The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Episode 1

The final story of the fourteenth season ends on what is widely considered one of the true greats in Doctor Who history. This is the six part adventure that bought Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot to our lives and over thirty years later they would be have their own series with Big Finish. If you haven’t had the chance to listen to them then you should because they are rather fun. The opening minutes of this episode introduced Henry Gordon Jago and Li H’sen Chang and they are two very good characters. Christopher Benjamin is superb and John Bennett (previously in Invasion of the Dinosaurs) is very creepy. Mr Sin is also quite creepy and is played really well by Deep Roy. The way that he was used is one of the things that sets up this story rather well. Professor Litefoot is introduced quite late into the episode and his introduced is less flamboyant than Benjamin’s debut. I really cant wait until they get their first scene together because the fanboy in me is really looking forward to it.

When the action moves to the sewers that it when it gets interesting for me. It’s when it feels like the story is heading towards something. This is when however some of the problems with this story start to become present. The sight of a huge rat is something that wouldn’t look that effective via CGI by today’s standards so the rat that is used in this episode doesn’t look as good as it could. The only thing that stops it from being totally embarrassing is that the lighting is quite low and so you don’t see a great deal of it.

This early part of this story is designed to educate Leela and make her less of a savage than she was in previous stories and I always think that the Doctor was on a hiding to nothing with this. It’s good how there are a few moments where her instincts show why she is fine as she is. Attacking a bunch of guys just on her own shows that she is very different to any companion that came before her. Tom Baker seems to be in autopilot during this episode but even Tom Baker on autopilot is fun to watch and his Sherlock Holmes impression is very fun to look at.

One thing that stands out is the high production value of the costumes and the setting. The BBC has always done quite well and it really shows here. It almost gets in the way of the story telling. It’s not perhaps the start that I remember it having but I think that with five more episodes, this story can afford to take its time. So at the moment I cant be to gushing about this story but I am pretty confident that this will change in future episodes but a promising start.