The Sun Makers - Episode 3

I didn’t really comment yesterday about the rather poor cliffhanger. A cart going towards the camera is a greater cliffhanger for the poor cameraman than the viewers. 8.9 million people watched this penultimate episode which completely baffles me. The cart is moving so slow its hard to believe that the guards didn’t catch up with it. Even with Leela incapacitated they would have to be standing still not to catch it. The episode doesn’t get any better when Mandrel is threatening to torture the Doctor. We are suppose to want the Doctor to support the rebels which is hard to at first though shortly after this he sees to mellow.

The rebels seem to have come around to working as a team in this episode. It’s impressive how I gone from not liking any of them to wanting them to win. If only Robert Holmes had thought about these characters earlier then I would have like this story more. There is a great scene between Hade and the Collector which is quite fun when Hade is expected to pay for something out of his own pocket. The Collector is quite a good character and is played very well by Henry Woolf. Richard Leech is a good supporting performer as Hade by Jonina Scott seems to have fallen back a bit after her great opening episode.

Leela has the better share of the story as she is about to steamed to death. Even though her movements are somewhat restricted, Jameson gives a strong performance and shows how well the character has developed. Tom Baker also gives a good performance, perhaps his best performance for a while. I don’t want to say that he’s been coasting but it’s hard to think the last time I saw a really great performance from the Doctor.

There is one slightly dodgy moment where we see a photo of the supposed city. It’s a shame that after the great job of setting it up in the opening episode that all we know get is a rather poor photo. They could have done with a model to make it look better. That said there is something quite nice about the design of the structure. Just wish it was in 3D.

I think that this is a better episode than the previous two. I don’t find people as annoying and I feel like it’s more Doctor Who than the other episodes. I still not wild about it but I think that at best it’s still the weakest story of the season so far.