Doctor Who: Every Doctor's WORST Episode
10. Time-Flight (The Fifth Doctor)
On paper, Time-Flight sounds amazing. The Master is hijacking Concorde jets and landing them on an alien planet as part of a nefarious scheme. It's like a lost Pertwee serial!
In reality, it goes out at the arse end of the season when the money's all spent. As a result, this high-concept story of stolen planes and stranded passengers ends up looking really cheap, even by classic Who standards.
The location footage filmed at Heathrow elevates it a little bit, but there's no escaping the fact that the Plasmaton aliens look like really unhealthy dog turds.
And then there's the Master's absolutely insane disguise, which exists for no reason other than to surprise the audience. It makes no story sense for Anthony Ainley to be dressed like a problematic racial stereotype, and that's just the start of the issues with Peter Grimwade's script.
Even the Fifth Doctor himself Peter Davison regards Time-Flight as the very worst of his tenure, calling it "a pile of crap". Fair enough.