Often regarded as one of the weaker Pertwee serials, like The Mutants before it there is actually a lot to like about The Time Monster.  The Doctor’s story about the daisiest daisy in Episode Six is the highlight, it’s a fascinating little examination of who the Doctor is and is worth half a star on its own.  The big scale ideas at play are interesting and an extension of what Robert Sloman and Barry Letts were examining in The Daemons the year before.  Roger Delgado gets to have some of his most charming moments and where the Master ends the story is equally fascinating for the character.  It feels like one last hurrah for the UNIT family because it’s so clear that the production team is ready to go all in with time travel.

The problem is that there’s a lot of messy ideas in the six episodes of the serial, mainly because Sloman and Letts were writing the serial on the fly after The Daleks in London fell through.  Splitting the plot into thirds is a good idea on paper, yet each of the plots, especially the final two episodes on Atlantis, are particularly stretched to their limits.  The depiction of Kronos is also something that works on paper, but Paul Bernard tries to obscure it instead of fully leaning into the silly white costume so it doesn’t really work.  Sloman and Letts wanted to make an epic finale with a larger scale but then it just doesn’t quite come together.  Heck they barely give Jo Grant much to do except banter, so much of the story is carried by the banter of Pertwee, Manning, Delgado, Courtney, and oddly John Levene and it just leaves it kind of meh.