 This story features a guest appearance by popular horror film star Ingrid Pitt who stars as Queen Galleia. David Prowse also guest stars as the Minotaur, he would later play (but not voice) the masked Darth Vader in the first three Star Wars movies.
This is the second story Paul Bernard directed during Season Nine, having earlier worked on "Day of the Daleks". This was also the first time since the Dalek story that the three UNIT regulars appear together.
This story features one of several storylines involving the fate of Atlantis (the others being the 1967 Second Doctor story "The Underwater Menace" and the previous season’s finale, "The Dæmons"). The first depicts the late twentieth century destruction of the long-sunken city while the second is one of several nonspecific claims made by Azal during a rant, and here no more than the collapse of a single temple is shown.
This story introduced the Chronovores, aliens that live in the time eddies who have lasting impact on the later novels The BBC The Past Doctors Stories novel "The Quantum Archangel", by Craig Hinton, is a sequel to this story.
The Chronovores are also featured in the Virgin Books' The New Adventures novel "No Future" by Paul Cornell. Also Paul Cornell's 2005 television story, "Father's Day", features creatures that resemble the Chronovores (they are though referred to as Reapers in this Ninth Doctor story).
The Doctor, in his second incarnation, and his companions were previously menaced by a Minotaur in the Land of Fiction, in the 1968 story "The Mind Robber".
The Doctor has a precognitive dream. When he was a little boy, lived in a house half way up a mountain, behind which sat a monk, or hermit, under a tree. The Doctor tells Jo Grant of a Time Lord ‘guru’ who influenced him as a boy. Co-incidentally, after he tells Jo this, the next person to appear is King Dallios, played by George Cormack, who will play that very guru, in the guise of K'Anpo, in "Planet of the Spiders" two years later (curiously, even some of the lines given to Dalios here are later virtually echoed by K'Anpo).
TOMTIT - stands for: 'Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time'
At one point The Doctor gets ejected into the time vortex and speaks to Jo through the TARDIS telepathic circuits so revealing that Time Lords can survive in the time vortex and that the TARDIS has an inbuilt rescue mechanism for when this happens. It is also revealed that TARDISes can communicate telepathically, and exist outside time. The Doctor has another excursion into the time vortex in the untelevised Fourth Doctor story "Shada" and again in the Big Finish Productions Eighth Doctor audio story "Seasons of Fear".
It is revealed that travelling in time between places depends on the mood of the ship, which The Doctor states is alive (as it seems is Bessie). There is also a scene where The Master uses his TARDIS to Time Ram The Doctor's.
For the first and only time throughout this season the main interior of the TARDIS appears. The debut of the new TARDIS interior set, designed by Tim Gleeson, was used for both The Doctor's and the Master's time machines. Producer Barry Letts was unhappy with the redesign, and the set was then damaged shortly after recording this story and so it would only be seen in "The Time Monster".
Look out for the scene where The Doctor makes a Time flow analogue from a Moroccan burgundy bottle, spoons, forks, corks, keyrings, tea leaves and a mug.
To date this is the only story that ends with one of the regular characters naked – allbeit Sergeant Benton returning to full size after having regressed to a baby by TOMTIT.
Jon Pertwee was credited as 'Dr. Who' for this story.
Even though it was unknown at the time the recording of episode six would be the last time that Nicholas Courtney and John Levene would work alongside Roger Delgado – who would be tragically killed in an automobile accident in June 1973.
Interestingly it was discovered in 1987 that episode 6 had been made into a low band PAL B/W 625 line broadcast standard videotape recording, for training purposes by the BBC.
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The Firsts:
The first and only time during Season Nine that the main interior of the TARDIS appears.
The first (and only) appearance of a new TARDIS interior set designed by Tim Gleeson.
The first Doctor Who story to be written by Robert Sloman.
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(Position = 144 out of 159)
(Position = 187 out of 200)
(Position = 222 out of 241)
