Doctor Who: Timelash

Poor Colin Baker. Poor, poor Colin Baker. When he first took on the role, he said that he wanted to be the Doctor for years. In the end, he got three years - and the show was only on the screen for two of those. And the odds were stacked against him in a massive way. It isn't just the costume - although having your lead actor dressed in a costume apparently designed by a colour-blind mentalist is always going to give him a tough job. And it isn't the fact that his Doctor was initially made to be arrogant and unlikable. In fact, the Eleventh Doctor is arguably both someone who dresses badly (although his lack of fashion is nothing compared to the visual abomination that is the Sixth Doctor's costume) and is often arrogant. So why is the current Doctor so much more successful than the Sixth incarnation?

It isn't just that Smith is more of a leading man than Baker the Second. It is, to a large extent, down to the stories the latter got. Smith has had some of the best Doctor Who stories of all time; Baker the Second got none of them. Even the very best of the Sixth Doctor does not stand with the all time greats of the show. But, by God, the story we are talking about today is not one of the best of the era of Baker the Second. It can actually make a strong claim to being the worst of the ones during his time in the world.

For a start, this story shows the Sixth Doctor at his worst. He is boorish, patronising, and dismissive of just about everyone. The contempt he shows for Peri is particularly jarring. Banter between the Doctor and his companion is often a staple of the show; here, there seems to be real dislike. And watching two people snipe at each other is not great entertainment - a particular problem given the Doctor and Peri don't enter the real story for the first 20 minutes. Even worse, the TARDIS safety belts and the moment(s) when the Doctor gets a chipmunk style voice come across as absolutely excruciating. And the bit where a character observes that "the force is too great" after the Doctor has abseiled into the Timelash - yeah, I know that part of that force pulling on that rope is the Timelash, but a viewer might only see that the rather portly Colin Baker needs numerous people to hold onto the other end of a rope that he is swinging from. There's precious little dignity for the Doctor here, and Baker the Second - who is a better actor than he is often given credit for - does his best with a script designed to make him look pompous but, unfortunately and understandably, never manages to look anything other than pompous.

Still, Baker the Second turns in the best performance here. The competition isn't fierce. Nicola Bryant is given nothing more to do than whine and scream; she does so with aplomb, but it is difficult to call a performance based on such requirements as in any way interesting or likable. But she still shines next to the bland inhabitants of planet Whatever and the Adric-like performance of Herbert. Only Paul Darrow puts effort into his performance - sadly, he thinks he is playing a pantomime villain. Quite how the other cast members didn't spend their time hissing at him is utterly beyond me.

And as for Herbert; the twist that he is H.G. Wells is not without some merit - particularly since his time with the Time Lord apparently inspired him so. Indeed, that is a trick that the new series has pulled off with other creatives, such as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Vicent Van Gogh. But with each of those people, the new series has explored perhaps lesser known elements to their lives. And H. G. Wells led a fascinating life. He was more than just a science fiction writer; he was engaged actively in the politics of his era, and this could have made the story more eye-opening and interesting. Imagine the Doctor meeting H. G. Wells and in doing so V. I. Lenin. Of course, to pull that off would require jettisoning the vast majority of this script and replacing it with something good else. But that really shouldn't be a problem.

What about the script, I hear you ask? It is terrible - apparently scribbled on the back of a beer mat after a hefty session on the gin. Why? I'll explain one day.

The production values make this look more like a fan made story rather a BBC production. The whole thing looks cheap; and not just cheap, but cheap and nasty. And the Third Doctor's portrait; the Doctor observes that he has forgotten what he used to look like. Actually, he may not have done because the portrait looks nothing like the Third Doctor. And then we have the monsters - the Borad works, and is perhaps the only real success of this story. The rest of the monsters are just plain crap. The Bandrils are sock puppets that should never have been allowed on screen. The Morlox are not much better, looking more like a prototype rather than the finished article. Then we have the android (an android that appears to smirk at one point) - all blond hair, blue face and stupid voice. The sets are largely bland and only really memorable because they look like, well, cheap TV sets, while the Timelash itself looks like a Blue Peter Christmas set built by idiot children. Honestly, if there's no money left for a story, then stop trying to spend money. Have one monster that works, and then fill the rest of the space where you want other monsters to reside with unseen menace and darkly-lit sets. Don't make it look like a shit episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that has no money.

The whole thing also sounds atrocious. The special FX sounds are all crass, while the music is dreadful: particularly at the start of the second episode as the Doctor fights the android with a mirror, which is amongst the worst incidental music the show has ever produced.

It is the worst of a really rather lacklustre bunch. So poor Colin Baker, he never really had a chance. And if you ever want to see precisely why, watch Timelash.