Colin Baker described The Hollows of Time as a labyrinthine
story that he couldn’t get his head around and let’s be honest it really is one
of those. Written and adapted by
Christopher H. Bidmead, a writer famous for the science fiction heavy stories
of Logopolis, Castrovalva and Frontios, The Hollows of Time is a story that couldn’t be adapted in a
straightforward manner as it was originally going to be revealed that the
villain of the story was the Master, but as The
End of Time was going to be aired when this was being made, this had to be
changed and the identity of the villain was left ambiguous. This isn’t a problem which I will get into a
little later, but Bidmead also added this frame story told by the Doctor and
Peri after the fact which makes you feel this air of uncertainty of just how
exactly the events took place. It almost
becomes a dreamlike state which others will say makes the story fail, but I
have to disagree as much like Blink
where the audience played into the story, here the audience is put into the
dreamlike state of Hollowdean.
The plot sees the Doctor
and Peri take a vacation to Hollowdean to meet up with the Reverend Foxwell, an
old friend of the Doctor, but not is all well.
There is a massive yard sale going on in honor of Professor Stream while
Foxwell, or Foxy is creating time experiments and Simon is seeing sand
creatures. Everything is connected in
that dreamlike way as Stream is attracting the sand creatures which are
actually Tractators, to create time corridors which are the titular hollows of
time. It is up to the Doctor to stop
Stream and close the hollows before they cause trouble for the Web of
Time. Now the plot has an extreme flaw
and that is the ending which just sort of happens without any sort of real
resolution except some narration. While
it is very similar to how many dreams can tend to end like that, it really
doesn’t work well for a story although it really should have worked.
Colin Baker and Nicola
Bryant both work off each other in the frame story as they both remember how
the events happened differently in only slight ways. The Doctor even after the events cannot shake
the feeling his mind is still being addled from the effects of the Hollows of
Time while Peri just wants to get out and it is really interesting. Reverend Foxwell played by Trevor Littledale
is an extremely interesting character as he is an old man who still loves to
get wrapped up into science. He is the
standard absent minded professor and you can really imagine him and the First
or Sixth Doctors getting along quite well.
He likes to be called Foxy and actually wants to be the one to close the
hollows as the majority of the blame can be put down to his meddling. The other protagonist is Simon played by
Susan Sheridan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy fame and here the biggest distraction is that I just hear
Trillian every time Simon has a line.
Whenever I didn’t hear Trillian I heard a shrill little girl, still she
is a great actress. Bidmead however,
writes Simon as an actual child and Peri is the only one to get through to him
in the end of the story. Simon runs away
from the adults for not believing him about the sand creatures.
Professor Stream is
played by David Garfield and let’s be honest he is playing the Master. Garfield is putting on a slight imitation of
Anthony Ainley and is just as nasty as the Master is in the show. He has a robot under his control and a human
hypnotized who gets killed just to show how ruthless Stream is. This murder however just brings the audience
into enjoying him as a character as his voice just creates the dreamlike
atmosphere where everything starts to blend together which is a really
interesting idea.
To summarize, The Hollows of Time is a highly
underrated Lost Story as the story actually manages to lose the audience in
what can only be described from a dream.
It is obvious that the villain of the story is meant to be the Master
and Professor Stream is a character who keeps you on your toes. Susan Sheridan is the weak link of the story
however. Foxy, Peri and the Doctor are
all great while the main problems come from Bidmead’s style causing the ending
to be truly awful and an insult to what the story accomplished. 70/100
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