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Doctor Who - Time-Flight [1982] / Arc of Infinity [1983]


RRP: £29.99
Our Price: £9.99 (subject to change)

Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Two stories based around the character of Tegan, this union of Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity is an interesting double header for any Doctor Who enthusiast. Both stories see Peter Davison in the title role.

Time-Flight's big selling point is neither Davison's Doctor nor Janet Fielding's Tegan. Instead, it's Concorde, as the Doctor gets Tegan to Heathrow Airport, only to discover that the infamous supersonic jet is caught in a muddle with a time corridor. And while truthfully the story wrapping round this concept isn't top of the range Who, it's still both entertaining and easy to watch, and good fun all round.

Arc of Infinity, meanwhile, takes the Doctor back into the midst of the Time Lords, only to discover that one of them has chosen him to be the victim of a strange creature. This creature can only survive by bonding with a Time Lord, and when the High Council of Time Lords rules that the Doctor has to be killed, the scene is set for an interesting mystery, that also sees Tegan fall into dangerous hands too.

The two stories in this Doctor Who boxset are, to be fair, fairly loosely linked, but while neither comes from a particularly classic era of the show, both have plenty to make them worth watching. Of the two, Arc of Infinity is the better, but backed up with the usual top notch extras, this is a boxset that few Doctor Who fans will want to be without. --Jon Foster


A few good moments, but mainly pretty uninspiring.
Review date: 2008-08-11 Rating: 4 out of 10

Box-sets seem to be becoming the in thing, so here we have two (very vaguely-connected) stories. The linking theme is that they centre around Tegan leaving the Tardis and then re-joining it again. The first story, Timeflight, is quite frankly an example of how imagination can be undone by budget restrictions. The shots of two Concordes crashing in prehistoric Britain look completely fake, which is a shame as the early scenes of this story are great and show real promise. The Master soon appears (having been in disguise for no apparent reason. Why wear a disguise when no-one can actually see you?) and we are introduced to daft-looking monsters. The second story, Arc of Infinity, is only marginally better. The Time Lords and Gallifrey are well-presented, Colin Baker is a strong villain and Peter Davison is effective in his dual role. What bogs the story down, however, is another silly-looking monster, an uninteresting plot and the descent into relying on the series' past for inspiration. My worry is that younger fans, who may not have ever seen the original Dr Who run, will buy the likes of these two adventures, think this kind of thing is all there ever was to the old series and avoid DVD releases of the original Dr Who series from then on. There are still plenty of good stories awaiting DVD release, and I can think of plenty of much better ideas for two-story box-sets (Curse of Peladon/Monster of Peladon and Kinda/Snakedance) to name two. Even the unreleased lesser stories of Tom Baker's era such as Nightmare of Eden and Horns of Nimon are better than this yawn-a-rama.

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Reviews


"B Movie Double Bill!"
Review date: 2008-02-06 Rating: 6 out of 10

These are 2 stories that are unlikely to be at the top of anyone's wish list. They are at best also-rans.
"Timeflight" is the 1st and the weaker of the 2. the Doctor tries to take Nyssa and Tegan to the 1951 Festival of Britain and it goes wrong, landing them in Heathrow Aiport in the midst of "The Mystery of the Missing Concorde". The Doctor tracks it down to prehistoric Earth where The Master has (disguised as a strange oriental figure) been nicking the craft and people in the hope of gaining power from a race of malevolent aliens. Needless to say the Doc sorts it out.
There is a decent story there somewhere but it's got lost under the weight of its own fuzzy logic.
Why does The Master need to dress up as an oriental pantomime villain?
What does he really want the Concorde for?
There are never any statisfactory answers to what is going on.
Davison and the companions are good and Nyssa gets a few brief moments of something to do other than look sympathetic. Janet Fielding is particularly good when Tegan gets to finally play at Air Hostess, calming hysterical passengers and in a beautifully underplayed farewell as the Tardis leaves her behind. This is of course undercut by her return in the next story.We also get a quick cameo from a couple of old monsters, including Adric!
Anthony Ainley well, he comes on and does his Master bit and that's fine if nothing special , but before the reveal his performance as the Master's disguise character Khalid is pure Spike Milligan! It truly belongs in a lost Goon Show somewhere.
Aliens the Xeraphas make no lasting impression and the "Plasmaton" monsters are truly pathetic, apparently made from papier mache and washing up foam. methinks the budget was biting.
Undemanding fun, if you turn your brain off.

The extras lack a documentary but there is some production footage and the commentary to tell us about the story's troubled production. Fiedling and Davison are on top form and especially funny about working on Concorde and supporting actor now turned politician Michael Cashman.
There is a good interview with Janet Fielding about her whole Dr Who experience & a brief bit of interview footage with story writer Peter Grimwade.
"The Arc of Infinity" is a better effort, starting the next season after the 1 that Timeflight ended. The Doctor returns to Gallifrey to be executed for having allowed an invader to link with his body. The alien saves him and turns out to be the daddy of all renegade timelords Omega, trying to find a way back to the real world.
Omega's plan fails and he becomes a walking timebomb that the Doctor must stop.
It's a bit of a mess but there is still lots to enjoy. The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan are all good as the actors playing them deliver the goods. Obvious to say but Colin Baker playing the tough guard Maxil makes quite an impression, and it's not hard to see why he got the top job later.
Micheal Gough is okay but uninspired and Leonard Sachs gives a rather duff performance. The pair of them matched with lacklustre turns by Eslpet Gray and Max Hastings make the Timelords home look like a retirment village in Eastbourne. Paul Jericho at least is good as an untrustworthy Castellan.

Ian Collier gives a good performance as Omega playing villain and victim alternately and his costume is good. As for the Ergon, at least as bad as the Plasmatons, a terrible 80's monster.

There is too much reliance on continuity for impact. Even casual viewers are meant to know who Borusa is, and more to the point who Omega is. there is too little information for those who never saw the characters to understand their significance. The revelation that Omega from the Three Doctors has returned after 10 years is not actually used as the climax for episode 3, but is so close to it that the revelation he cnotrols the matrix (itself never properly explained) was probably met with head scratching.
When the story is good though, it is very good. The callous way the Doctor is scapegoated and marked for execution (although when he next confronted those who condemned him he might have reacted more) and Nyssa's reaction to his apparanet death. Omega's reaction at being "alive again" and the Doctor's reunion with Tegan.

The extras include a proper documentary (and a good one too), a thumping good commentary as Colin Baker joins Davison and Fielding (watch for Colin's hilarious story of being mistaken for a runner by Mr. Jericho!)optional upgraded effects (which are good but not very striking) and a featurette on the character of Omega. Like most of the short featurettes it isn't given enough time to go anywhere.

A fun package, but for diehard fans only.

Flight back in time
Review date: 2007-11-18 Rating: 8 out of 10

The release of Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity offers a welcome opportunity for the re-evaluation of two of Peter Davison's less popular stories. Time Flight was one of the very last stories to be released on VHS, and it is interesting that has been released on DVD with so many Doctor Who serials yet to come out, not least the majority of Davison's second season. It seems that the distributors are quite wisely varying their releases between highly regarded and not so popular adventures, thereby ensuring that all the perceived weaker stories do not come out at the end of the range, as did happen with the video releases.
Following the events of Earthshock, Time Flight begins with the regular cast discussing what has happened recently. Nevertheless, they soon appear to get over events and become involved in the disappearance on modern day Earth, of a Concorde plane that literally vanished, whilst on its way to Heathrow airport. The Doctor, emphasising his past involvement with the security organisation Unit, is sent on a second concorde flight to see if it can be determined what happened. It transpires that the original plane entered a timewarp, being sent back millions of years to a prehistoric time before there was any life on Earth. The second plane does likewise although at first the crew are convinced that they have returned to Heathrow airport, until their illusion is shattered, as the mock airport gives way to rocks and barren landscapes. The instigator of the kidnapping of the crew and passengers of the concorde flights, is a strange alien conjurer named Kalid. But what are his motives and where does a race of long extinct aliens, with immense mental powers fit into events?
Episode 1, is easily the best of the 4 episodes in the serial. The airport
setting is interesting, and although the air traffic control room appears to be very undermanned the disappearance of the concorde plane at the start of the episode and the panicked reactions of the airport staff, makes for an interesting start. With the exception of a very poor performance by the actress playing the air hostess, the acting in the serial is fine. What really lets the story down is a confused central storyline, unimaginative direction, and some very poor effects. This was the last story to be made in Davison's debut series, and it is clear that the money had run out by this stage. Rather than attempting to make a fairly ambitious story on a shoestring budget, perhaps the production team could have instead made an alternative serial that required limited special effects and budget.
The serials writer was Peter Grimwade, who was also the best director to be employed by Dr Who in the early 80s, with credits including Earthshock. Unfortunately his writing is not nearly as effective. No real explanation is given for the individual motivation of Kaled, why does he kidnap a Concorde crew. It is also lucky that when the planes land they do not crash into the rocks of the prehistoric Earth, nor does one of the planes need a runway when it takes off at the end of the serial.
The special effects are also very weak. When the planes take off, buildings can be observed even though it is meant to be millions of years ago and a bird clearly flies in front of the plane. The landscape looks about as realistic as one which would appear in an episode of the original Star Trek series. The direction is also very weak, with too many characters appearing in certain sequences, resulting in them standing round wondering what to do. It is clearly obvious in one sequence that actor Michael Cashman is trying not to laugh.
The commentary is as always entertaining, with Janet Fielding making her dislike of the story obvious.
Thankfully Arc of Infinity is a vast improvement on Time-Flight. The opening episode features a two man Tardis crew of The Doctor and Nyssa, and this works very well indeed. The Timelords are also back, including amongst their numbers, one Colin Baker, who has been employed to terminate The Doctor. The return of the Timelord Omega, is an opportunity for the character to be reassessed after his one dimensional appearance in The Three Doctors in 1973. As usual there is also a traitor figure in Timelord society, although it is pretty obvious who this is from the start. The Amsterdam location is refreshing, although as with The Two Doctors, it serves little purpose in times of the storylines. The highly level of coincidence in the story, not least that Tegan's cousin conveniently becomes involved in events, thereby necessitating her return to the programme, is contrived, although it could be argued that this was a consequence of Omega's influence. Nevertheless this serial is ok, and not a bad opener to season 20. There are also several good extras on the DVD, including future companion Sophie Aldred travelling around the Amsterdam locations

Two of the Fifth Doctor's less popular outings!
Review date: 2007-09-14 Rating: 6 out of 10

"Time-Flight" - 2/5; "Arc of Infinity" - 3/5; Special Features - 4/5.

This boxed set contains two consecutive Doctor Who serials, linked by companion Tegan's departure from and subsequent return to the TARDIS crew (D'oh! Why'd she have to come back?).

"Time-Flight", by occasional "Doctor Who" director Peter Gimwade, brings the series' nineteenth season to a rather shambolic and cheapskate end. Full of ideas and ambitiously written, "Time-Flight" could have been fantastic with a movie budget and a more carefully edited script, but, filmed at the end of a long season by a tired cast and a crew who had run out of money, sadly that was not to be.
"Time-Flight" suffers significantly from its set design. Those parts of "Time-Flight" that were filmed on location at Heathrow Airport are definitely its most convincing. The same cannot, unfortunately, be said for the scenes set on Prehistoric Earth, filmed in studio on a perspective set with an obvious painted sky that robs the scenes of much of their credibility. Further location filming on a blasted heath somewhere would surely have been more convincing.
On the other hand, "Time-Flight" manages to convey the two Concordes' journeys between the present day and prehistoric Earth remarkably well using a combination of stock footage and modelwork, given the technological constraints and special effects budget available to the series at the time of "Time-Flight"'s production.
"Time-Flight" is slightly over-cluttered with a large number of supporting characters who seem remarkably un-fazed by the whole affair, in particular the eager Captain Stapley (Richard Easton), his slightly camp crewmates Andrew Bilton and Roger Scobie, and academic aircraft passenger Professor Hayter (Nigel Stock), plus a few other minor characters who don't really bear mentioning. The villain of the piece, the mysterious Kalid, who has lured the Doctor to prehistoric earth in the hope of gaining control of his TARDIS, is slightly tiresome with his unintelligible chanting, but his makeup is surprisingly good despite the budget (and, later on, as the story's main twist is revealed, we find out why).
Unfortunately these shortcomings are not compensated for by the story's highly contrived and nebulous plot. Indeed, the only part of the whole affair that really rings true is the decision that Tegan, who has travelled under duress with the Doctor for some time, is faced with at the end of the story: having been returned to present-day Heathrow, will she now continue to travel with the Doctor and explore new worlds, or will she return to the normal life that she had thought she so much wanted?

"Arc of Infinity", by Johnny Byrne, opened the twentieth season of "Doctor Who", in which producer John Nathan-Turner sought to bring back an enemy from the series' past in each serial. For "Arc of Infinity", he brought back the original Time Lord, Omega, coincidentally last seen in the series' tenth anniversary story, "The Three Doctors". It was also a stipulation of producer John Nathan-Turner that part of the story be filmed in Amsterdam, hence the rather odd juxtaposition of scenes filmed on the streets of Amsterdam (the B-story, revolving around former companion Tegan), with studio-bound scenes set on the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey (the A-story, revolving around the Doctor, Nyssa and the Time Lords).
The Tegan B-story is of marginal relevance to begin with, and does not come together with the main story until the end of the serial, allowing the Doctor to have most of a televised story with just Nyssa as the companion. This is beneficial to both the Doctor, who was usually surrounded by multiple squabbling companions, and the likeable but quiet Nyssa, normally marginalised during the "crowded TARDIS" stories of her time on the show. Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton make the most of the opportunity that the unique scenario presents to develop their relationship (and Nyssa gets to kick some Gallifreyan butt).
However, the rest of the story is a bit of a mess. The means of Omega's return are poorly explained, although Ian Collier is good in the role, particularly during the final confrontation in Amsterdam. The Gallifrey sets are conceptually bland and don't really speak of the grace and affluence that the Time Lords supposedly possess (even if they are rotten to the core). The best thing in the story is probably Colin Baker as the officious Commander Maxil of the Gallifreyan guards: he actually gets to shoot Peter Davison, in a scene rather ironic given his future casting as Davison's successor in the title role. On the other hand, the less that is said about the acting of Tegan's cousin and his backpacker friend, probably, the better! Given the potential offered by the foreign location shoot and the return of Omega, it seems that "Arc", whilst enjoyable enough, could have delivered a lot more than it actually did.

Despite the relatively shambolic nature of the stories, they get a deluxe treatment on DVD as usual, digitally remastered and equipped with entertaining (although often critical) cast commentaries (including both Peter Davison and Colin Baker on the "Arc" commentary), documentaries on the making of the stories and various extracts from the archives. A good set for established and loyal fans, although not, perhaps, the best release for classic series newbies!

Not the best stories ....hilerious commentary though
Review date: 2007-08-25 Rating: 6 out of 10

As most reviewers have stated this "Tegan Tales" Doctor Who box set does not contain two of the better stories.

Time Flight is a very confusing story with some very dodgy effects. Why does the Master feel he has to disguise himself as an overweight Fu Manchu ? The saving grace is the commentary track - Peter Davison always does an excellent commentary and Janet Fielding spends most of the time slagging of the story. It's very funny and alot more enjoyable than the actual story dialog.

Arc Of Infinity is mildly better with Michael Gough giving a good performance. It's nice to see Omega back though I prefer his costume in The Three Doctors. Once again the disk benefits from a very entertaining commentary track with Colin Baker and Peter Davison.

If you are a Doctor Who fan then you will probably buy this dvd but to enjoy it more listen to the commentary tracks and prepair to be entertained.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Sarah Sutton
Janet Fielding
Peter Davison

Creators:
Peter Davison (Primary Contributor)
Sarah Sutton (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: 2 Entertain Video
Manufacturer: 2 Entertain Video
EAN: 5014503232726
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Full Screen, PAL,
Release date: 2007-08-06
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Region code: 2
Running time: 180 minutes
Language: English (Original Language)

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