From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated   
   From Address: jphalt@aol.com   
   Subject: Re: jphalt's Doctor Who reviews   
      
   TIMELASH   
      
   2 episodes. Approx. 90 minutes. Written by: Glen McCoy. Directed by:   
   Pennant Roberts. Produced by: John Nathan Turner.   
      
      
   THE PLOT   
      
   The TARDIS's course is diverted by a Time Corridor, which brings it to   
   the planet Karfel. The Doctor has visited Karfel before, when his   
   interventioned saved the planet, and he expects to be greeted as a   
   welcome visitor.   
      
   Things have changed on Karfel. The planet is under the rule of the   
   Borad (Robert Ashby), a genius scientist who has diverted all the   
   planet's resources into his time research. The fruit of the research   
   is the Timelash, an unstable time corridor which acts as an execution   
   method for any who oppose the Borad's rule.   
      
   The Borad has targeted the Doctor to become the Timelash's next   
   victim. But for Peri, he has another fate in mind. She is to become   
   his unwilling bride!   
      
      
   CHARACTERS   
      
   The Doctor: The early TARDIS scenes see Colin Baker at his worst.   
   Admittedly, these scenes are dreadful on the page. But instead of   
   trying to act against the Doctor's boorish behavior, Colin embraces it   
   - making him as unlikable as he's ever been! Once the Doctor and Peri   
   have reached Karfel, his performance improves tremendously. He shows   
   his softest and most compassionate side when interacting with Vena,   
   and is genuinely commanding when he and the rebels take control of the   
   Timelash in Part Two. Still, while there's no denying his enthusiasm,   
   this is almost certainly Colin's weakest television performance in the   
   role.   
      
   Peri: In bondage! Seriously - she spends a great deal of this story   
   being taken captive, tied up, recaptured, yanked around with a bondage   
   collar, attached by that collar to piping, and being menaced by a   
   monster that looks like a giant penis. Easily the character's weakest   
   story, though Nicola Bryant struggles gamely to invest some spark into   
   her rather pathetic material.   
      
      
   THOUGHTS   
      
   Timelash is one of a handful of serials often cited as "the worst   
   story ever!" It is certainly badly-made. It's glaringly obvious that   
   this is the season cheapie, as guest actors in cheap quasi-Roman   
   costumes wander around barely-adorned floodlit white stage sets. The   
   Timelash itself is, infamously, a bit of tinsel, with the inside of   
   the Timelash even more howlingly cheap-looking than the outside.   
   Doctor Who was always a series made on a shoestring, but most stories   
   worked to look as good possible within those limitations. This one   
   looks like something that should be accompanied by a Tom Servo/Crow T.   
   Robot commentary.   
      
   The story's single biggest problem isn't production, however. It's   
   padding. This is another Season 22 story in which the Doctor and Peri   
   don't get involved until more than halfway through the first 45-minute   
   episode. The solution? To pad out the first half of Episode One with   
   TARDIS scenes that are, if possible, even more painful than the ones   
   in Vengeance on Varos. First the Sixth Doctor acts like more of an ass   
   to Peri than he ever has before (even when he was insane and   
   strangling her), then he wrestles with messes of wires and uses safety   
   belts (but no chairs). Better to have just held the Doctor's   
   introduction until the point at which the story called for him.   
      
   The story structure is actually reasonable enough, with each major   
   story beat leading to the next. But it's clear early on that there   
   isn't enough plot here for 90 minutes... and the story runs out   
   completely a little over halfway through Episode Two. The Doctor   
   confronts and defeats the Borad at about the 27 minute mark, leaving   
   almost twenty full minutes to go. We then get an extended "comedy"   
   scene in which he takes the TARDIS to intercept a missile heading   
   toward Karfel, followed by a second climax in which the Borad comes   
   back to life so that the Doctor can defeat him all over again - in a   
   way that's much less dramatic than the first time around.   
      
   Given the shift to 45-minute episodes, I'm at a loss as to why this   
   wasn't streamlined into a one-parter. Cut the early TARDIS scenes,   
   make the Borad's first defeat the final one, and tighten some of the   
   scenes in between, and this would be an ideal single-part story. As it   
   stands, that last twenty minutes kills what had up to that point been   
   an entertaining (if badly made) yarn.   
      
   There are some bright spots. Paul Darrow, as the evil Tekker, manages   
   to be wooden and hammy at the same time. It's such a gleefully bad   
   performance, it gives the serial a considerable shot in the arm for   
   most of its run. Darrow is having so much fun chomping on the scenery   
   that it becomes infectious.   
      
   His performance is a perfect illustration of why I don't think   
   Timelash can rank among the series' worst: Namely, while it may be   
   objectively terrible, it's also rather fun. It's true that some of the   
   fun comes from laughing at the bad acting, sets, and general   
   cheapness. But the combination of execution that is bad enough to be   
   amusing and story structure that is competent enough to maintain   
   dramatic shape keeps this very watchable, putting it well above such   
   fare as Underworld, Time-Flight, or Time and the Rani, in my view.   
      
   So: Cheap, objectively bad, but kind of fun in spite (and in part   
   because) of that. If it weren't for the whole thing running out of gas   
   halfway through Part Two, this would probably be a solid "5." Even   
   with that dead space that is the last twenty minutes, I still find   
   Timelash to be a fair notch better than its reputation, even if it   
   isn't ultimately very good.   
      
      
   Rating: 4/10.   
      
   --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux NewsLink 1.92-mlp   
    * Origin: http://groups.google.com (1:2320/105.97)   
   --- SBBSecho 2.12-Linux   
    * Origin: telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - Dial-Up: 502-875-8938 (1:2320/105.1)