At an exploratory meeting with British Airways, John Nathan-Turner found the executives a bit uncooperative, so he turned to his PA and said, loud enough to be overheard, "What time are we meeting the Air France people?". The BA execs' attitude instantly softened, and JNT suddenly had permission to film on board a Concorde at Heathrow, access to stock footage, and as many scale models of Concorde as he liked.
I really want a Doctor who story where the immediately notices the Shifty character in a cultural insensitive costume and is like: " Sigh...hello Master..." lol
Back in 1982, 8-year old me was utterly devastated by Adric's death in Earthshock. I couldn't believe he was really gone, so when I saw Waterhouse included in the Radio Times' (TV listings magazine) cast list for the upcoming Time Flight part 2, I remember how relieved I was that they hadn't killed him off after all. When Adric's inclusion turned out to be just an illusion and he hadn't been resurrected, I had to go through the trauma all over again! While I love Davison's era, Time Flight falls squarely into the half of his stories that are just terrible. Well done for making it through.
The Adric cameo was a deliberate move by JNT to keep events secret. Back then, Doctor Who was on on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The BBC's TV magazine, 'Radio Times' went out on Tuesdays and contained the BBC 1 & 2 listings for the next week. Adric's Cameo in Part 2 meant his name appeared in the listings, thus not hinting at his death in part 4 of 'Earthshock'.
The one part of this story I still chuckle at is The Doctor's incredulity at "Khalid". At one point he literally snaps "Oh come on? You can do better than that." It's almost like Peter Davison improvised that line as a form of protest.
Yeah, Davison is clearly (and understandably) not taking the Khalid thing seriously at all. There are multiple points where you can see him actively trying not to laugh.
Now as a child, the first Doctor Who story I ever had on DVD was Time Flight because it was cheap and my mom was having trouble finding anything back in 2008 in texas, but it made me love peter davison, and here's why: if he was able to commit to that script and act genuinely worried and invested, then he must have been one hell of an actor. As a kid i could tell it was bad but i was LIVING for Davison's performance.
The most fun I've ever had with this story, is watching the behind the sofa extra on the blu ray box set. Watching Peter, Janet and Sarah howl with laughter all the way through it is so much fun!
When I watch Classic DW these days, I often find myself playing a game I call “What was the author envisioning? Peter Grimwade: Hey, I’ve been reading a lot of HP Lovecraft lately, and it’s given me a good idea for a story. A bunch of people get pulled millions of years into the past, where a sinister Arabian sorcerer is trying to enslave a recuperating Elder God. There’s this massive city (like in “At the Mountains of Madness”), and Khalid (that’s our Nyarlathotep character) has been mesmerizing these present-day characters in an attempt to penetrate the city’s inner sanctum. Oh, and because I know you like monsters, we can have “resemble-but-are-legally-distinct-from" Shoggoths in the mix - we can call them, I don't know… Plasmatrons. JNT: Plasmatrons? PG: It’s a first-draft name - I’m not married to it. JNT: Sounds great! I’ll put it in our season finale spot. PG: Cool. JNT: Oh, but we are going to need to make some modifications to it. PG: Oh? JNT: Yeah. For starters, I don’t think the budget’s going to stretch to building an entire alien city on prehistoric earth. A single building is a lot more feasible. PG: [edits pitch] JNT: Oh, and Tony Ainley is contracted for four more episodes this season. You can fit the Master into this season finale, right? PG: [pitch editing intensifies] JNT: Oh, and I’ve arranged for us to film inside a Concorde jet! Maybe these contemporary humans could be abducted from a Transatlantic flight. PG: [side-eye; rewriting intensifies] JNT: Oh, and we have no budget otherwise, so these Plasmatrons might wind up looking like crap. PG: [transcribing] “like… crap.” Got it. [scene] There’s a principle in collaborative scriptwriting that says that if you’re going to point out a problem, you ideally want to propose a solution to that problem, too. While I can’t see solutions to *all* of these problems, here’s how I’d change the Khalid stuff: To start with, shuffle who plays whom: Ainley still shows up as the Master in the latter half of the story, but in the first half, the Master has disguised themselves as “Mrs. McGillicuddy,” an elderly passenger on the Concorde who has inexplicably resisted Khalid’s hypnotism (basically Professor Hayter’s episode 2 role from the story as transmitted, but with less arch-rationalizing and more crypto-racist old biddying). Khalid… for starters, let’s have him wear a costume that - as you point out - is closer to actual Middle Eastern clothing. Also, he’s played by an actor of genuine Middle Eastern ancestry. Part two ends close to how it did in the original version: Khalid is vanquished, and revealed to be a Plasmaton… but Mrs. McGillicuddy likewise removes her disguise to reveal that she’s the Master. As episode three begins, it’s revealed that “Khalid” is actually “Professor Al-Mansur” (played by the same actor). We get the backstory of what happened over the course of episode 3: The Master, having pulled a loaded Concorde through a time contour, was left with a group of passengers that included the real Mrs. M. and Professor Al-Mansur. The Professor resisted the Master’s hypnotism, but Mrs. M. spouted a lot of racist paranoia (in keeping with Lovecraft’s historical prejudices). The Master killed Mrs. M. to provide raw material for Plasmatons (as he is said to have done to some of the passengers in the transmitted story), which he then used to transfigure the Professor into Khalid, who serves as an unwilling lynchpin for his control of the remaining passengers. The freed Professor Al-Mansur takes up the role that Hayter served in the transmitted episodes three and four, eventually sacrificing himself to provide the Doctor with a conduit to speak with the Xeraphin. No direct way to deal with the budget shortfall, or the “bartering for TARDIS components” that episode 4 leans heavily on, but it’s a start.
Another reviewer I watch summed it up like so: "Fun Fact: the reason the Concord features so heavily is because the writer was hoping to score a free ride. ... this I gonna hurt."
Personally I genuinely find this one extremely entertaining. Not in a so-bad-it's-good way, I just really like it. I also find it to be more self-aware than people give it credit for.
The Master is disguised in this one because outside of Survival Ainley was rarely afforded the ability to play his own Master rather than a caricature of Delgado's Master. I attribute the majority of the absolutely buckwild disguises Ainley's master winds up in are because of that. And, yes, I hate this one outside of that more general problem. The Tegan thing was envisioned as a season cliffhanger rather than a departure, however temporary, incidentally.
The weird thing about the Davison era is that the penultimate stories always feel like Season finales, but then there's always a cheap terrible episode afterwards, Time-Flight, Kings Demons, and Twin Dilemma. Curiously however this wasn't a thing with the other Doctors under JNT's tenure
Not seen it, but I have read the novelisation by Peter Grimwade, who wrote the script. I actually quite enjoyed the book, so perhaps the claim that there's a good story in there was based on the original idea and less so on what re-writes and budget constraints left Davison to work with.
The Master revealing himself as the villain even though he’s got no one to disguise for, no reason to hide and no reason to not be himself from the start just makes the whole story so funny 😭 Cause he really was just waiting on a whim for The Doctor to show up so he could pull a “Ha! Gotcha!” 😭😂
There's an interesting juxtaposition with Davison era stories - stories with a ton of mortal violence/gruesomeness of violence focused on: Earthshock, Resurrection, Caves, Warriors, The Visitation, and then there are the stories where no one dies due to violence: Maywdryn Undead, Snakedance, Kinda, Time-Flight, Terminus. A lot of the other stories' vibe belong in one of those two columns, even if they technically don't fit. I think this was an accident, but at the time I liked the impression on me as an audience member that violence wasn't necessary to tell an adventure story, but when it is in a story it is awful and unsanitized.
Also In don't think the sacrifice of the professor makes sense for the character - 1. he doesn't view it as a sacrifice, as he will know everything, 2. his obstinancy and his desire to know everything are two sides of the same coin, and 3. he wasn't making a sacrifice - as he didn't actually die
There is very little that is 'good' about this story but there are some delightful moments, mostly involving the hypnotised camp pilots. Best anyone can come up with is the "oh no, we left Tegan behind" was supposed to be an end of season cliffhanger? The BBC (and JNT) being famously thrifty, they did not pay Janet Fielding the same retention fee - so that could have been her departure - that they paid to Davison and Sutton which meant she wasn't contractually obliged not to change her appearance. So she immediately got her hair cut short as she hated the style they'd created for her and, by her own account, the repeated perming and hot curler styling had damaged her hair to the point of falling out. However, wardrobe get their own back with her incredibly unflattering tube top and shorts combo.
Whilst black/yellowface might now be shocking, it was quite common (and popular) at the time. For example, The Black and White Minstrel Show ran weekly on BBC1 until 1978 and then toured the UK, Australia and New Zealand until 1989!
I'm a big fan of Davison's era but this one isn't good. I agree with another comment that says the Fifth Doctor is seen as the nice one but he really isn't that nice. He can be but that's usually after he's been annoyed and frustrated. Regarding Tegan being left, I've always thought that was writing/production mess up because they knew she wasn't really leaving, so they didn't bother with a leaving scene.
Definitely agreed that this one is very middle-of-the-road. I do find it mildly cute, but definitely below average. Weird though, I recall you having looked at this already. Maybe I confused your video with a Stubagful video? That would be funny
This review made me chuckle a lot. :D The story is a hot mess, but it's so bad in an entertaining way that the time just flies by. (See what I did there?)
This is one of Peter Davison’s least favorite story, if not his most hated. I actually like the fifth doctor, but this is not a story I like revisiting.
The only thing I like is that I like the idea that for this season it starts with teagan trying to get to Heathrow airport, accidentally ends up on the tardis, spends a series trying to get the doctor to take her there, and so the final story is finally at Heathrow. The story itself... Not for me
Hoping you get to watch some of the actual good 5th Doctor stories soon! The series 20 combo of Mawdryn Undead and Enlightenment are highly recommended. (Terminus is part of this trilogy as well, but also suffered from having no budget.) No offense to the guy, but I really question Peter Davison's taste in stories. In particular, in the 6th Doctor Behind the Sofa features, the favorite episodes of his couch were seemingly Timelash and Terror of the Vervoids! So him saying the script for Time-Flight was good is another questionable call.
I watched this a week ago or so and I ended up rather enjoying Time-Flight. The 1st episode in my opinon is genuinley great, I love the concorde stuff and all that in Heathrow. Parts 2&3 are a bit meh, a lot of explaining and stuff, Davison and Ainley work incredibly well off each other in this story and the dialogue I rather like. Part 4 is also very good, the supporting cast of the 3 concorde guys and the dartmouth guy are very funny and probably the best part of the story overall. For me, Time-Flight is a story that, whilst not the worst story of the season (that goes to Four To Doomsday), it is another blemish on an otherwise steller season of Doctor Who with the other 5 stories in Season 19 (Castrovalva, Kinda, The Visitation, Black Orchid and Earthshock) being absolutely excellent in my opinion. I am increibly biased to all this however as in my opinion the 5th Doctor is not only the best Doctor in the entire show but his era is also the best of the entire show.
I saw episode 1 and part of 3 and 4 of this. And i didn’t feel the need to watch episode 2. And i didnt remember The Master’s disguise in episode 1 at all bc i saw 3 and 4 like a few weeks after 1.
The "twist" that he's the Master, does have 1 point to it : All that disturbingly offensive characterization can now be blamed on the Master making fun of humanity, not just a specific culture. 😅 A lot of people, including my father, didn't really like Tegan, so the Doctor just leaving her was seen as funny, but yes, it was also crass.
I watched it just now so i could watch this. I like the concept, i was uncomfortable the whole time khalid was on screen ("this is a racist caricature, right?"), but otherwise i enjoyed the antics. It's not what i would call good though lol
I get that on paper Kalid could be perceived as culturally insensitive, but the make-up looks like it’s meant to be alien. The inexplicable disguise is just even more confusing for this reason.
While I don't hate this one, it is a mess. One thing that annoyed me was at the beginning with how The Doctor treated Adric's death. Which is why I appreciate the Adric moment in The Power of The Doctor, and other recent Doctor who media.
I feel the 5th Doctor being the "nice one" is a bit of a fan misconception, he's often more techy and irritated. I also get the feeling he resented most of his companions, bar maybe Nyssa and Erimem, I always find the ending shot of Arc in Infinity to be a telling sign of that where he's clearly annoyed by Regan's return.
I’m not even sure that it’s a misconception anymore since Janet Fielding has repeatedly-and quite convincingly (if not entirely seriously)-pointed out how awful Five is to Tegan on the Blu-ray sets.
Yep, this sure is a Doctor Who story that exists. It feels more like an advert for Concorde, did we mention Concorde, Concorde! The Master being in his weirdly generically racist disguise when nobody but the audience is even there to see it is just the most pointless of pointless things. And yes, Five abandoning Tegan is both mean and immediately undone! But actually one of the things I find interesting about Five is that he doesn't seem to even like his companions for most of his run, with the exception of Nyssa. Adric dies and he's like, oh well, and then at his first chance he drops Tegan! It's at least a different dynamic.
Part one is actually quite good in my opinion. Unfortunately the rest of the story is a mess. And the Master's 'disguise' is so so weird As for the fifth Doctor, I think often the writers struggle with his characterisation. Season 21 is better for it, particularly Frontios.
On the whole, I enjoyed the 5th Doctor back when the series was first shown in the US, but I have to say at least 1/2 the stories are as bad as most of those in the 6th Doctor's tv run. 'Time-Flight' fits into that lower portion.
As big a fan as I am of classic Who in general and the fifth Doctor in particular, yeah, this story is a mess and I've felt that way since first watching it as teen in the 80s. There are little moments here and there that are cute or interesting (mostly in the first episode), but it was a waste of everyone's time. The making of featurette on the Blu-ray (and DVD?) is infinitely more enjoyable.
Peter Davidson is my least favourite Doctor, he is wonderful as Albert Campion in the 1989/90 BBC adaption of Margery Allingham's 1920/30s mystery novels - I think that character would have been a near ideally way for him to have played his version of the Doctor
I hooted when I saw this scroll up for my teatime viewing! While I prefer Who to be genuinely good - Time Flight I enjoy as "so bad that it's good", such a mess of needless and janky nonsense. Def on my list of the handful of worst Who serials ever, but still entertaining WTFery.
People try to claim the Twin Dilemma was the worst Doctor Who Story but honestly for my money I think Time Flight is the worst classic Who story. It's just so utterly dull, the biggest crime any piece of art or media could ever commit.
In the doctors dvd davison lays into how crap this was and there was no money the black curtain in foam rocks ..the master was not needed pointless was tine and rani. I liked some shots but its jnt being showbiz spectcle ,press junket ,were at concord .story dont matter The pilots trying to fly the tardis is one bit do like Thanks to i player i found a good 5 story first davison made in production order four to doomsday ,i thought he gave his best most doctor like performance
This story and four to doomsday, are like the essential reasons why I don‘t like Season 19. the only great Story from this Season is „Kinda“ and Black Orchid is fine, but the rest basically sucks. People love to go off at the sixth and seventh Doctor for some of their sucky seasons, but like to ignore how bad Season 19 was
@@nekusakura6748 No. Earthshock in my Opinion gets overhyped because of Adrics tragic death. The cybermen are weird in it, the Doctor and Adric have another dumb conflict and basically nothing really happens until Adric does what he does. And even that scene feels sour to me, because it is obvious that they only wrote it in to get rid of him. It wasn't a completed arc for the character.
That is kind of funny. We have Time-Flight, Timelash, Time And the Rani, The Time Monster, and The Invasion of Time. But at the same time (no pun intended), we also have The Time Warrior and The Time Meddler, so I'd say it balances out a little.
At an exploratory meeting with British Airways, John Nathan-Turner found the executives a bit uncooperative, so he turned to his PA and said, loud enough to be overheard, "What time are we meeting the Air France people?". The BA execs' attitude instantly softened, and JNT suddenly had permission to film on board a Concorde at Heathrow, access to stock footage, and as many scale models of Concorde as he liked.
I really want a Doctor who story where the immediately notices the Shifty character in a cultural insensitive costume and is like:
" Sigh...hello Master..." lol
Back in 1982, 8-year old me was utterly devastated by Adric's death in Earthshock. I couldn't believe he was really gone, so when I saw Waterhouse included in the Radio Times' (TV listings magazine) cast list for the upcoming Time Flight part 2, I remember how relieved I was that they hadn't killed him off after all. When Adric's inclusion turned out to be just an illusion and he hadn't been resurrected, I had to go through the trauma all over again!
While I love Davison's era, Time Flight falls squarely into the half of his stories that are just terrible. Well done for making it through.
The Adric cameo was a deliberate move by JNT to keep events secret. Back then, Doctor Who was on on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The BBC's TV magazine, 'Radio Times' went out on Tuesdays and contained the BBC 1 & 2 listings for the next week. Adric's Cameo in Part 2 meant his name appeared in the listings, thus not hinting at his death in part 4 of 'Earthshock'.
The one part of this story I still chuckle at is The Doctor's incredulity at "Khalid". At one point he literally snaps "Oh come on? You can do better than that." It's almost like Peter Davison improvised that line as a form of protest.
Yeah, Davison is clearly (and understandably) not taking the Khalid thing seriously at all. There are multiple points where you can see him actively trying not to laugh.
Now as a child, the first Doctor Who story I ever had on DVD was Time Flight because it was cheap and my mom was having trouble finding anything back in 2008 in texas, but it made me love peter davison, and here's why: if he was able to commit to that script and act genuinely worried and invested, then he must have been one hell of an actor. As a kid i could tell it was bad but i was LIVING for Davison's performance.
The most fun I've ever had with this story, is watching the behind the sofa extra on the blu ray box set.
Watching Peter, Janet and Sarah howl with laughter all the way through it is so much fun!
When I watch Classic DW these days, I often find myself playing a game I call “What was the author envisioning?
Peter Grimwade: Hey, I’ve been reading a lot of HP Lovecraft lately, and it’s given me a good idea for a story. A bunch of people get pulled millions of years into the past, where a sinister Arabian sorcerer is trying to enslave a recuperating Elder God. There’s this massive city (like in “At the Mountains of Madness”), and Khalid (that’s our Nyarlathotep character) has been mesmerizing these present-day characters in an attempt to penetrate the city’s inner sanctum. Oh, and because I know you like monsters, we can have “resemble-but-are-legally-distinct-from" Shoggoths in the mix - we can call them, I don't know… Plasmatrons.
JNT: Plasmatrons?
PG: It’s a first-draft name - I’m not married to it.
JNT: Sounds great! I’ll put it in our season finale spot.
PG: Cool.
JNT: Oh, but we are going to need to make some modifications to it.
PG: Oh?
JNT: Yeah. For starters, I don’t think the budget’s going to stretch to building an entire alien city on prehistoric earth. A single building is a lot more feasible.
PG: [edits pitch]
JNT: Oh, and Tony Ainley is contracted for four more episodes this season. You can fit the Master into this season finale, right?
PG: [pitch editing intensifies]
JNT: Oh, and I’ve arranged for us to film inside a Concorde jet! Maybe these contemporary humans could be abducted from a Transatlantic flight.
PG: [side-eye; rewriting intensifies]
JNT: Oh, and we have no budget otherwise, so these Plasmatrons might wind up looking like crap.
PG: [transcribing] “like… crap.” Got it.
[scene]
There’s a principle in collaborative scriptwriting that says that if you’re going to point out a problem, you ideally want to propose a solution to that problem, too. While I can’t see solutions to *all* of these problems, here’s how I’d change the Khalid stuff:
To start with, shuffle who plays whom: Ainley still shows up as the Master in the latter half of the story, but in the first half, the Master has disguised themselves as “Mrs. McGillicuddy,” an elderly passenger on the Concorde who has inexplicably resisted Khalid’s hypnotism (basically Professor Hayter’s episode 2 role from the story as transmitted, but with less arch-rationalizing and more crypto-racist old biddying).
Khalid… for starters, let’s have him wear a costume that - as you point out - is closer to actual Middle Eastern clothing. Also, he’s played by an actor of genuine Middle Eastern ancestry.
Part two ends close to how it did in the original version: Khalid is vanquished, and revealed to be a Plasmaton… but Mrs. McGillicuddy likewise removes her disguise to reveal that she’s the Master.
As episode three begins, it’s revealed that “Khalid” is actually “Professor Al-Mansur” (played by the same actor). We get the backstory of what happened over the course of episode 3:
The Master, having pulled a loaded Concorde through a time contour, was left with a group of passengers that included the real Mrs. M. and Professor Al-Mansur. The Professor resisted the Master’s hypnotism, but Mrs. M. spouted a lot of racist paranoia (in keeping with Lovecraft’s historical prejudices). The Master killed Mrs. M. to provide raw material for Plasmatons (as he is said to have done to some of the passengers in the transmitted story), which he then used to transfigure the Professor into Khalid, who serves as an unwilling lynchpin for his control of the remaining passengers.
The freed Professor Al-Mansur takes up the role that Hayter served in the transmitted episodes three and four, eventually sacrificing himself to provide the Doctor with a conduit to speak with the Xeraphin.
No direct way to deal with the budget shortfall, or the “bartering for TARDIS components” that episode 4 leans heavily on, but it’s a start.
Basically, John Nathan-Turner wanted the Concorde in Doctor Who. And so a "story" was written around it. The story just didn't work.
Another reviewer I watch summed it up like so:
"Fun Fact: the reason the Concord features so heavily is because the writer was hoping to score a free ride. ... this I gonna hurt."
Personally I genuinely find this one extremely entertaining. Not in a so-bad-it's-good way, I just really like it. I also find it to be more self-aware than people give it credit for.
The Master is disguised in this one because outside of Survival Ainley was rarely afforded the ability to play his own Master rather than a caricature of Delgado's Master. I attribute the majority of the absolutely buckwild disguises Ainley's master winds up in are because of that. And, yes, I hate this one outside of that more general problem.
The Tegan thing was envisioned as a season cliffhanger rather than a departure, however temporary, incidentally.
The weird thing about the Davison era is that the penultimate stories always feel like Season finales, but then there's always a cheap terrible episode afterwards, Time-Flight, Kings Demons, and Twin Dilemma. Curiously however this wasn't a thing with the other Doctors under JNT's tenure
This could’ve been a story that focused on the relationship between all the characters post Adric’s death.
Not seen it, but I have read the novelisation by Peter Grimwade, who wrote the script. I actually quite enjoyed the book, so perhaps the claim that there's a good story in there was based on the original idea and less so on what re-writes and budget constraints left Davison to work with.
The Master revealing himself as the villain even though he’s got no one to disguise for, no reason to hide and no reason to not be himself from the start just makes the whole story so funny 😭
Cause he really was just waiting on a whim for The Doctor to show up so he could pull a “Ha! Gotcha!”
😭😂
when i love a franchise....i love the good, the bad and the ugly of it
This episode is the sort of episode that leaves to scratching your head so hard it leaves a bald patch
Struggling there Vera? I couldn't help chuckling at your exasperation. You're trying. I'll give you that! Go and have strong a cup of tea after that.
There's an interesting juxtaposition with Davison era stories - stories with a ton of mortal violence/gruesomeness of violence focused on: Earthshock, Resurrection, Caves, Warriors, The Visitation, and then there are the stories where no one dies due to violence: Maywdryn Undead, Snakedance, Kinda, Time-Flight, Terminus. A lot of the other stories' vibe belong in one of those two columns, even if they technically don't fit. I think this was an accident, but at the time I liked the impression on me as an audience member that violence wasn't necessary to tell an adventure story, but when it is in a story it is awful and unsanitized.
Also In don't think the sacrifice of the professor makes sense for the character - 1. he doesn't view it as a sacrifice, as he will know everything, 2. his obstinancy and his desire to know everything are two sides of the same coin, and 3. he wasn't making a sacrifice - as he didn't actually die
There is very little that is 'good' about this story but there are some delightful moments, mostly involving the hypnotised camp pilots.
Best anyone can come up with is the "oh no, we left Tegan behind" was supposed to be an end of season cliffhanger? The BBC (and JNT) being famously thrifty, they did not pay Janet Fielding the same retention fee - so that could have been her departure - that they paid to Davison and Sutton which meant she wasn't contractually obliged not to change her appearance. So she immediately got her hair cut short as she hated the style they'd created for her and, by her own account, the repeated perming and hot curler styling had damaged her hair to the point of falling out. However, wardrobe get their own back with her incredibly unflattering tube top and shorts combo.
Whilst black/yellowface might now be shocking, it was quite common (and popular) at the time. For example, The Black and White Minstrel Show ran weekly on BBC1 until 1978 and then toured the UK, Australia and New Zealand until 1989!
Oh I’m aware of the frankly unacceptably long time it was common and accepted. I’ve seen 80s movies. Doesn’t make it any easier to see now.
technobabble, for when one needs fiber with their word salad.
I think this was an emergency story when they had to fill four more timeslots than expected and sowed something together.
I'm a big fan of Davison's era but this one isn't good. I agree with another comment that says the Fifth Doctor is seen as the nice one but he really isn't that nice. He can be but that's usually after he's been annoyed and frustrated.
Regarding Tegan being left, I've always thought that was writing/production mess up because they knew she wasn't really leaving, so they didn't bother with a leaving scene.
This is going to be a perfect storm of “I do not like this” - by age this is my Doctor but I have nothing good to say! 🤣
Definitely agreed that this one is very middle-of-the-road. I do find it mildly cute, but definitely below average. Weird though, I recall you having looked at this already. Maybe I confused your video with a Stubagful video? That would be funny
This review made me chuckle a lot. :D The story is a hot mess, but it's so bad in an entertaining way that the time just flies by. (See what I did there?)
This is one of Peter Davison’s least favorite story, if not his most hated. I actually like the fifth doctor, but this is not a story I like revisiting.
Oh no. I absolutely love the Fifth Doctor but... yeah this can't improve your opinion of him
The only thing I like is that I like the idea that for this season it starts with teagan trying to get to Heathrow airport, accidentally ends up on the tardis, spends a series trying to get the doctor to take her there, and so the final story is finally at Heathrow. The story itself... Not for me
JNT stories with time in the title.
Another “the Master disguises himself for no reason” story.
Sometimes you see a thumbnail, see what your favourite UA-camr has to review and you just cannot keep the perverse, evil grin off your face
The thing that really got to me the most palm-faced about this one is seeing that the Concorde landing gear uses regular car tires.
Hoping you get to watch some of the actual good 5th Doctor stories soon! The series 20 combo of Mawdryn Undead and Enlightenment are highly recommended. (Terminus is part of this trilogy as well, but also suffered from having no budget.)
No offense to the guy, but I really question Peter Davison's taste in stories. In particular, in the 6th Doctor Behind the Sofa features, the favorite episodes of his couch were seemingly Timelash and Terror of the Vervoids! So him saying the script for Time-Flight was good is another questionable call.
Peter Davison has also said that he would have stayed on the Show longer if he had more episodes of the Calibre of 'Caves of Androzani'.
I watched this a week ago or so and I ended up rather enjoying Time-Flight. The 1st episode in my opinon is genuinley great, I love the concorde stuff and all that in Heathrow. Parts 2&3 are a bit meh, a lot of explaining and stuff, Davison and Ainley work incredibly well off each other in this story and the dialogue I rather like. Part 4 is also very good, the supporting cast of the 3 concorde guys and the dartmouth guy are very funny and probably the best part of the story overall.
For me, Time-Flight is a story that, whilst not the worst story of the season (that goes to Four To Doomsday), it is another blemish on an otherwise steller season of Doctor Who with the other 5 stories in Season 19 (Castrovalva, Kinda, The Visitation, Black Orchid and Earthshock) being absolutely excellent in my opinion. I am increibly biased to all this however as in my opinion the 5th Doctor is not only the best Doctor in the entire show but his era is also the best of the entire show.
I agree that part one isn't too bad, it just goes downhill after that.
I'm with you. I know it's bad but I enjoy it anyway!
A plane vanishing through time was done SIGNIFICANTLY better in Torchwood.
I mean also on the Twilight Zone. Twice actually.
I saw episode 1 and part of 3 and 4 of this. And i didn’t feel the need to watch episode 2. And i didnt remember The Master’s disguise in episode 1 at all bc i saw 3 and 4 like a few weeks after 1.
This is a true Curate's egg. Parts of it are excellent, but the rest is rotten.
The "twist" that he's the Master, does have 1 point to it : All that disturbingly offensive characterization can now be blamed on the Master making fun of humanity, not just a specific culture. 😅
A lot of people, including my father, didn't really like Tegan, so the Doctor just leaving her was seen as funny, but yes, it was also crass.
I like Time-Flight
I watched it just now so i could watch this. I like the concept, i was uncomfortable the whole time khalid was on screen ("this is a racist caricature, right?"), but otherwise i enjoyed the antics. It's not what i would call good though lol
I get that on paper Kalid could be perceived as culturally insensitive, but the make-up looks like it’s meant to be alien. The inexplicable disguise is just even more confusing for this reason.
Flight for the flight god!
While I don't hate this one, it is a mess. One thing that annoyed me was at the beginning with how The Doctor treated Adric's death. Which is why I appreciate the Adric moment in The Power of The Doctor, and other recent Doctor who media.
Big Finish Audio really boosted my opinion on Adric.
I feel the 5th Doctor being the "nice one" is a bit of a fan misconception, he's often more techy and irritated. I also get the feeling he resented most of his companions, bar maybe Nyssa and Erimem, I always find the ending shot of Arc in Infinity to be a telling sign of that where he's clearly annoyed by Regan's return.
I’m not even sure that it’s a misconception anymore since Janet Fielding has repeatedly-and quite convincingly (if not entirely seriously)-pointed out how awful Five is to Tegan on the Blu-ray sets.
Yep, this sure is a Doctor Who story that exists. It feels more like an advert for Concorde, did we mention Concorde, Concorde! The Master being in his weirdly generically racist disguise when nobody but the audience is even there to see it is just the most pointless of pointless things. And yes, Five abandoning Tegan is both mean and immediately undone! But actually one of the things I find interesting about Five is that he doesn't seem to even like his companions for most of his run, with the exception of Nyssa. Adric dies and he's like, oh well, and then at his first chance he drops Tegan! It's at least a different dynamic.
To be fair, Tegan also acts like she doesn't want to be there half the time! 😂
I like this one. Doesn't deserve the hate but Earthshock should have been the finale
Time Flight feels more Like a Season Opener for sure.
Part one is actually quite good in my opinion. Unfortunately the rest of the story is a mess. And the Master's 'disguise' is so so weird
As for the fifth Doctor, I think often the writers struggle with his characterisation. Season 21 is better for it, particularly Frontios.
I'm not even sure I know what the actual plot of Time Flight is, it just seems like a succession of events to me.
On the whole, I enjoyed the 5th Doctor back when the series was first shown in the US, but I have to say at least 1/2 the stories are as bad as most of those in the 6th Doctor's tv run. 'Time-Flight' fits into that lower portion.
The "it was the Master all along" trope is one of the less interesting concepts in Classic Who.
As big a fan as I am of classic Who in general and the fifth Doctor in particular, yeah, this story is a mess and I've felt that way since first watching it as teen in the 80s. There are little moments here and there that are cute or interesting (mostly in the first episode), but it was a waste of everyone's time. The making of featurette on the Blu-ray (and DVD?) is infinitely more enjoyable.
Stubagful didn't like it either: ua-cam.com/video/S5oG5DaIxig/v-deo.html He too takes issue with the suggestion a bigger budget would have saved it.
Oh no.
Peter Davidson is my least favourite Doctor, he is wonderful as Albert Campion in the 1989/90 BBC adaption of Margery Allingham's 1920/30s mystery novels - I think that character would have been a near ideally way for him to have played his version of the Doctor
I hooted when I saw this scroll up for my teatime viewing! While I prefer Who to be genuinely good - Time Flight I enjoy as "so bad that it's good", such a mess of needless and janky nonsense. Def on my list of the handful of worst Who serials ever, but still entertaining WTFery.
Yeah, this one was just a mess. A few decent ideas but it was such a hodge-podge that none of them went anywhere.
People try to claim the Twin Dilemma was the worst Doctor Who Story but honestly for my money I think Time Flight is the worst classic Who story. It's just so utterly dull, the biggest crime any piece of art or media could ever commit.
In the doctors dvd davison lays into how crap this was and there was no money the black curtain in foam rocks ..the master was not needed pointless was tine and rani. I liked some shots but its jnt being showbiz spectcle ,press junket ,were at concord .story dont matter
The pilots trying to fly the tardis is one bit do like
Thanks to i player i found a good 5 story first davison made in production order four to doomsday ,i thought he gave his best most doctor like performance
This one broke my brain. Peter Grimwade is a fine director but a good writer he is not.
This story and four to doomsday, are like the essential reasons why I don‘t like Season 19. the only great Story from this Season is „Kinda“ and Black Orchid is fine, but the rest basically sucks. People love to go off at the sixth and seventh Doctor for some of their sucky seasons, but like to ignore how bad Season 19 was
Not a Fan of Earthshock then?
@@nekusakura6748 No. Earthshock in my Opinion gets overhyped because of Adrics tragic death. The cybermen are weird in it, the Doctor and Adric have another dumb conflict and basically nothing really happens until Adric does what he does. And even that scene feels sour to me, because it is obvious that they only wrote it in to get rid of him. It wasn't a completed arc for the character.
@@maxkehm5080 😥
Oh I am so sorry. But it's over now.
This is my least favorite Classic Who story
Also, it has my vote for worst companion exit story
I love how many of the worst classic stories have 'Time' in the title.
That is kind of funny. We have Time-Flight, Timelash, Time And the Rani, The Time Monster, and The Invasion of Time. But at the same time (no pun intended), we also have The Time Warrior and The Time Meddler, so I'd say it balances out a little.
It's like a baby dear on the ice dress as a nondescript racist caricature for no apparent reason.
This one, gawd this was terrible.