Saturday, 19 July 2014

The Masque of Mandragora - Episode 3


The thing about this story is that part of me likes it but then part of me is totally frustrated with it. The opening episode is always the best one because it sets things up and its usually the cliffhangers in future episodes that make the thing work. The previous cliffhanger was total disappointing and so the episode started off in a slightly disappointing way. Not even Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen can get me excited.

I will be honest and say that the whole sacrificing angle to be rather tiresome and as a result I thought that the whole episode was a massive disappointment for this reason. The thing is that unless this sort of thing interests you then you are not going to be that excited by things. That’s not a critiscm of Louis Marks or of Philip Hinchcliffe but just that this story isn’t working for me. There are probably people who aren’t fans of stories that I like such as ‘Inside the Spaceship’. Doctor Who attracts different sorts of fans and some will like sacrificing.
I haven’t mentioned until now that Tim Pigott-Smith and that’s largely because he has been up against Gareth Armstrong’s Giuliano and in this episode he does have a few scenes on his own but it does seem like he is a bit wasted in this story and the role could have gone to someone else and Pigott-Smith could have had a meatier role which would befit his talents.

The bit where Federico unmasks Hiernoymous only to see a glowing sphere where his face use to be was the only good moment in the entire episode and that was the cliffhanger. I think that I have finally lost patience with this story and its probably lucky that the next episode is the final one because this is a story that has failed to grip me in any way. I think had it not been for the costumes and the location filming then I would have been really annoyed with this story.

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