Only complaint is I remember the Atlantis stuff being longer

I can't remember the last time I wrote a wholly negative review. It might have been years ago, so I am going to start by trying to say five nice things about The Time Monster:

1. The regular cast outstripped the quality of the script, we are unbelievably fortunate to have Pertwee, Manning, Delgardo and the UNIT team holding the whole show together. The Master faking the The Brigadier's voice was especially good. Sergeant Benton was very well served in this story.
2. I enjoyed the additions to Doctor Who lore this story presented, I am happy that the TARDIS is now considered a telepathic machine, more than "just" a time machine.
3. The scale of this story was glorious, we got to go back in time to a creatively represented culture and in contrast to this elements of it are brought into contemporary 1970s surroundings. This was not a story content with resting on its laurels.
4. The aging/getting younger element of the story was not original, but it was well handled and looked great.
5. The sets and costumes were excellent.

Episode one of The Time Monster was the first episode of Jon Pertwee's tenure which I have found entirely painful to watch. It makes me appreciative of quite how high quality most Doctor Who scripts are. Dr Ruth Ingram is an especially terribly written character, a feminist written by someone who clearly has no idea what feminism is, or worse is deliberately written as a "man hating" female character to serve a generally acknowledged, negative stereotype. I get that its the 1970s and we cannot judge this show by today's standards - but my God it must have been a nightmare being a feminist in this era. Liz Shaw's character suffered from a lesser version of this same treatment. I simply do not believe that a woman would ever write a female character to behave in this way. Some of Pertwee's writing team seem to struggle with the idea that a woman can be intelligent without being fusty!

It would be less frustrating if she wasn't one of the very few female guest stars in a show full to the brim with men. It would be less frustrating if Katy Manning wasn't given the shortest skirt you could possibly imagine, told to sit on a table and then filmed by a camera directed up straight up her legs. The Queen of Atlantis was also dressed in a needlessly sexual way.

It would be better if Dr Ingram's colleague (who is supposed to be a great friend and partner) wasn't consistently delivering poorly written, out of character quips made to arm viewers with a defense against women. There are few mitigating factors here. It is brutal. I don't quite understand how 1960s Doctor Who was so much better at representing women, there is even a fantastically interesting female scientist in The Web of Fear! What happened? Was there a backlash? I simply don't believe any of it, I can't invest in these guest characters.

The story meanders from one idea to another, at no point do you feel like one idea is fully explored, so it's all a bit of a mess. It was only when sitting down to write the review that I remembered that there was a Minotaur in this story - where did they go with that?! There are so many questions. Was the name TOMTIT supposed to be hilarious across all six parts?

They succeeded in making elements such as the bird God weird and the TARDIS inside a TARDIS different and weird which could have worked - but it needed to be grounded by a more successful story. It's annoying to have to lay into such a creative and different story - but this is terrible Doctor Who.

Pertwee's third season has not been nearly as good as his first or second - I am very much looking forward to getting on with season 10 of Doctor Who and leaving season 9 behind!

The Time Monster is a bit of a strange one. I love some of the ideas behind this serial and even some of the effects and make-up are pretty impressive, and some of the sets and costumes look pretty good. I don't even hate the new if very short-lived TARDIS interior. At least compared to what we had before, it works a lot better with colour.

Other camera tricks and effects feel a lot weaker and more amateurish; cheap even by the standards of this time period. It is very odd to me that we introduce and dispose of Atlantis so quickly, and quite a bit of a waste in hindsight. This is not my favourite Third Doctor story, but it definitely holds some weight relative to other lower-ranked serials like Colony in Space or The Mutants. The Master, Doctor, and even Yates all have some fun moments in this story, but a lot of awkward material to navigate through, too. I don't like how this story treats Jo much, either. The ending also felt incredibly abrupt, out of nowhere, and left me with a disappointing feeling on the whole, even if I can definitely recognize the spots of The Time Monster that is really interesting.

The Time Monster suffers from a sudden tonal shift a little over halfway through, side characters that seem like parodies of themselves, and a meandering plot

But by god it's fun

I liked everyone having to say TOMTIT with a straight face. I enjoyed side character scientists Feminist and her assistant Gay Man. "Male and female are just shapes" non-binary Kronos was an inspired choice. And, let us not forget the two best lines in all of Doctor Who appear in this serial: The Master's "I'm sorry about your coccyx too, Miss Grant." and Jo's "I'm fine! Dead, of course, but I'm fine."

Oh my! I am a champion for unloved stories in Doctor Who’s long and patchy history. My favourite story is, hand on heart, Delta and the Bannermen. I love Paradise Towers; quite like The Web Planet; think Time-Flight is unfairly maligned and find loads to enjoy in The Monster of Peladon.

The Time Monster has defeated me. The scripting, acting, direction, costume, effects, everything…is simply bad.

The story starts in modern England (although I have included the whole story here in my marathon simply for the Atlantis sections). Here we meet Stuart Hyde and Ruth Ingram – two of the most poorly acted scientist types in Doctor Who. Ian Collier, who would go on to being actually quite good in stories such as Arc of Infinity and the Big Finish audios Omega and Death to the Daleks (as Bernice Summerfield’s father Isaac), presents us with Stuart ‘Dodgy Face Hair’ Hyde. He bumbles around every scene he is in trying to be hip and hilarious. He screams ‘the 70s’ and wears the most hideous clothes ever seen on a ‘normal’ character. Ruth Ingram, played by Wanda Moore, is presented as a feminist – fed up with men ruling the world – despite the fact she spends most of the episode having to be convinced by Stuart to go against the instructions of Professor Thascales (or as we know him – the Master).

Later in the story these two are joined by the usually reliable John Levene as Sergeant Benton. Clearly sensing the standard of acting on display around him, Levene lowers his bar fairly low and then ends up being turned into a baby, only to be rewarded with one of the worst last lines in Who history.

But even Stuart, Ruth and Benton cannot hold a candle to the lack of talent on display in the Atlantis scenes. From the brief interludes in the first few episodes to the full-blown extravanganza of Episodes 5 and 6, we are subjected to some of the worst acting on British television, let alone Doctor Who.

Heading up the Atlantean cast is George Cormack as King Dalios. Of all this merry band, Cormack is the strongest. He does actually have some good scenes with Roger Delgado, particularly the one where the Master fails to hypnotise the ancient Dalios. But when Cormack has to work with the likes of Ingrid Pitt and, worst of all, Aidan Murphy as Hippias, he is dragged down to their level in much the same way John Levene is with the scientists.

Aidan Murphy is, quite simply, terrible. It’s been a while since I’ve watched The Mutants which features one of Doctor Who’s other most risible performances – Rick James as Cotton – but I think Aidan Murphy deserves the accolade as worst Doctor Who acting performance ever. Literally every word he speaks is at the same slightly strange high pitch with no expression and accompanied by awkward movements or odd facial expressions. The worst scene is the one between Hippias and Gallilea which is clearly supposed to be full of sexual tension (the implication being that Hippias and Gallilea have been having an affair) but Murphy says each line as if he has just remembered it or someone is prompting him in a hidden ear piece.

Ingrid Pitt adds nothing to this story. Famous as she is for her Hammer Horror performances I have never seen the attraction that made her such a popular performer in the 1970s. As Queen Gallilea she is sultry and exotic but that’s about it – and her later turn as Doctor Solow in Warriors of the Deep does nothing to convince me otherwise about her talents.

The other main Atlantean is Krasis, the high priest who is kidnapped by the Master early in the story and then spends the rest of the adventure standing behind Roger Delgado and occasionally spouting the odd line. I can’t even remember why the Master needs Krasis as, from what I can tell, he never serves a useful function to anyone for the whole story. Even when they arrive in Atlantis, Krasis’ support of the Master’s claim to be from the Gods lasts all of two minutes as Dalios sees straight through him. Gallilea is clearly not convinced either – she just fancies him!

The story is buoyed a little by the performances of the regular cast – particularly Katy Manning and the ever reliable Roger Delgado, but these are too little too late to save the story, particularly bearing in mind the terrible dialogue even the regulars have to spout. How can anyone take an evil genius like the Master serious when he is claiming the scientific marvels of machine called TOMTIT!

What we do see of the legendary Atlantis is not very inspiring. Studio bound for most of its time on screen – save for the temple and labyrinth scenes on film – it is populated by bad actors in dodgy eyeliner. There are lots of pretty columns and statues and grand wooden doors and Gallilea, amusingly, carries around a cat for much of the story (animals on screen seem to be a rarity in Doctor Who).

The temple of Kronos is impressive in size but is basically some columns, a raised dais and lots of black drapes. The labyrinth seems very, very small and has incredibly weak walls and very unconvincing mirrors (one of which results in the death of Hippias – so they’re not all bad). The Minotaur (a pre Darth Vader Dave Prowse) is actually quite an impressive head, only let down by the loin-clothed body below.

There is very little about Atlantean civilisation on display aside from their links to Kronos and everyone speaks in a cod-Shakespearean way that only actors being ‘ancient’ or historical are ever required to do.

The destruction of Atlantis is incredibly lack-lustre and poorly directed. Kronos hangs feebly from the ceiling, some masonry collapses – the extras fall asleep, the Master, the Doctor and Jo leave and Gallilea stands, head hanging, in long shot in the midst of the (and I use this word loosely) destruction.

After a brief sojourn in Kronos’ domain (where the squawking bird has suddenly become a member of Pan’s People) the Master escapes and the Doctor and Jo return to the laboratory to find the Brigadier having no idea about what’s happening (not a massive character development by this stage in the Pertwee era) and Benton without his clothes. Cue horrendous fake laughter!

There are some elements of The Time Monster which could, in any other context, be quite fun. The Master bringing things through history to battle the UNIT troops is quite entertaining and the cliffhanger where it looks as if Mike Yates may have been blown up by a doodlebug is effective. But, overall, The Time Monster is let down by bad scripting, poor performances and a general feeling of lack-lustreness.