Dragonfire is the final story of what has been the worst
season ever in Doctor Who. To be frank there is very little in the way of
positives that I can talk about. Even though the season is fourteen episodes,
its felt like more than that. This story won’t have to do very much to be the
best of the season but things look good when I remember that Sophie Aldred
joins the show as Ace. Ace is the template for what Billie Piper would play in
the new era. The opening scene already showed that things were going to
improve. It was lit right, it had the right amount of tension and it was just
better than the previous three episodes combined. Kane is a good villain. His
first appearance sees him kill someone by placing his hands on their face. His
treatment of Belazs is something that somehow makes his totally loathsome. It
was smart to cast Edward Peel in the role because he plays it pretty much spot
on and like Don Henderson in Delta and the Bannermen, is one of the best things
in this serial.
There is talk of a dragon which seems to excite the Doctor
although I don’t quite know why. Another thing that is slightly confusing is
the café which has a weird amount of different alien races. Two people appear
in this set which have some involvement in this serial. Glitz makes a return in this episode. I don’t
quite know why Glitz has been bought back but I would be lying if I said that I
wasn’t glad to see him back. Tony Selby brings a nice bit of comedy to the
serial. He has a map that everyone is interested but I am more interested in
his unexpected chemistry with Sylvester McCoy because they work very well
together. Ace is introduced in a rather understated way but as the episode
progresses we get a nice bit of back story and we learn that she is feistier than
a lot of companions we have had recently. She says Ace a lot and calls the
Doctor Professor which is pretty much are the things that Ace is remembered
for. It’s a very confident performance from Sophie Aldred and she sort of shows
how low the character of Mel has sunk in such a short space of time.
What ruins this episode is one of the worst cliffhangers
ever in Doctor Who. It is literally a cliffhanger because for no reason the
Doctor decides to go over a railing and hand off the edge of a cliff hanging
onto just his umbrella. This is just totally bizarre and no matter how many
times I watch this story, I just don’t know what the purpose of it was. That
said it still better than some of the episodes that I have seen during this
season. There are steps to introduce Ace and phase out Mel but the thing that
stands out for me is the big improvement in quality.
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