TIME-FLIGHT

[Tony]

Here we are discussing Peter Grimwade's novelization of TIME-FLIGHT! If you want to hear your review of or comments on this book read on the air, or you have a specific question about the book, please post it here by no later than 11pm CST on Friday, April 28!

[Dave]

This story would probably have been too ambitious at any time in the 1980s, but at the end of a season, when all the money had been spent, it stood no chance. Some of the special effects weren't just bad, they were laughable. The Plasmaton costumes, for example, wouldn't allow the wearers to see, so they stayed still. Thankfully, in prose, there are no such limitations, and the production values are as high as the reader's imagination will allow them to be.
And it's not a bad story. I particularly like what is essentially a throwaway scene, with the hallucination of Adric, which was included to allow Matthew Waterhouse's name to appear in the cast list for this story in Radio Times just before Adric's death in Earthshock aired, and maintain the surprise.
The one aspect I'm not so keen on is the Master's insistence on staying in disguise when he's alone and doesn't need to. It is, of course, for the benefit of the audience, who are supposed to be surprised at the unveiling. Perhaps the Master just likes playing dress-up.

[Michael]

Nostalgically, Time Fight holds a special place in my heart as the first Doctor Who story I watched on a warm summer's evening. Putting aside sentiment, I can see that the story was overly ambitious for the era and for its place in the season. The budget really had been stretched to its breaking point by this point.

But given the unlimited budgetary constraints of my imagination, I hoped for a bit more from the Target book when I finally got around to it as part of the audiobook range.

Too bad Peter Grimwade wasn't feeling as ambitious as I hoped he would. Grimwade seems to follow the Terrance Dicks of the Tom Baker era model and just translates the script to the page with a few descriptions of items, sets, and characters thrown in for good measure. The story of a Concorde being stolen down a time corridor in order to help out the Master's latest nefarious scheme doesn't even come close to making one lick more sense on the printed page. It really does make one yearn for the days of Roger Delgado as the Master when the villain's schemes felt like they had a bit more planning behind them.