 "Time-Flight" sees the second appearance of The Master during Season Nineteen and the supposed departure of Tegan Jovanka.
This story was written by Peter Grimwade, whose involvement with the show began when he was the Production Assistant for the 1970 Third Doctor story "Spearhead From Space". At the same time, he had some experience as a screenwriter, for Z Cars, and in 1979 became a director as well. His first job as a director, in Doctor Who, was for the 1980 Fourth Doctor story "Full Circle", but prior to this he had already begun discussing the possibility of writing for the programme with then-Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead.
Because Peter Grimwade had been hired to direct "Full Circle" and then Season Eighteen’s finale "Logopolis", this meant that work on this story had to be halted until the end of this season. Like previous stories in this season Peter Grimwade had to take into account the near total overhaul of the regular cast (the exit of Tom Baker and the introduction of Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding). The delay in writing this story did however give Producer John Nathan-Turner extra time to gain permission to film at Heathrow and on board a Concorde - neither of which a television had ever been allowed to do at that time.
It has been revealed that Producer Nathan-Turner actually secured the use of the British Airways’ Concorde in a bluff, when he dropped false hints that he was in similar discussions with Air France.
The TARDIS had previously visited Heathrow in the "The Visitation", but that visit was 300 years in the past. As for airports, the 1967 story "The Faceless Ones" was filmed, and took place, at Gatwick.
The Director for this story was to be Andrew Morgan, whose credits included Blake's 7. However, it has been revealed that he disliked the scripts and was subsequently offered work on another BBC programme. Because he declined the offer at short notice this left very little time to find a new director, John Nathan-Turner therefore turned to Ron Jones, who was just finishing up his first such assignment on "Black Orchid". Ron Jones accepted and so began work on this story immediately after finishing "Black Orchid".
Companion Tegan, played by Janet Fielding, is seen leaving the TARDIS for the first time at the end of this story. Peter Grimwade was asked to make it seem that Tegan was being written out of the show. It was intended that this would act as both a tease to keep viewers’ interest during the long break between seasons (now nine months due to the switch of the show to twice-weekly broadcasts) and to give a safety mechanism in case it John Nathan-Turner, and incoming Script Editor Eric Saward, decided the character wasn’t working. However, it was agreed before this scene was actually recorded that Tegan would return for Season Twenty. She actually returned in the second episode of the next story, "Arc of Infinity".
A late addition to this story was the cameo appearance of Adric, as a hallucination, in the second episode, even though Adric had been killed in the previous story. This was the final time that Matthew Waterhouse played the part of Adric in the show. Since leaving Doctor Who his acting career has been mainly confined to the theatre including a one-man version of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In order to hide The Master’s involvement in this story, the first episode did not credit Anthony Ainley as The Master. Instead, the credits and Radio Times listed the part of Kalid as being played by a ‘Leon Ny Taiy". This is an anagram of ‘Tony Ainley’ - so continuing the tradition of The Master’s appearance being disguised by the use of either anagrams or synonyms for ‘Master’ as aliases.
Well known actor Nigel Stock appears here as Professor Hayter. His many notable roles included the lead in the BBC’s medical drama series Owen MD.
Michael Cashman, now better known for his appearances in EastEnders plays Concorde’s First Officer Bilton.
This story follows on directly from "Earthshock", at the climax of which companion Adric was killed aboard a space freighter which crashed into the Earth. At the beginning of this story, Nyssa and Tegan plead with The Doctor to go back and save him, but The Doctor refuses. The Doctor claims that he cannot go back in time to save Adric. It seems that there are some rules that cannot be broken, even with the TARDIS. Reference is also made to Varsh’s death in the 1980 Fourth Doctor story "Full Circle".
This story contains some continuity as The Doctor uses his UNIT connections at Heathrow Airport and is recruited to help deal with the missing aircraft situation as a result. UNIT does not otherwise feature in the story. This is the first direct reference to UNIT since the 1976 Fourth Doctor story "The Seeds of Doom".
When proceeding towards the heart of the Xeraphin citadel, as well as being confronted with an image of Adric, Kalid attempts to dissuade Nyssa and Tegan from entering the inner sanctum by conjuring up images of the Melkur (‘What comes from it killed my Father’) first seen in the 1981 Fourth Doctor story "The Keeper of Traken") and a Terileptil ("The Visitation").
Events of the 1981 Fourth Doctor story "Logopolis" are also referred to when The Doctor announces his plan to materialise his TARDIS around The Master’s.
During the recording of the third episode it became clear that this episode was desperately short on material prompting Director Peter Grimwade to script in seven minutes of additional material. This included extra TARDIS and corridor sequences, as well as extended scenes in the sarcophagus. He also renamed two pilots, as the original names (Rathbone and Irvine) were actually pilots for British Airways.
"Time-Flight" turned out to be a highly ambitious story which was mainly let down by its special effects. Namely stock footage of the Concorde aircraft badly intermixed with obvious models of prehistoric Earth, while the snake-like Plasmaton seen in the third episode is actually a hand-puppet.
This story features the last of the Xeraphin from the planet Xeraphas - a planet devastated by nuclear crossfire in the Vardon Kosnax war. (Vardon is a long lived civilisation, as it is mentioned in the 1984 story "Planet of Fire" with reference to Trion agents). They crashed on the Earth, hoping to populate the 'uninhabited' planet, but they were still ill with radiation sickness. They therefore became a single entity waiting for the contamination to pass.
The Master it seems managed to escape from Castrovalva (no explanation though is given), although his TARDIS’ dynormorphic generator has became exhausted, leaving him stranded on prehistoric Earth.
Despite deciding that the Xeraphin nucleus would provide an excellent substitute for his generator (hinting that the original, like so much of the TARDIS, is semi-living), The Master has to 'run in' his TARDIS, following the time contour back to Heathrow. This process involves some form of calibration, and is similar to the First Doctor’s desire to pinpoint his location such as in the 1963/64 story "The Daleks".
In this story The Doctor activates a feature in the TARDIS to shift the interior so it is the right way up. Nyssa mentions that she wished that they knew about this feature back on Castrovalva.
At one point The Doctor is heard wishing he had brought his scarf, a piece of clothing he wore predominantly in his previous incarnation.
When Nyssa and Tegan see the image of Adric, they realise he is just an illusion as he is still wearing his badge that The Doctor had destroyed in the previous story.
When The Doctor mentions UNIT he name drops Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and wonders if he is a General by now. Clearly The Doctor is unaware of The Brigadier’s retirement (see the 1983 story "Mawdryn Undead"). At this point, The Brigadier hasn’t been seen since the 1975 Fourth Doctor story Terror of the Zygons.
This story contains a number of errors. Namely: As The Doctor correctly indicates, landing some 140 million years ago puts them towards the end of the Jurassic period. However, he then says that they can’t be ‘far off’ the Pleistocene 'era', which wouldn't actually occur for another 138 million years. [He must surely have meant the Cretaceous period, and therefore the ‘nip in the air’ therefore cannot be the indication of an approaching Ice Age; A bird is seen flying in front of Concorde and Heathrow airport is clearly visible in the background when it takes off from Jurassic period; Despite the claim for being one of the busiest airports in the world in this story Heathrow’s air traffic control consists of two men in a tiny room; Strangely Angela Clifford disappears halfway through the story.
Interestingly Golf Victor Foxtrot (the call sign of Concorde) is left behind on prehistoric Earth.
Listen out for when the TARDIS first lands in the terminal building at Heathrow, the voice of a woman announces over the speaker system that Air Australia apologises for the delay of one of its flights. At the end of the story when Tegan is seen walking through the terminal, the same woman announces that the Air Australia flight is ready for boarding.
The Doctor does eventually get to the Great Exhibition in the Big Finish Productions audio story "Other Lives".
It is believed that sometime after this story, the Fifth Doctor gets to meet the Tenth Doctor (see the 2007 Children In Need special "Time Crash").
The first episode of this story marked the last time, until the show was revived in 2005, that an episode was watched by at least 10 million viewers. Sadly by the time the show reached the end of its original run (discounting the 1996 television movie "Doctor Who: The Movie"), viewership had dropped to the 3-4 million range.
The cover for the DVD release of this story, and also "Arc of Infinity", shows the "Peter Davison Years" as being from ‘1981-1984’. All other Fifth Doctor releases have claimed the years as ‘1982-1984’, in deference to the January 1982 broadcast of "Castrovalva". However, there is justification for calling the era ‘1981-1984’, as that wass the period of time Peter Davison actually worked on the programme. Like Jon Pertwee who played the Third Doctor, Peter Davison fell victim to the BBC’s decision to push back the premiere of his first season to the start of the new calendar year. Neither actor is generally credited for their first year on the job, making their time in the show appear a little shorter than they actually were. While Jon Pertwee only filmed about half of Season Seven in 1969, almost everything of Season Nineteen was filmed in 1981. Indeed, Peter Davison’s first work on the show - his regeneration scene - had been filmed in January 1981, almost a full year prior to the release of "Castrovalva". Ironically, the only part of Peter Davison’s initial year not filmed in 1981 was this lone story. All told, Peter Davison’s time in front of the cameras as The Doctor lasted from 9th January 1981 to 12th January 1984 - almost precisely the three-year tenure, that it has been revealed, that he had been advised by Patrick Troughton, who played the Second Doctor, to undertake.
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The Firsts:
The first time companion Tegan Jovanka stops travelling in the TARDIS.
The first direct reference to UNIT since the 1976 Fourth Doctor story "The Seeds of Doom".
The first Doctor Who story to be written by Peter Grimwade.
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(Position = 155 out of 159)
(Position = 196 out of 200)
(Position = 237 out of 241)
