A newly regenerated Doctor and his companions Greg and Nadia land on Temperos. Could it be that the legendary Time being, the Temperon is not a legend after all? Or are the Daleks up to their old tricks again?
A newly regenerated Doctor and his companions Greg and Nadia land on Temperos. Could it be that the legendary Time being, the Temperon is not a legend after all? Or are the Daleks up to their old tricks again?
In the last story, we saw the Doctor, Greg and Nadia set out on fun adventure and super times after mistakenly detonating Home World. I contacted the FAA and confirmed that The Space Wail was in fact a case of pilot error. But with The Space Wail and Stephen Payne’s Doctor clearly in the rear view mirror, we get to the real deal with THE TIME RAVAGERS.
Blurb A newly regenerated Doctor and his companions Greg and Nadia land on Temperos. Could it be that the legendary Time being, the Temperon is not a legend after all? Or are the Daleks up to their old tricks again? (Sorry to critique a blurb, but couldn’t it be both? The temperon actually being real and the Daleks up to their old tricks?)
The story begins in a spaceship whose chronomoters (space-talk for clocks) have stopped. Meanwhile, the Doctor has vanished from the Tardis after being summoned to help a time traveling being of some kind. The being, a Temperon, not being a particularly skilled communer, accidentally ages the Doctor to death. Move over Colin Baker hitting your head on the console, Stephen Payne has won the award for crappiest regeneration! Forgetting the relatively poor regeneration, it serves two very important purposes. 1: It boots Stephen Payne’s Doctor out the door and 2: Introduces Nicholas Briggs’ Doctor. Similar to Power of the Daleks, Greg and Nadia are reluctant to accept the new Doctor. But to be honest, having just listened to The Space Wail, I’d have no trouble accepting Dame Edna as the new Doctor!
Both the Tardis and the spaceship, the Excelsius (all spaceships are named by the British), have had their engines aged to the point of being non functional. Greg begins to accept the new Doctor, but Nadia takes a page from the book of Perpugilliam Jovanka and decides to both whine and complain about everything. The Tardis and spaceship both land on the planet below, and the crew does the usual “Who are you? Why did you mess up our ship? You may not be killers but we’re still keeping an eye on you” spiel that you get in 98% of Doctor Who stories. They talk it out and in the end everything is peachy. Even Nadia accepts that the Doctor is the Doctor, having exhausted all avenues of impertinence. The Temperon shows up again, with linguistic skills only just exceeding the Mechanoids. “Doctor friend.” “Danger.” “Help Doctor.” Then the Daleks show up. *music sting
RUNNING SHOOTING CAPTURE ESCAPE ETC. The Daleks want the Doctor to commune with the Temperon in order to give them the power to travel through time at will. CAPTURE CAPTURE SHOOTING ESCAPE ETC. The Daleks end up gaining the power to time travel, but cannot control it and end up aging themselves to death. The Temperon fixes the Tardis, and the Doctor and crew decide to finally take the vacation they promised themselves after exploding Home World. Sorry, I’m just still not over that.
Evaluation
Even though the regeneration itself is underwhelming, The Time Ravagers is a great regeneration story. Nicholas Briggs steps effortlessly into the role of the Doctor. He obviously relishes the part. Speaking of strong performances, Michael Wisher turns in great performances as both the recording on the space buoy and as the Daleks. Yes, the Michael Wisher. The original Davros. The non camp Davros. I’m blown away that they managed to secure Michael Wisher. JNT couldn’t secure Michael Wisher! It’s great to hear the Daleks appear. It helps legitimize the story as truly Doctor Who. The voices are dead on, with rings modulating very nicely. And as they would do years later with Big Finish, they make the Daleks mean. These are nasty little Daleks. Don’t mess with their suckers, sucka! This also sees the first appearance of the Temperons. They will make future appearances, but you may remember them appearing in Big Finish’s first Doctor Who story, The Sirens of Time.
Overall 8 out of 10
Now this is more like it. A very solid story that could easily have been on television. I think it would have been great as a Pertwee/Jo Grant story. I didn’t mention this in my last review, but the theme tune is very good. It’s sci fi but not OTT sci fi. And considering that it’s over 20 years old, I don’t think it sounds dated.
Borrowed lines: “For a dead man, I’m feeling remarkably well.” Very Shada esque.
Misheard lines: “Descent commencing. Crustaceans everyone.” (was actually crash stations everyone)
NEXT TIME
“The Doctor and his companions discover a sinister satellite network and come face to face with the evil Rigellons in CONNECTION 13 – An Audio Visuals production due for release in April 1985!”