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 | tick tock tick tock watch a good plot |
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I won't say much just that I found this to be a good classic Dr Who story had a little of everthing.
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| A Great Metaphor, but a Poor Story |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Saturday 24 March 2007 |
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| Rating: |   6 |
"Our lives were not always like this, Miss Pollard. The records show that things were different once."
"Then what went wrong?"
"Nothing went wrong. This is the latest step in our progress. We have built our civilization, written our books and fought our wars. Our buzzword now must be 'efficiency.'"
The metaphor here is worthy of its place in the spotlight. The planet's name is Industry, and this is the figurative truth for us as well. Indeed, the ruler of this present age is the Accountant. All hail the bottom line! Efficiency is of utmost importance, and there is no longer any room to keep doing things the way people prefer, if it doesn't increase profits. We must keep busy at all times; our kids must be involved in three different sports and finish homework in six subjects before bedtime every night. And this is all for our own good, for our great goal is Completion! Ruling over us all is The Future. Time, as personified by the Clockwork Men of the story, will continually and secretly brainwash us as they sneak around between the tick and the tock, infiltrating our minds and programming us. For the truth is that Completion is something we cannot reach. It is a flawed concept, because we are already there.
Maybe it's just that I could see early on that Time Works is one huge metaphor, but I found that the metaphor was basically all I could really see here. The story seems to be simply the method of delivery. As such, it seemed to be as mechanical and sterile as the clockwork men, marking time just to fulfill its higher purpose. It felt tiresome; the drama and performances seemed uninspired. Nevertheless, as I say, the metaphor is worth paying attention to.
| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Tuesday 18 March 2008 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Steve Lyons is one of those writers whose stories may not be the grandest or most mind blowing, but they certainly are involved and definitely worthwhile pieces of storytelling.
Steve works when he's writing futuristic tales just as good as when he writes historicals. Steve has always had the knack. He should be allowed to write a story for the new series I say. After all, he is one of best writers of Doctor Who ever, second or third maybe to Robert Holmes.
ANd so here we have a stab at a time piece i suppose you would call it. People frozen in time with clockwork men, not the same as the girl in the fireplace by the way, but still just as exciting! This tale has all the elements that make up the best of the big finish range. A fresh new idea with plenty going for it. This makes the tale very good indeed. The acting is very good too on this story.
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 4 May 2021 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Time Works is an odd little item from Steve Lyons. It has an interesting premise of the Doctor and companions stuck in a time between times, as in The Space Museum, and then one getting separated from the others back in the normal course of events. The mystery is what makes this society tick. Everyone is obsessed with time and being useful, and their entire vocabulary is fitted around clock metaphors. They fear The Clockwork Men, whom they never see, though they see the effects. It's a world where nothing fits quite right - a medieval society with bits of technology from later eras, seemingly random excisions of people from time, and so on. The payoff at the end drags this one down a bit. Not only is it disappointing that it's just a mad computer running everything, but also there are too many gaps in the how and why. I kept thinking of the obvious questions to put to the computer that the Doctor never states: What do you mean by "completion"? What is the goal of the project? How will you know when you're done? I think that drama is not Lyons' best medium, as his novels are so much more thought through than the dramas.
