The final part of this story has
to do two things and do it in only 25 minutes. At the end of the previous
episode, Susan have been kidnapped by someone. With Susan out of the picture at
the beginning and Ian in custody, it falls to Barbara, Sabetha and Altos play
the Scooby gang with Barbara as the leader. Carla drops herself in it when she
says about them being worried after speaking to Susan but its several moments
before Barbara twigs. When she does manage to make it back to Carla’s apartment
it’s just in time to stop Carla killing Susan. It’s a great moment when they
all try and overpower her. Despite admitting being involved, Carla pretends
that Ian was the one she was working with. This seemed like it was delaying
moving the story onwards for just a couple of moments.
The key was in the mace and the
Doctor knew all along. When I first saw this episode I didn’t see it coming and
now I come to think of it, I wonder whether Terry Nation had that in mind when
he wrote the episode because there is never any indication that it was so
close. Half this story is taken up with tying up the loose ends of getting Ian
off the execution. With Ian about to be
executed, the Doctor is very solemn when we first see him. It’s the first time
that we have seen the Doctor like this and it shows how much they have all
changed since that very first episode. Minutes later when he sees that there is
a way out to help Ian, his mood changes greatly.
When the
action returns to the Voords we find that Altos and Sabetha have been captured.
One thing we learn is that the lead Voord is in fact called Yartek. Yartek is
pretending to be Arbitan. The fact that he doesn’t show his face to Ian and
Susan should have raised alarm bells but Ian doesn’t show that’s anything wrong
but he gives Yartek the wrong micro-key and this will cause the area to blow
up. The Voord haven’t been the greatest creation because apart from the first
episode and this one they didn’t really serve the part as a threat. Had things
been thought of differently then it would have been better to move the Voord’s
into the other episodes.
The
central performances have all been good in this episode. However it was William
Hartnell that I was most impressed with largely due to his scene where he’s
very sad about the thought of Ian’s impending death. Though I was also
impressed with Jacqueline Hill who started off really well in this episode.
Hopefully I will never see Ian in that outfit that has worn for at least 10
episodes. If he wears it any longer then we can class it as a companion. The
goodbye scene is a sad one really. After six episodes with these supporting
characters it was sad to say goodbye and that shows how good they have been
because normally they would be annoying. There’s a nice moment when Barbara
says she will miss them and Ian says ‘come on’ in a way that implies he is
telling her to pull herself together.
Oddly there’s no cliffhanger. It
just fades to black and tells us the name of the next episode. It’s odd after
25 cliffhangers that we suddenly don’t get one. As an episode it was two in one
really. The change happened at just the right time and the second half happened
at just the right time. The story ended in a good way though I would have been
annoyed that after all that time spent looking for the micro-key and then for
it just to be destroyed must seem like a waste of time.
As a six part story it’s been
good overall. At times it’s felt a bit stagnant but overall its moved along at
a good pace with some good characters and some good writing. The sets have been
of a good standing and the directing has also been solid. I have always liked
this episode but I have appreciated this six part adventure in a whole new way.
Something about it worked quite well and it never dragged.
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