The Screaming Jungle is a very
historic episode in Doctor Who. It’s the first time that William Hartnell doesn’t
appear at all. He was on holiday so it means that it’s the three regulars with
Altos and Sabetha who are moving the story forward. When we get back to Susan, the ‘screaming’
has stopped yet Susan looks like she is having a nervous breakdown. It falls to
Barbara to do her teacher role and calm Susan down. Ian is still wearing his
outfit from Marco Polo, I know that this isn’t a fashion review but it would be
nice if Ian could have got a change of clothes somehow.
Barbara shows signs of rebelling
or at least her desire to rebel with the Dresden china line. I thought this was
a nice moment as it’s the first time since The Expedition way back in The
Daleks that Barbara entertains the thought of defying Ian. It’s a shame that it
never goes beyond this. Susan is really annoying in this episode. It’s worst
when part of the foliage just touches Susan’s leg and she cries like its about
to kill her. A total over reaction in my opinion. Thankfully she’s not in the
episode very much as she gets to jump ahead. It takes them less than six
minutes to find the micro-key or what we think is the key. It seems like the
idea to include the fake key was something to keep the story going until the
end of the episode.
By the ten minute mark, Atos,
Sabetha and Susan have all jumped on ahead whilst Ian tries to find the real
key and Barbara. It doesn’t take long to find Barbara as she saves Ian from
almost being decapitated. With it being just Ian and Barbara, it means that they
get most of the action and there’s a nice bit where Barbara is about to be killed
whilst Ian is trapped. Then we meet a figure who has set the traps and has
hidden the real micro-key. He gives them a code which they must try and figure
out what it means and how it will lead them to the micro-key. After searching
for ages and with the forest starting to attack them they finally find it.
When Barbara is climbing to grab
the key there are two human hands and it’s like a big arrow is drawing the viewers’
attention to the hands. Not sure whether it was intentional but it seems like a
bit of an odd thing.
Performance wise, everyone does
quite well. Susan seems to have gone backwards in recent episodes and it feels
like an awfully long time ago since ‘Inside the Spaceship’. It’s a shame for
Carole Ann Ford and its easy to understand why she became frustrated with the
role and didn’t last long in the show. It seems like her character is somewhat
poorly written for and yet Barbara and Ian are given the stronger things to do.
I think the fact that William Hartnell isn’t in this episode means that William
Russell and Jacqueline Hill get to take centre stage and thrive under it.
The cliffhanger was marginally
better except that it replaced screaming with snow. It must be really cold as
it doesn’t take Barbara or Ian to feel the effects of the snow. It was an ok episode which picked up once it
was just Ian and Barbara. The thing about this episode is that there isn’t a
lot of moment geographically speaking. Credit to Terry Nation for managing to
make 25 minutes fly with not a lot happening.
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