All is not well aboard the TARDIS - in an attempt to cheer up Nyssa and Tegan after the recent death of fellow companion Adric, the Doctor plans a trip back to the year 1851 and a visit to the Great Exhibition in London. However, the journey is unexpectedly interrupted and the TARDIS mysteriously appears in Terminal 1 of Heathrow Airport in modern-day London. At the same time, a routine incoming Concorde flight disappears without a trace... Are the two events connected? A second Concorde, carrying the Doctor, his companions and the TARDIS, is dispatched to follow the same flight path as the missing aircraft in an attempt to discover the fate of the passengers. But when this Concorde arrives back at Heathrow, they discover that things are not quite what they appear to be... What sinister force is behind the kidnapping of the Concorde passengers and crew? Is an ancient malevolent power at work, or something with which the Doctor is much more familiar?

All is not well aboard the TARDIS - in an attempt to cheer up Nyssa and Tegan after the recent death of fellow companion Adric, the Doctor plans a trip back to the year 1851 and a visit to the Great Exhibition in London. However, the journey is unexpectedly interrupted and the TARDIS mysteriously appears in Terminal 1 of Heathrow Airport in modern-day London. At the same time, a routine incoming C

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They find the answer in the Jurassic Period, which is where the time contour that hijacked them ends. The crew and passengers of the other flight are under some hypnotic influence, all that is except for a Professor Hayter, a university scientist specializing in hypnotism who was unaffected. He thinks that the plane was hijacked by the Soviets and that they are behind the iron curtain.

The sight of a crashed spaceship, a citadel, and a grotesque-looking Oriental magician named Kalid, leads the travellers to believe there's more to their predicament.

Nyssa plays a larger role by acting as a medium for some aliens divided into good and evil halves, and there's a kind of sixth sense about her, which may come from her being from Traken. And at least Tegan finally gets to be a stewardess, having worn her uniform all throughout the season.

I can't tell more without spoiling the rest. Paleontology seems to be a weak case in Doctor Who (q.v. The Silurians, The Sea Devils). 140 million years ago is indeed the close of the Jurassic Period, but then the Doctor says they must be near the Pleistocene Era. Two goofs: he must have meant the Cretaceous Era, and second, it should be the Pleistocene Epoch, which wouldn't occur for another 138 million years after.

Some credit should be given to British Airways giving producer John Nathan-Turner permission to feature the Concorde and airport authorities giving him the go-ahead to film at Heathrow.

Occasionally, the series has some stories that don't cut the mustard, and sadly, Timeflight is one of them. The regulars come out good as usual, with worthy performances from Richard Easton (Stapley) and Nigel Stock (Hayter). The main problem, though, is the concept of two Concordes being hijacked to the end of the Jurassic Period and the bad story idea and execution.

2 of 2 found the following review helpful:

Flight across timeJun 01, 2001
By G.Spider
The Doctor and his companions arrive at Heathrow and find Concorde has gone missing. Before long it transpires the aeroplane has been transported back to the Jurassic where the Doctor soon comes across his old enemy the Master.

This was a story which seemed doomed to disaster. The limited budget had to cope with finding a way of making two concordes crash-land (the season had already had problems with bringing a giant snake to life), the storyline is a little confusing (it isn't all that clear what the Master is trying to do, or why he bothers with a disguise when there's nobody there to see him), and the stock footage of concorde and the airport was no doubt seen by Heathrow as more a promotional gimmick than anything else.

Strange, therefore, that what we have here is 90 minutes of entertaining, interesting and highly enjoyable sci-fi. The concept of concorde flying through time is an inspired one, the characters are well-written and there are some genuinely haunting scenes. Well worth seeing.

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:

"The coherence is breaking up!"May 22, 2008
By Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man"
I hadn't watched TIME-FLIGHT since my teenage years and I didn't really remember much about it apart from the very low opinion it has amongst Doctor Who fans. Watching this on DVD years later it turns out that the serial is everything I was expecting and more.

TIME-FLIGHT is the story of two British Concordes which accidentally travel 140 million years into the past. In this time zone is a mysterious sorcerer, an old enemy, blobby creatures called Plasmatons and an ancient, powerful extraterrestrial race called the Xeraphin with the whole plot revolving around the age-old struggle between good and evil. If this sounds interesting to you, then you'll no doubt be disappointed by the end result. The serial ends up being a bunch of different bits and pieces thrown together with little in the way of structure or logic to form them into a cohesive whole.

TIME-FLIGHT's first problem is its script. By eleven minutes into the first episode, we're already knee-deep in technobabble; we'll be in over our heads before the final credits roll. This is what people who say they don't like science-fiction probably cannot stand. If one doesn't know the conventions of the genre, one would assume that one lacks the knowledge of science and therefore cannot follow the story for that reason. They don't realize that the screenwriter is just making up all this physics as he goes along.

The script does far too much telling with almost no showing. Characters simply stand around reading plot points to each other. Why, for example, does control of the Xeraphin give the story's bad guy unlimited power? The audience is never given a reason for that; the story simply asserts it. The epic verbal battle between the good Xeraphin and the bad is also poorly illustrated. Philosophers and theologians for centuries have discussed the nature of good and evil; the best on offer here is one guy surrounded by odd special effects shouting (and I paraphrase), "Be good!" at another guy who responds (paraphrasing again), "No, be evil!" (This script is apparently hostile to philosophers in general. There's a bizarre potshot at Bishop Berkeley in episode one which never gets followed up on.)

There's no sense of danger, suspense or drama; the characters simply happily tell the audience when things are going well and then gloomily inform us when things are going badly. Even when actual events occur, they aren't particularly memorable. Fans remember the two stories where Tegan's mind was possessed by the Mara; does anyone similarly look upon TIME-FLIGHT as the gripping story where Nyssa is possessed by the Xeraphin? Does anyone recall that plot-point more than an hour after viewing?

And what is the point of Kalid the sorcerer? I don't want to give away too much (can I really spoil a story from twenty-six years ago?), but does any part of his plan make sense? Why does he chant and cackle and stay in that outfit even when there is no one else around? Amusingly, the first word he states out loud is part of his chant and is a hearty: "Shiraz!" Which I assume that producers were drinking quite a lot of when they came up with these ideas.

Like Peter Davison on the DVD's commentary track, I find myself trying desperately to think of something positive to say. The set of Kalid's inner sanctum is kind of nice looking. I like his giant crystal ball. And the DVD extras are not only the best thing about the purchase, but they're actually good on their own merits.

This disc features a mini-documentary focusing on the companion Tegan. It's mostly built around a single camera interview with Janet Fielding who turns out to give one of the strongest and most interesting takes I've seen an actor give concerning their time on Doctor Who. In just a few sentences she neatly sums up virtually all of the problems that the show displayed during this era.

The DVD commentary track is also worth a listen. Actors Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding join script-editor Eric Saward who spends most of his time alternating between profuse apologies and finger-pointing at the rest of the production team. There's not a lot of insight to be gained, but the cast at least make the serial fun to watch by pointing how much they enjoyed working with the other people in the story. Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding have a lot of fun pointing many of the shortcomings. Peter Davison on numerous occasions points out (correctly) that quite a lot of the problems with how the production visually looks are due to the fact that TIME-FLIGHT was at the end of a season and therefore had almost no money left out of Doctor Who's already minuscule budget.

In Doctor Who serials, when sorrows came, they came not as single flaws but in battalions. TIME-FLIGHT is one of those stories where virtually every aspect of production ends up looking shabby . The script is unsteady, the sets are cheap, and the direction is static and dull. If you plan on watching this, then I suggest taking a page out of the DVD's commentary track participants and plan plenty of breaks and the medicinal use of chocolates or other mood-enhancing substances.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Oh, come on, it's better than you think!Jan 21, 2008
By The Cougar
Thanks to reviewer John Liosatos, I was convinced to have a second look at Time Flight when it came out on DVD and I'm glad I did. I have a newfound liking for the story, it's a good light-hearted simple adventure.

Like Timelash, Time-Flight certainly isn't a classic, I can't give it five stars, because there are a few things still niggling, the way they leave Tegan still feels jarring, as does the Master dressing up as an Arabic zombie.

But despite that... Time-Flight is great! Once they get over the sadness of Adric being killed, this TARDIS crew of the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa suddenly work a lot better, without Adric's petulant streak that was apparent with his time with the Fifth Doctor. I love the irony that the Doctor keeps trying to get Tegan to Heathrow Airport, but fails, and when he doesn't try, he reaches it bang on target, right place, right time. And the script has some good quips in it, with the Doctor climbing out of the TARDIS and into a side compartment of the plane, and saying in wonder, "This is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside!" Nice twist on the common quote.

As for the same old argument, the special effects are worse here, Grimwade (the writer) shoulod've known better, boo-hoo, get over it. The sole positive viewpoint on the DVD with the Grimwade interview says it perfectly, "You've got to keep pushing the ideas" Good on ya Grimwade. If you can't stretch your imagination, and let yourself get into the story (sending a Concorde back to prehistoric times... you don't see that in every sci-fi show), then frankly, you're a mindless zombie. I remember when Star Wars Episode 2 came out in the cinemas, and me and a friend who had just seen it were talking about it, his comment was... "Well, there wasn't really a story. It was... just special effects. But man, they were good!" Six years later, he's a new Doctor Who fan thanks to this very DVD!

And after some forgettable extra characters in Earthshock, we have what Janet calls on the commentary, "Crispin's Boys!" (??) Captain Stapley makes an excellent short-term friend for the Doctor, taking in all his unreal surroundings with a mixture of wonder and daring (Who else tries to sabotage the TARDIS to stop the Master?) Oh, and Professor Hayter makes a good foil, at the start seeming like a closed-minded sceptic, but at the end, sacrifices himself to the Xeraphin. Oh, and at the end, where the three pilots try to convince security that they went back 140 million years, and one of them quips "Think of the overtime!" is hilarious. A 1980's pilot's yearly salary multiplied by 140 million... anyone know how much that will be?

All in all, give it a go. Be careful, though, because most of the extras, like Timelash, are on the negative side. After the commentary, I was almost convinced that I had watched the worst Doctor Who story ever. Then I remembered Last of the Time Lords, Boom Town, Parting of the Ways, Silver Nemesis, Arc of Infinity, and I came back to my senses.

3 of 4 found the following review helpful:

"And I wonder why I gave up acting..."Nov 11, 2007
By Jason A. Miller
Here it is, my very first "Doctor Who" story. I watched Part One of this on PBS when I was 11 years old, at the urging of a couple of school friends who'd been trying for months to get me to tune in. Ironically, this happened on a November 23rd. The episode made such little impression on me that I didn't come back for another full week -- for Part Two of Doctor Who - Arc of Infinity (Episode 124), which is what eventually did the trick.

"Time-Flight" may be the weakest classic "Doctor Who" serial released to DVD so far, rivaled only by "The Sontaran Experiment", although it's to everyone's credit that it took us into the 7th year of the DVD releases to scrape the bottom of the bag. Even though it's weak, "Time-Flight" is not quite awful. Written by Peter Grimwade, one of the show's stronger contributors in the early '80s, the first 15 minutes of "Time-Flight" contain snappy dialogue between officious airport officials. The thing only stops making sense when a pair of Concordes wind up 140 million years into the past, at the mercy of not only a hibernating race of powerful telepaths, but a renegade Time Lord, too.

2007 has been a very good year for the Master, but the release of "Time-Flight" does nothing to add to his glory. Anthony Ainley spends the first two episodes of the story disguised as an obese Eastern sorcerer, trapped under a low-quality mask with poor prosthetic teeth that impede his speech. This may have just been an excuse to come up with another psneudonym for Tony Ainley, and the DVD commentators make much hay over the television debut of "Leon Ny Taiy". Once Ainley is unleashed in the story's second half, he doesn't even manage to kill anyone. As his character's defeat is kept entirely offscreen, he's also deprived of the chance to over-act his own demise.

The DVD is liberally padded with raw studio footage. There are 20 minutes' worth of extended takes, and another 13 minutes of bloopers. These are fun to watch -- they mostly involve boom mikes dropping down into frame or Peter Davison breaking off in mid-sentence to critique the script -- but if you'd read Martin Wiggins' excellent production notes over the episode itself, you'd find that he'd already watched those 33 minutes so that you didn't have to. Also nice is an interview with Janet Fielding, who's aged very gracefully. The crowded commentary booth is dominated by Fielding and Davison savaging the story's production values. As they have on other discs, they here discuss over-the-top "end of episode acting", and how Davison is no longer his children's favorite Doctor. Script editor Eric Saward spends most of his time criticizing the episode's author and producer (both deceased). Real stand-up guy he is. Sarah Sutton remains adorable even when she's courteously deferential, as she is here.

In short, 2 Entertain have shown us that even a bad "Doctor Who" story can be fun to watch when it's packaged in the right way. One hopes that, by the time disasters like "The Dominators" or "Planet of the Daleks" or "Battlefield" make it to DVD, they'll be made just as entertaining as they never were the first time.

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