The Seeds of Doom - Episode 5

The penultimate episode of this story starts off with the reminder of how Dunbar died and how silly the Krynoid looked staggering towards the camera. This reprise seems to go on for an age before it resumes with the Doctor, Scorby, Sarah and two guards running into a cottage. I like how the Doctor is very angry in the early stages of this episode spending a fair amount of time shouting at Scorby.

The Krynoid is very big now by the middle of the episode. Although despite the epic size that Krynoid can (and does), I find the simple effect of vines smashing through windows to be more effective than the huge krynoid running rampant around the house. The effects used to make the plants that are overpowering Sarah, Scorby and the Butler is simple yet effective and these do more to create an impression of terror than the CSO version that we get.

Chase continues his ideal that humans are replaceable and krynoids aren’t. It’s a fair point but it doesn’t diminish that the character is a strong one and at one point he seems to have gone a bit mad when he says to Scorby that the krynoids have the right of the earth and that humans are parasites. His madness is made very obvious when he is talking to hit plants and has his legs crossed. If there had been more Chase in this story then I might have felt more positively towards it. In fact I wish there were more scenes between the Doctor and Chase because Tom Baker and Tony Beckley are two very different actors but together they worked very well. Elisabeth Sladen has been very good over the course of the previous five episodes and showed some of her old self. This is her 65^th episode in the role and she’s currently the fifth longest serving companion and is just nine episodes behind Jacqueline Hill. This is also Tom Baker’s 45^th episode as the Doctor, Philip Hinchcliffe’s 41^st episode as the producer and Robert Holmes’ 45^th as script editor.

I’m not saying that it’s a dull episode but the episode really gets going in the final five or six minutes of the episode when the plants start to attack Scorby, Sarah and the butler. It’s made even better with Chase watching on in joy.  Sadly the butler meets his end during this scene so the number of character gets reduced further. The Doctor is given an ultimatum of giving himself up to the krynoid by dawn. What I don’t get is why if the Krynoid is as powerful as it seems does it wait for so long for the Doctor to give himself up, thus allowing him to come up with a plan?

The episode ends with Chase smirking to himself and it just confirms that he is the best thing in the episode. Whilst I think that the story is building up to a finale I think that there is something missing from the adventure.