After briefly dealing with the fallout of Earthshock, this serial quickly turns its attention to a The Faceless Ones ripoff and mystery of a Concorde flight disappearing. It starts as a perfectly suitable mystery, and quickly turn into an embarrassingly racist affair. It's all a jumbled mess. The concepts at play here are fine, but the production leaves a lot to be desired.
There are some unlikable and forgettable characters here, not made any more interesting by any of the actors. The main cast doesn't seem to enjoy themselves very much. Sarah Sutton is usually good, but here she seems very awkward. Nigel Hayter's professor is one of the most negligible and unlikable characters I've seen on the show.
Peter Davison seems oddly awkward acting here, but the Doctor makes some parts at least slightly better.
Tegan is useless and does nothing, Nyssa gets possessed for no reason and then does nothing. It's a bad excuse of companion underuse even now when they're down to a manageable two. Tegan finally arriving at work is the only truly lovely scene here, even though the Doctor rudely abandoning her feels somewhat wrong.
Think the baddies in The Talons of Weng-Chiang are racist? Nothing beats Kalid! Everything screams racism from his outrageous looks to the terrible voice and dialogue. He is easily one of the worst villains Doctor Who has ever created, and the reveal in Part Two doesn't change that fact. And things don't turn for the better by those terribly realized bubble monsters, also known as Plasmatons.
While the location footage is perfectly fine, there's some shoddy CSO effects and set design throughout this serial. It looks cheap even on Doctor Who's standards. It's at times downright terribly ugly.
This story feels like a drag, particularly since it lacks all excitement and emotional impact of Earthshock. The twist in Part Two doesn't help since the story continues to add unnecessary scenes for padding even after that.
The beginning of the first episode seems mysterious, but things quickly turn for the worse as we are moved away from Heathrow airport. The rest of the serial is dull, embarrassing and at times truly terrible. It's never tense or exciting, nor funny or memorable for the right reasons. The fact that Adric's demise in the previous serial is dismissed after a couple of lines in Part One is pretty cruel.
Time-Flight is rarely talked about, and there is a good reason for that. It's an embarrassing and disastrous affair in almost every possible way.
I will never watch this again, even if you oat me a billion bucks. That's how awfully offensive and embarrassing it is.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS :
UNIT and the Brigadier namedropped here, which is always lovely to see. I just wish they'd appeared here as well.
The Doctor misses having his scarf from his previous incarnation, as it would come in handy in the cold climate of the pre-historic Earth.
What's up with writer stuffing the TARDIS full with outsiders, all attempting to control it like pros?
Review by Theo KallströmVIP 6BlockedParent2020-07-07T05:52:02Z
After briefly dealing with the fallout of Earthshock, this serial quickly turns its attention to a The Faceless Ones ripoff and mystery of a Concorde flight disappearing. It starts as a perfectly suitable mystery, and quickly turn into an embarrassingly racist affair. It's all a jumbled mess. The concepts at play here are fine, but the production leaves a lot to be desired.
There are some unlikable and forgettable characters here, not made any more interesting by any of the actors. The main cast doesn't seem to enjoy themselves very much. Sarah Sutton is usually good, but here she seems very awkward. Nigel Hayter's professor is one of the most negligible and unlikable characters I've seen on the show.
Peter Davison seems oddly awkward acting here, but the Doctor makes some parts at least slightly better.
Tegan is useless and does nothing, Nyssa gets possessed for no reason and then does nothing. It's a bad excuse of companion underuse even now when they're down to a manageable two. Tegan finally arriving at work is the only truly lovely scene here, even though the Doctor rudely abandoning her feels somewhat wrong.
Think the baddies in The Talons of Weng-Chiang are racist? Nothing beats Kalid! Everything screams racism from his outrageous looks to the terrible voice and dialogue. He is easily one of the worst villains Doctor Who has ever created, and the reveal in Part Two doesn't change that fact. And things don't turn for the better by those terribly realized bubble monsters, also known as Plasmatons.
While the location footage is perfectly fine, there's some shoddy CSO effects and set design throughout this serial. It looks cheap even on Doctor Who's standards. It's at times downright terribly ugly.
This story feels like a drag, particularly since it lacks all excitement and emotional impact of Earthshock. The twist in Part Two doesn't help since the story continues to add unnecessary scenes for padding even after that.
The beginning of the first episode seems mysterious, but things quickly turn for the worse as we are moved away from Heathrow airport. The rest of the serial is dull, embarrassing and at times truly terrible. It's never tense or exciting, nor funny or memorable for the right reasons. The fact that Adric's demise in the previous serial is dismissed after a couple of lines in Part One is pretty cruel.
Time-Flight is rarely talked about, and there is a good reason for that. It's an embarrassing and disastrous affair in almost every possible way.
I will never watch this again, even if you oat me a billion bucks. That's how awfully offensive and embarrassing it is.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS :
UNIT and the Brigadier namedropped here, which is always lovely to see. I just wish they'd appeared here as well.
The Doctor misses having his scarf from his previous incarnation, as it would come in handy in the cold climate of the pre-historic Earth.
What's up with writer stuffing the TARDIS full with outsiders, all attempting to control it like pros?