Episode #122 : Time-Flight

The Doctor [about the Concorde ]: "It's amazing."

Nyssa: "What?"

The Doctor: "This thing is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside."

Episode 122:   Time-Flight.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa.
Air Date:         22nd to 30th March 1982.

The Doctor finally manages to deliver Tegan to Heathrow Airport, where he gets drawn into investigating the in-flight disappearance of a Concorde. Following the same flight path in another Concorde, with the TARDIS stowed in the hold, he discovers that it has been transported back millions of years into the past through a time corridor.

The first season of Peter Davison as the Doctor ends on a low note with this story. It's a weak story that never seems to get off the ground and simply crawls along at a slow pace. The idea is interesting, with the Master trapped in the Jurassic using a time corridor to steal Concorde and putting the passengers and crew to work as hypnotised slaves. But it has numerous plot holes and additions that seem somewhat superfluous.

At the climax of the story the BBC were slightly cheeky. The Doctor and Nyssa are forced to take flight to escape some awkward questions but they leave Tegan behind at Heathrow seemingly left behind. Has she been dropped? Not at all, and in fact comes back in the first story of the new season. A nice twist at the time but it loses something now.

The Master is once again a waste of space villain. Ainley plays him spot on as always but the writing for the character is flawed. Again he seems to have set himself up only to have his plans come crumbling around his ears. If he is so clever why do his schemes never work out? You know that the Doctor is going to defeat him but I'd like to see his schemes actually be properly thought out for a change.

There are some continuity issues I have with Time-Flight as well. When the time travellers arrive in the Jurassic it is rather cold with hints of an ice age on the way. Well, that is way wrong and the writer should have done his homework. Also, this is the time when the Silurian dominion of the Earth is at it's height not to mention the dinosaurs themselves, neither of which are even hinted at except for a warning about "maybe we'll see a brontosaurus".

Time-Flight isn't the worst story ever but it is certainly one that won't be missed if you skip it.