"The Master is back! Assuming the alias of Professor Thascales at the Newton Research Unit at Cambridge University, he harbors his latest deadly plot to seize control of time itself. Can the Doctor and Jo thwart his terrible plan? What secrets does the mysterious trident-shaped crystal hold? Why is the ancient city of Atlantis central to the Master’s plan? And what mythical terror lies at the heart of the Maze? With time literally against them, the odds might just be too great for the time travelers. (Episodes 1-6, 147 mins) "
The six-episode "Time Monster" was the final story of the ninth season of Doctor Who, a strong run that also saw Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor in "The Day of the Daleks" and "The Sea Devils." The Master, Roger Delgado, is at the Newton Institute, experimenting with a fragment of crystal, which can summon Kronos, a time-eating entity from beyond space-time. The Doctor, Jo Grant (Katy Manning), and UNIT become involved in a sequence of strange temporal dislocations, eventually leading to ancient Atlantis itself. There Jo faces the Minotaur, played by Dave Prowse in a bull mask five years before he found fame as Darth Vader. "The Time Monster" is classic Doctor Who at its most surreal, the effects ranging from mediocre to functional, the Atlantis sets surprisingly lavish. The Doctor may escape from eternity by playing the scriptwriting equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card, but the sequence, in which his TARDIS is inside the Master's TARDIS, while the Master's TARDIS is simultaneously inside the Doctor's TARDIS, is a mind-bending highlight. --Gary S. Dalkin