Doctor Who/Recap/S19/E07 Time-Flight



""The Master has defeated me at last...""

- The Doctor, having a sudden attack of Genre Blindness

Mostly notable for being the first time British Airways allowed filming aboard a Concorde, Time-Flight is one of the sillier stories of Classic Who.

Tired of Tegan and Nyssa constantly bitching at him for letting Adric die, the Doctor silently vows to get rid of the more mouthy one. Thus, Tegan gets dropped off at her new job at Heathrow, only minutes after she left. Time travel is a handy thing. Sadly, before she can even check in with HR or learn where the break room is, the TARDIS crew gets tangled up in something involving disappearing Concordes. As it turns out, the Concordes are vanishing to the Jurassic era, which is where the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and a second plane go to investigate. To no one's surprise except the Doctor's (and maybe a few who didn't see the anagram in the credits), Big Tony's back again. He's also in disguise, as an Asian-esque mystic, though he has no reason to be.

There's also stuff about an ancient alien hive mind that wants to respawn onto Earth, while the Master wants to use them as the core of his own TARDIS. Oh, and his TARDIS is somehow damaged after escaping Castrovalva. Maybe. The crew of the second plane bumbles around, confused; meanwhile the Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan... also bumble around. Adric shows up for a split second, only to be told he's supposed to be dead; then he vanishes. There's also some really odd stuff involving swapped TARDIS parts, Concorde planes being able to takeoff from unpaved and bumpy ground using compressed air from tires, the Master beating the Doctor at the alien-hivemind subplot and mass hallucinations for random extras wandering around the sets.

In the end, the Doctor beats the Master by getting back to (present day) Heathrow first, thus preventing him from landing. Then, thinking that he's finally gotten Tegan home at last, leaves her there--unaware that she was having second thoughts about the job and really wanted to stay aboard the TARDIS.

Just try to ignore the birds flying around in what's meant to be the Jurassic, OK?

Tropes

 * And the Adventure Continues: The Doctor and Nyssa have several adventures in the gap between this story and the next.
 * Big Red Button: Discussed, sort of. When looking for the TARDIS door control, the concorde Captain immediately dismisses the HUGE RED LEVER, presumably for this reason.
 * Continuity Nod: The Doctor says, when cold, it's "times like this I wish I still had my scarf."
 * Hive Mind: The Xeraphin
 * Just Plane Wrong: That control tower sure is understaffed.
 * Mass Hypnosis
 * The Master
 * Put On a Bus: Tegan. She comes back with shorter hair next season.
 * Significant Anagram: Kalid is credited in the first episode as Leon Ny Taiy - an ambiguously Asian anagram of Tony Ainley.
 * To Absent Friends: The brief (read: one minute and fifteen seconds long) discussion of Adric's death. Hopefully they did some more heartfelt mourning off-screen.
 * Unexplained Recovery: The last time we saw the Master, he was being a) mobbed by happy villagers of his own creation and b) trapped by mathematical paradox. He's fine now!