is about two Time Lords to whom the humans they use are anything but important. It's impossible to avoid using the often-quoted comparison to small boys stirring up ants, but those are the roles they adopt. The Doctor protects his friends, but not because they are equals; it's because it's his moral duty, at the most because he's become fond of them. When the Doctor appears to join forces with The Master in "The Claws of Axos" it's oddly believable. Meanwhile the Master is the boy who treads on the ants nest to teach his preachy friend that the creatures are disposable. To say "The Time Monster" is a story taken less than seriously is true, but there lies the whole point to the venture, and the key to the relationship between the two enemies. The fate of Atlantis - lest we forget a single, primitive lost city that even history knows is already doomed - is not important and we all know it. But it's the Doctor's duty as a good man to try and save it, and the Master's to prove that his actions are motivated only by a pointless moral compass.