The alliance between the Daleks and Mavic Chen ends in spectacular fashion and this is the episode where the time destructor is activated and its where there are more deaths. After appearing in very little of the previous episode, its nearly the half way mark before he appears in this episode. When he does appear the episode steps up a gear and what is surprising is that the Doctor is the one that activates the time destructor. He is the one that effectivly kills Sara.
I personally think that it was a mistake to kill off Sara as she was a character that would have leant something good to the show and when you think that we have Dodo coming up soon then you realise the decision to kill off Sara was even more foolish despite how dramatic the death looked. The final scene with everyone trying to get into the TARDIS is one of the strongest scenes in the entire story which is quite a statement when you think what has happened in the story. It's just as effective a scene on cd as it is on TV.
I've not mentioned Kevin Stoney's performance much in this story but as Chen he has been brilliant and consistently engaging to watch. It's difficult to try and figure out which character is better, Chen or Tobias Vaughn. From start to finish, Chen has been a strong character that has managed to show an arrogance that hasn't been seen in Doctor Who before. His demise is long overdue and its good when his death happens. It's not the biggest or most noticeable death in this story as we see the exit of Jean Marsh. Sara becomes victim of the time destructor and its a shame that this episode doesn't exist on TV because it would have been a stunning piece of television. What we do have are telesnaps which show the harrowing effect of the time destructor has on Sara.
The performances from William Hartnell and Peter Purves have been solid in every episode. It must have been a relieve to Peter Purves to see that he had made it through the twelve episode. When you consider the loses the story has seen it must be said that this was the darkest story in Doctor Who history. Jean Marsh has also been a solid performer and her performances in recent Big Finish plays show what a great actress she is. Even though he died early on, I thought that Bret Vyon was another good character and well played b Nicholas Courtney.
As an episode, The destruction of time did what it needed to do in its 25 minute slot and it did it well. Visually it would have been great and all the performances were strong. But it's a a twelve part story that I think it should be celebrated because despite its long running time it never seems like its running out of ideas and waiting for the end to come so that it can do the epic finale. Even it sometimes doesn't quite work it still feels like its building up to something. An epic in every sense of the word.
No comments:
Post a Comment