I have been keeping an up to date note of how many episodes
people have been in and even though Lalla Ward isn’t playing Romana yet, she is
in the show and this is her third episode and that puts her just two behind
Adrienne Hill. People may say that as she is not a companion it does count but
I disagree and I did the same when Peter Purves appeared in ‘The Chase’ as
Morton Dill before appearing in episode six as Steven Taylor. Also and I know
that he has been involved in the show for a while at this point but John
Nathan-Turner’s name has been appearing in the credits at the end of the
episode. Now back to the episode itself. The episode starts off with the Doctor
being held by a strange figure dressed in black who calls himself the shadow.
It’s a great name for a well realised design. The Shadow knows about the
Doctor’s search for the key to time and seems to have a lot of power.
I still think that Merak is a wet individual and isn’t
someone that I have really have a lot of time for. Sadly as the Doctor is
spending time with the Shadow, it means that Romana has to interact with
someone and that person has to be Merak. He pinches the tracer of Romana and
decides that he is going to Zeos without her. “I’ll explain it to you when I’ve
got two weeks to spare” is what Romana says to Merak and it shows a bit of the
Romana that we saw at the beginning of the season but said in a way that shows
she has mellowed.
Shapp gets to become a more independent character because he
finds himself on Zeos. I don’t know whether its because the Marshall isn’t
right next to him but I find him even funnier than in previous episodes. He
doesn’t quite believe that he is on Zeos and his refusal to accept this fact is
breathing a bit of humour in a story that doesn’t quite have a lot of fun
qualities about it. When the Marshall does return to the episode, he is ranting
at the camera in a war speech to try and get people whipped up into a frenzy.
It’s a short scene but its enough to remind me of how good John Woodvine is.
It was a while before I realised that this were a studio
bound story as the story was so good that I was too involved in what was going
on to either notice or care. We do get a model shot in this episode and its
used to show us the Marshall’s ship and the only ship left in the fleet. This
is the last episode where the Marhsall gets to be useful really as I think in
future episodes he is part of a loop that will last for most of the serial. The
revelation that there aren’t any Zeons on Zeos but infact its just one computer
that has been fighting with the Marshall is wonderful idea and the computer is
called Mentalis and interacts with K9 thus making this the only time that K9
has been useful.
The episode ends with the Marshall just saying “Attack”. This
is perhaps not quite as impactful an ending as the previous cliffhanger was but
I enjoyed the episode quite a lot and thought that there have been much worse
endings in the show before that I forgave the story for its weak ending. I am
now at the half way point of the serial and think that its progressing along
nicely but I am waiting for the build up to start because whilst there have
been a few mentions of the key to time and segment, the drama and tension has
yet to really start and time in starting to run out. Still at least I can say
something good about a six parter and that is I am still not bored. Couldn’t
really say that about other six parters that there have been during the Tom
Baker era.
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