A Bluffer’s Guide to Doctor Who: The Destruction of Time
Everybody dies. Goodbye, my Sara Kingdom.
Describe The Destruction of Time in six words:
Funny Monk. Dull Egyptians. Everyone dies.
This is… the one were Sara ages to death.
Episodes: 98–102
Previously, we had our made Christmas detour. John Wiles is still producing, Douglas Camfield is still directing. However, at this point Dennis Spooner is writing the scripts. Technically, Terry Nation and Spooner swapped earlier allowing Spooner to write episode 6 in favour of having Nation do the Christmas run-around. This is a shame because Spooner has a better track record of writing amusing episodes. “The Feast of Steven” is many things but hardly amusing (although, policemen finding the TARDIS is a lovely idea).
Scheduling still posed a problem though. While Nation got to write his Dalek-free Hollywood escapade because an episode landed on 25th December, Spooner has his episode land on New Year’s Day. Ultimately, Spooner inadvertently begins the tradition of New Year Day’s episodes featuring the Daleks.
You need to bring the Daleks back and continue with your story. But again, it’s New Year’s Day. Frothiness is still desired by a chunk of the audience. How can you do your dark, grim Dalek epic and still be fun?
Spooner, has a brilliant plan. He is going to remake The Romans.
In The Romans, Spooner had the Doctor and Vicki in a bedroom farce with Nero, while the other companions, Ian and Barbara, were in a horrific, tragic plot exploring the dark side of Roman civilisation. Here, Spooner pulls the same trick. The Doctor and the Daleks don’t meet and are in separate stories. So, the Daleks test the Time Destructor, discover they’ve got a fake core, and orgainse a time machine to pursue the Doctor. The Doctor, Steven and Sara look at volcanos and outwit the Monk. It’s actually brilliant.
It’s brilliant for several reasons. First, we start with the Daleks. No reprise at all. Instant Daleks! For any kid complaining about the lack of Daleks last week, here they are. And they are testing the Time Destructor. Mavic Chen and two of the alien delegates are present. One of them, Trantis, is happily engaging in villain gossip until the Daleks decide they need a subject to inflict the Time Destructor on.
Trantis is locked away about to be subjugated to the power of the Time Destructor. Mavic Chen enjoys this. But then the Time Destructor doesn’t work. It’s a fake, of course.
Suddenly, Mavic Chen becomes accused of negligence. He gave the Daleks a fake core! How could he does this?!
Chen is immediately desperate and defensive. It’s the Daleks fault for not checking it! It’s the old man’s fault!
The Daleks let Trantis out. Trantis is elated. He thinks he has been spared. He hasn’t. The Daleks exterminate him. Chen’s look is one of horror: No more gloating from him. He knows that he is on thin ice with the Daleks. This could soon be him.
The Daleks order a time machine from Skaro: They’re going to pursue the Doctor (They recognise the Doctor now, which is different from The Nightmare Begins.) This is unnerving, because at the same time, the Doctor has noticed that the TARIDS is being tracked. Someone’s pursuing them, and really, as per Steven’s suggestion, it can only be the Daleks.
This is a genius red herring, though. First, the Doctor makes a landing: and lands on a field during a cricket match. The commentators discuss this. It could have an impact on the game as if it takes 10 minutes, that only gives England 35 minutes to make the runs they need. They check the record books to see if a police box dematerialising on the pitch has happened before. They agree with each other that it is a bad break for England. And the TARDIS fades away.
Because Spooner is keeping the TARDIS shenanigans away from the dark, grim Dalek epic. For a moment, they’re going to be distinct stories.
As we land on a volcanic planet (a planet beginning to form, if we trust the Doctor) we discover who it is following: It is the Monk from The Time Meddler.
The Monk and the Doctor enjoy meeting each other. The two of them can’t stop laughing at each other’s misfortune (As much as I really want the missing episodes from The Dalek Master Plan to be found, I really want it to be “Volcano” just for this scene. Hartnell seems to be having so much fun).
It’s not all perfect. The Monk stops the TARDIS lock from working which the Doctor undoes through the planet’s sun and the fact that his ring has “certain properties.” Well, that’s handy.
There’s also a bit that doesn’t align as much as I want it to even though I feel it was meant to: The TARDIS lands on 1st January, 1966 in the middle of New Year celebrations. The Daleks begin counting down for when the time machine takes off. It almost, but doesn’t quite, parallel perfectly. Overall, though, the episode is sublime.
Here’s the tax then: You have to get back to “Day of Armageddon” epic. And “Day of Armageddon” was built-up with “Mission to the Unknown”, the chaotic ending of The Myth Makers, and the steady escalation of “The Nightmare Begins”. With four episodes remaining of this epic, Spooner has to resolve this Monk misadventure and get everyone back on Kembel.
Let’s not pretend that there’s another factor in play here which is that Spooner has been given the part of the story that features the Daleks pursuing the Doctor through time and space. Spooner knows what he has been asked to do here by Nation: Remake The Chase.
Spooner can’t bring himself to do that. He takes one idea offered as a setting by Nation — Ancient Egypt — and spends his time creating an adventure there. All the pieces in play, land in Ancient Egypt.
The Daleks encounter the Monk, who recognises the Daleks “by reputation”. The Doctor, Steven and Sara go exploring and get separated. The Monk lures Sara and Steven into a trap and they’re ambushed by Daleks. As none of them have the taranium core, the Daleks broadcast a message telling the Doctor to handover the taranium core in exchange for his friends. With no choice, the Docotr does so. However, beforehand, he steals the Monk’s directional circuit. this means that once the TARDIS team are all together, the Doctor can accurately fly the TARDIS to Kembel in the year 4000.
The Daleks also exterminate some Ancient Egyptians. The 100th episode of the series is not a prime example of what the show can do but it isn’t throwaway. There’s a lovely transition of the Sun to a reflection of a light on a Dalek dome. Really, it’s sad that the ancient Egyptians are only window-dressing. They are a culture of cannon fodder. This isn’t Doctor Who crashing into Terry Nation’s Dalek spin-off like in “The Nightmare Begins”. This isn’t Doctor Who’s universe subverting a story that would be called “The Saxons”. It’s an unfortunate nail in this story’s reputation, as being one of the only episodes surviving. As such, it makes The Daleks’ Master Plan look like a tired affair. The Chase with higher stakes. It’s worth remembering that in a Bluffer’s Guide: This is one of the few episodes that people have actually seen.
Which is a shame because immediately after this episode, it all picks up. Even through the audio and several photoshopped images in the Loose Cannon reconstruction, the intensity of it is all clear.
In the first Dalek story, the Doctor’s plan was to cut the Daleks’ power from the top, assuming that the Daleks had one control centre that fed into everything. The plan for their second encounter was the same. The bits that weren’t the same was using the Robomen to destroy the Daleks. Which ended up being the plan in The Chase: use the Mechanoids to destroy the Daleks.
But here…
The Doctor disappeared. His absence is strongly felt. We follow Steven and Sara, lost in Kembel. We see the desperate alien delegates who know their time is up. The Daleks, it seems, have abandoned them.
The empty Dalek HQ is eerie. How can it not be? You refuse to believe the Daleks have left. The missing Doctor adds to this.
Mavic Chen takes us to another Dalek base, hidden away from the city. It’s there, when all hope is lost that the Doctor finally appears. No explanation how: That’s left in our heads. It’s stronger that way.
He knows that the Daleks daren’t fire near the Time Destructor. Indeed, the Daleks only exterminate Chen when he is fleeing desperately in a hallway.
With the Daleks unable to fire, the Doctor grabs the Time Destructor. And for the first time, the Doctor and the Dalek Supreme face-off. This has never happened before. It’s new. It’s exciting. It’s electric.
In my guide for The Nightmare Begins, I noted how the Daleks don’t know who the Doctor is, but the Doctor knows that he is the person that has to stop the Daleks. Since “The Feast of Steven” has been over, the Daleks know who the Doctor is. A known Dalek enemy. Here we are, at the destruction of Time, and we get to see the Doctor and the Dalek Supreme face-off.
“I’m afraid you’re too late,” smirks the Doctor, his hands on the Daleks’ ultimate weapon. “The Time Destructor has been activated.”
He mocks the Daleks for being too scared to fire. “I think it is checkmate,” he laughs.
The ambient soundscape does not let up.
A Dalek is told to obey the Doctor. The Doctor demands that it places itself in front of him and his friends. It does. It has to comply with the Doctor’s orders, even if those orders are to use it as a shield.
They get into a corridor. With their servile Dalek between them and the others, the Doctor orders Steven and Sara to run back to the TARDIS. They do. But Sara stops.
“We can’t just leave him,” she calls out to Steven. She runs back.
A few episodes ago, Sara was larking about on a Hollywood set. She was in a farce with the Meddling Monk. Now, she’s about to die.
As Sara and the Doctor run through the forest of Kembel, the Doctor notices that Sara is aging in front of him. Lines are etching onto her face. Her hair is losing colour. He needs to help her get through the forest.
The forest itself, is deteriorating. Plants wither. Trees turn to dust. Amongst all this decay, the Daleks charge through in pursuit.
By now, even the Doctor is feeling the effects of the Time Destructor. Kembel has become a planet of dust. Sara is now an old woman. She screams as she ages. The Daleks’ shells burst, the mutant inside shrivels.
Steven comes out of the TARDIS to help the Doctor as the taranium core of the Time Destructor finally gives out. The noise subsides. The panic stops. Now, finally, there is time for reflecting. And mourning.
Steven mutters the names of their friends: “Katarina, Bret, Sara.”
The Doctor and Steven go into the TARDIS, exhausted, and leave.
Strangely, that’s enough. It doesn’t matter about Chen’s right-hand man. It doesn’t matter about the other delegates. The Daleks have been stopped: but it was hard, and it cost the TARDIS team.
For the third time in a row (counting The Nightmare Begins as it’s own event), Doctor Who has had a downbeat ending.
This is a bleak show now.
Recommend / Further Reading
I meant to include this for my Feast of Steven post: