The Mind of Evil - Episode 6

Right, I’m going to start off with the problem of the cliffhanger. Now the angle of the gun seems to indicate that Mailer is holding the gun and fires it but in fact it’s the Brigadier that has shot Mailer. It does lead to a nice thank you from the Doctor when say “Do you think for once in your life you could arrive before the nick of time?”. That’s as close as anyone would get to a thank you from him. With the riot pretty much over, it means that the final episode will focus on stopping the Master from launching the rocket and destroying the machine.

The effect of the machine moving is quite basic does look quite good. I think the scene where it manages to break free and out of the processing room is very good and its quite impressive on how much mess he made in the room. The way that the machine can be controlled does seem to come out of nowhere but when you stop and think about it then it becomes quite obvious. Barnham has been in the background for the whole story and now is when he becomes integral to the story. Once they figure this out the machine ceases to be a threat which I suppose is the point as the main threat is the Master. The shot of the creature in the machine is quite gruesome and it’s all down to the eye which even though it’s clearly fake but does look quite real.

It’s quite strange that the Doctor is willing to hand over the dematerialisation circuit to the Master’s TARDIS so that he can leave Earth. However it does lead to the very good big scene at the aircraft hangar which ends with the Master fleeing with the dematerialisation circuit. The big scene of the episode sees chaos run rampant and it’s needed so that the Master can get away without any problems. It’s a shame that Barnham got killed as I thought that it was the wrong thing to do with such a likeable character. There have been other good supporting characters who have helped make this story what it is. Michael Sheard is a Doctor Who regular who appeared in this as Dr Summers and despite being a bit dim when he tried to get Barnham back to the sick bay, he has been a good solid character.

The final scene with the Master and the Doctor is a good one because it gives the impression that the Master will be gone for quite some time. Of course the reality of it that he will appear in the next episode but at the time viewers in 1971 would have assumed that it would be the last they would see for some time. As a story it’s a good one, not a classic but still an enjoyable adventure. I think that on this occasion six episode was too long for this story and it would have better as a four parter.

The Mind of Evil - Episode 5

The penultimate episode of the story sees things go wrong at the worst prison in TV. Even on Porridge they had things run better.

I like how Mailer and the prisoners start to get the jitters and this forces the Master to stop spending time with Yates and deal with Mailer. I think that Mailer is a very good character and he seems to have just come off the set of ‘The Professionals’. He spends most of the time twirling the gun around like he doesn’t know what he’s doing with it yet he’s still a good character. Major Cosworth is a comedy character who seems to have come out of a Carry On film. It seems that he’s been put in purely because Yates is tied up with the Master and Benton is suppose to be sick. Part of me thinks that he doesn’t serve a purpose really to the story but another part of me thinks that he could have been a useful comedy tool in this story.

I remember writing how the Brigadier seemed side-lined in the previous story but he seems to be making up for that in this story. He’s really in his element and it’s the most active I’ve seen him this season. I like how he does a terrible Dick Van Dyke accent pretending to be a delivery man. When the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT storm the prison it’s a great scene though its another one from this era where it could have been improved with some incidental music.

It’s good to see the Doctor and the Master working together even though its not on the greatest of terms for the Doctor. It seems like the Master has realised that he cant control the machine the way that he hoped and by getting the Doctor involved it implies that he hasn’t thought things through. A bit like his Auton plan from the previous story. The performances from Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado were very good and they were both just as good as each other and they compliment each other very well. Katy Manning puts in a good performance as well as does a nice move when she tries to help the Doctor get away by stopping Mailer in his tracks.

It’s also good to see the Doctor and Jo getting some nice quality time together as he ends a scene with him telling Jo about sharing a cell with Walter Raleigh. He’s such a name dropper. It’s been a while since the Doctor’s done it and its always fun when he does it.

The cliffhanger is a good one as the Doctor has a gun pointed at him and instead of ending there we actually get to hear the gun go off but to be honest the problem with this cliffhanger is going to be made apparent and I will point it out in the next review. It doesn’t feel like we are about to reach the final episode but it does feel like things have picked up.

The Mind of Evil - Episode 4

I like the scene where the Master tries to show the machine who is boss and yet he is struggling to stay in control. When the machine is on, we see what his fear is and it’s the Doctor who is laughing at him. It’s a great little scene and it’s done really well. It’s the first time that the Master has shown any fear and it shows that behind the bravado, the Master suffers from the same problems as the Doctor and everyone else. Humiliation seems like odd fear but I suppose if your going to be scarred of someone laughing at you then it would be the Doctor.

Another scene that’s good is when the Doctor and Jo are reunited and the Doctor just wants to rest and the scene ends with Jo sobbing on the Doctor’s chest. It’s a nice emotional scene.

It takes until this episode to see a bit more of the Master’s plan. Luckily the Master shows us what his plan is and how Mailer becomes part of it. It was needed because it was slightly odd that they had taken control of the prison but not left. It was all revealed that the prison wasn’t far off the route that the rocket would be taking. The inevitable attack of on Captain Yates and the rocket was a good scene. It’s good how Yates gets to do something good for once. He starts off by locating the convicts and unfortunately gets caught. After the humiliating moment when he gets punched by Jo in the previous story, this is when he gets to be something close to an action hero. Well maybe hero is stretching it a bit but at least he gets to be a bit more manly than normal.

After three episodes of sitting in the one room, the Keller Machine can now move. This means that it becomes more dangerous than if it were just in the one room. I suppose it was the logical next step as all they would need to do is to just never go in that room again. It’s odd that we know very little about what’s inside the machine apart from the fact that the Master bought it too earth. I think due to what’s going on around the Doctor, the contents of the Keller machine is sort of forgotten.

Sadly the problems from the previous episode were evident again in this episode but it wasn’t as bad as before. Due to the action stuff with Yates and the stealing of the rocket, the episode seems better and as a result the story picked up. The padding was less noticeable than before and there were some good moments from everyone. Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning are really good together and I like how the Doctor makes a joke about how he has an amazing ability to go from being at deaths door to perfectly fine. With two more episodes, it seems like the story is starting to take shape and is heading to a great conclusion. Only time will tell.

The Mind of Evil - Episode 3

I decided that I couldn’t take the audio version any longer and instead dug out my old VHS copy which sadly is in black and white. I suppose it’s better than nothing. This episode is where the problems of the six part adventure start to rear its ugly head. It’s weird how seven parters work but six seems to be a problem. I’ve not mentioned before now how Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning have been since the previous story. I think that Jo Grant has come on a lot since that previous story and doesn’t seem so green. The relationship between the two seems better and more equal that in Terror.

I still think that the cliffhanger is rather weak though it looks slightly better in the reprise. The only thing that lets it down is a brief shot with the dragon in the background and it does look like a bloke in a suit. Once the dragon had disappeared, it meant that Chin Lee was a good person now although I suspect that her usefulness is now coming to an end. As she is a goodie, she is rather boring. When we return to the prison, we see that the riot has progressed and its developed far more than I had heard during the previous episode. I think that was the problem during the Hartnell and Troughton episodes which weren’t on DVD and that is my attention would wander. Thankfully due to the fact I had the foresight not to sell my VHS copy.

The Master looks good in every scene that he’s in and there’s one shot where he smoking a cigar going towards the prison and he looks like he’s on the way to filming not actually filming. The thing about the Master is that he ends up helping the riot just after it’s been quelled and within a short amount of time has control over the prison. Even by the Master’s standards that’s quick and what it does do is lead to a nice little scene between Roger Delgado and Jon Pertwee where the Doctor gets to do a bit of action before being captured.

The cliffhanger is a bit better than the previous one but that’s because the Doctor is in danger and there is no clear sign as to how he’s going to get out of it. As the Doctor is handcuffed to the chair by the Keller machine, the Doctor gets more flames of fear as well as shots of Daleks and possibly even a Cyberman. The problem with the episode is that not a lot happens. Its all about the riot and that’s fine for a short amount of time but after a while I just wanted something to happen and it wasn’t until the very end that this happened. I think that a tiny bit of padding may have been used in this episode but its still a good story and there is still some good stuff to come.

The Mind of Evil - Episode 2

At the end of the previous episode, we learnt that the Doctor seemed to be scarred of fire. It’s nice how we learn about how the Doctor saw a world burn which explains why he is scarred of it. It’s a rare moment of learning something new about the Doctor and despite the development of knowledge that we have learnt in the last couple of seasons, its nice to learn something new. It’s good that Jo is the one that saves the Doctor. The Doctor is rather ungrateful as he tells of Jo for going against his instructions and being there to save him. It does feel like there is a little bit of contempt from the Doctor which is not something that I think I like because it doesn’t feel Doctor-like. If I were Jo and I had gotten anything other than a thankyou then I would have just told him where to get off. But that’s just me.

Neither Benton or Yates come through this episode very well. Yates is made immobile by the Doctor when he tells the Doctor that he needs to see the Brigadier and Benton faints when he is trying to track Chin Lee. I know that they aren’t suppose to be the most reliable characters in the world but they don’t come out of it very well here.

There is a new prisoner called Mailer (played by William Marlowe) who gets introduced in this episode. Within minutes he has managed to get one over on the guards but it’s a small part of the episode which clearly shows that it will become more important to the story in future episodes. I suppose it’s the benefit of a six part story because you can plonk characters into a story but not have them do very much. It makes the viewers aware of them but they can focus on other things until they become relevant.

I like the scene where the Doctor and the Brigadier are talking to Fu Peng and it’s great the Doctor talks in Fu Peng’s language and this is funny because it clear means that the Brigadier is excluding from this conversation. There is another bit of comedy from Nicholas Courtney when the Brigadier corrects the Doctor about the nationality of Fu Peng and its clear to everyone what the Doctor meant. It’s a bad joke (in a good way) but its like the ‘cut off’ joke that he did in ‘Terror of the Autons’. It’s acceptable on the basis that the Brigadier is getting more stressed as he has to maintain the peace at the peace conference and also transport the rocket on the quiet. You wouldn’t want to be the Brigadier at this stage.

We discover that the Master in involved in this episode and some people must be quite delighted that he is back and perhaps in hindsight that might be a problem because there should be a certain amount of time before he returned. The Daleks and the Cybermen returned after a short period of time so the same should have been done for the Master. Despite saying that, its good to have Roger Delgado back as he is brilliant and as I have mentioned before was a brilliant piece of casting.

The cliffhanger for the episode is pretty much the same as the last one as someone (not the Doctor this time) is in a state of fear. I know it worked last time but sometimes you can go to the well too many times and that is the case here as due to the fact that it’s a sort of throwaway character, I don’t really find much to care about which is a shame. I am still enjoying this story and think that elements that seemed totally random are becoming relevant and I think that is due to the writing. I don’t think that I am losing anything by not listening to it on the computer. A good story.

The Mind of Evil - Episode 1

I am listening to the first episode of ‘The Mind of Evil’ on audio. Yes I know that it is on DVD and has been for quite some time however due to the fact that I lent it to someone and forgot until I was just about to watch it. I remember buying the audiobook just before I went on holiday a couple of years ago and so realising my blunder I decided to listen to this until I could get the DVD of my friend.

The story takes place in a prison where there is a strange process which is used on criminals. The process was created by Dr Keller and whats weird is that this is obviously the Master (obvious if you’ve seen this before) and he’s been working on this for a year which implies one of two things. The first is that he was working on this before the events of ‘Terror of the Autons’ or a year has passed since that story. Can’t figure out which it is. What is good is that there is no indication that it could be the Master and absolutely no reference is made to him or the events of the previous story. This is clearly designed to throw us of the scent and think that someone else would be behind it.

The idea that there is a machine that works on fear is a great one. There is nothing that’s more worrying about a machine that seems to have a mind of its own. There appears to be no-one operating it and it can go wherever it wants. The fact that the prisoners seem to go crazy when the machine powers up is a useful tool for the viewer to know when something is going wrong. The officials from the prison range from either incompetent to blasé. I think that they will hopefully develop a bit more as the story progresses but only Dr Summers (Michael Sheard) comes across as someone with some common sense.

I like that there seems to be two random plot strands going on in this story as the whilst the Doctor is dealing with strange deaths, the Brigadier is trying to maintain things at the World Peace Conference. Things are made more difficult by Captain Chin Lee of the Chinese delegation who starts causing trouble on two separate occasion. Firstly to say some papers have been stolen and the second was to report a murder but the Brigadier doesn’t waste anytime in calling her bluff. It must have seemed odd at the time of broadcast as to what the point of this was. Only time would tell but in 1971 it must seem like there is no link to what’s going on at the prison.

The cliffhanger is a good one as the Doctor isn’t in physical harm (kind of) but is in psychological harm as fire starts to appear. I say appear but as I am listening to this on audio I can only imagine that. I think that I am helped by imagining what the scenes in my head. Unlike stories from the Hartnell and Troughton era where I cant imagine what was going on or what things looked like, I know what and how things looked on screen. It’s a good opening episode and the first six part adventure of the Pertwee era looks like it could work better than six parters from the 1960’s.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 7

It doesn’t feel like a week since I started watching this story. Compared to other long running stories, this one hasn’t felt like a seven part story but this episode is where the threads are all tied up and we get to see the Silurian’s plan in motion. The start of the episode sees the Doctor being taken by Silurians. It was a great start to the episode and there was gunfire and lots of drama. Considering the characters that we had at the beginning of the story, it surprising how few of them made it to the end of the serial.

After spending several episodes doing very little, Liz gets to do something. It’s not very much but its probably the most active that she’s been for the entire story. Caroline John is very good as Liz but its frustrating that she’s been given so little to do. She’s too smart to be a companion and she’s paying the price for her intelligence. There is one thing that doesn’t quite make sense is how she didn’t spot the massive scorch mark on the wall outside the office that the Doctor was working in.

It’s a very action packed episode with an awful lot happening. The main scene is when the Silurians are trying to get the power turned back on so that they can effectively get rid of the Van Allen belt and make the Earth a very hot place indeed. It’s due to the Doctor saving the day that the Silurians are defeated and go back into hibernation. However there is another sting in the tale when the facility is about to explode except that they are trapped and I like how this gives the Doctor the opportunity to save the day for the second time in five minutes when he messes around with some wires and hey-presto, he manages it. The Doctor’s best scene comes when he discovers that the Brigadier has blown up the caves. The look of disgust on his face is what makes this work so well. It might sound silly but I don’t like the idea that the Brigadier has gone behind the Doctor’s back as anyone who does something that the Doctor disapproves of is normally a baddie but we are suppose to like the Brigadier. It’s a unusual way to end the episode as it doesn’t end it on a high positive note but a rather glum and downbeat one.

As an episode I found it to be the most entertaining as it had everything that you would want from a Doctor Who episode and my opinion of the story and the season so far hasn’t changed. This was a cracking story that even with a seven episode running time, managed to hold my attention and another reason why I love this story is that it has a great story, great characters and the pace of the story works well.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 6

The penultimate episode is where the virus starts to take hold of most people. The virus is pretty much the main focus of the story as we get to see how effective this virus is. The Silurians are a more effective villain than there had been in the last dozen stories of the Troughton era. It’s not as clear cut as a normal villain because there the possibility of the villains being tamed and the only Silurian that was likely too be peaceful has been killed which instantly cranks up the drama and know that there is another thing that the Doctor has to try and solve. It only dawned on me whilst watching this episode that I don’t worry that Pertwee’s Doctor cant deal with it. I’m not so sure whether Troughton’s Doctor or Hartnell’s Doctor would have been able to deal with it even though it’s the same character. Pertwee is having a great time being the scientist, trying to figure things out and it’s a shame that Liz Shaw is reduced to being bossed about by the Brigadier. She’s a bleedin’ scientist not a receptionist and this just feels like she’s been badly used.

Miss Dawson seems to have disappeared with only a brief line explaining where she’s gone. To be honest I cant say that I am sad to see her go because if Dr Quinn had served his purpose several episodes ago, then Miss Dawson has definitely done the same. Miss Dawson isn’t the only supporting character to be written out in this episode. We say goodbye firstly to Masters who after doing very little in the previous episodes that appeared in, made up for that in this one. Masters has left the facility and this is where trouble really starts to go as everyone he encounters becomes ill. He manages to last quite a while before he succumbs to the virus and has a very impressive death scene. Dr Lawrence takes a turn for the worst during this episode and it’s the end for him as he also gets a good death scene when he lunges for the Brigadier and seems to suffer a heart attack. As much as he was reduced to a high pitched shrieker in the latter part of his involvement in the story, I found the character to be quite fun to watch and it’s a shame that it will be several stories before we see Peter Miles again.

The cliffhanger is rather good as the Doctor is prevented from writing out the formula that will stop the virus from spreading any further. It’s agonising how close they are from sorting things out but with another episode left to run its needed to add one last bit of drama to the adventure. I think that its still working quite well and compared to most six parters that I have had to endure recently, this story shows that it is possible to make longer stories work and nothing has changed in my opinion of this story and with one episode left, I cant see that opinion changing.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 5

The cliffhanger from the previous episode wasn’t as exciting as others but what we got at the beginning of this episode is an interesting plot idea where the elder Silurian seems to be more hospitable than the senior one. The drama in the early stages of this episode is centred around the Brigadier and the UNIT soldiers are trapped in the caves. I personally wasn’t so bothered really as the main interest was coming from the Doctor’s conversations with the elder Silurians and the power struggle that seems to be coming between the elder and younger Silurian.

We learn finally why the Silurians are underground and why they have remained asleep until now. It’s a simple reason of getting confused about the moon and a problem with a timer. Despite this minor example of them being a bit silly, they have a plan (or some of them do) to try and rid humans and this is done in a good way of contaminating Major Baker with a poison and letting him come into contact with everyone else. The elder Silurian gives the Doctor the antidote and this forms the structure of the last two episodes.

Dr Lawrence continues to be the best of the supporting characters as his lack of caring over whats happening to the Doctor and the Brigadier. His mood doesn’t improve when Masters tells his that he’s going to recommend closing the facility thus ending Lawrence’s career. Speaking of Masters, he again does very little in this episode except at the end when he starts to look ill and that’s it. Miss Dawson has become the female equivalent of Major Baker. The difference is that there is a plausible reason why she is the way she is. Major Baker on the other hand does nothing but spout drivel and his only contribution is to be infected. Apart from the Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier do very little again but the Brigadier probably edged in the activity stakes as Nicholas Courtney was doing his very best running out of oxygen acting.

The cliffhanger is good because its simple yet it works because it simply ends with Jon Pertwee just says “The First One”. I think that it means that things are about to get interesting and the plan that the Silurians have got is working and there doesn’t seem like a way that they can be stopped. As an episode I think that once the business with the UNIT soldiers being trapped is dealt with then it gets better but I still found it an enjoyable episode which moved the story along significantly. The final two episodes are going to be just as good as the previous five.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 4

I like how when the Doctor encounters the Silurians he isn’t scared and doesn’t try to fight it but instead he reasons with it. This is a good thing about the Doctor, even when everyone would be happy to wipe them out, he is trying his best to prevent a war. When Baker goes into the caves and gets trapped I must say that I don’t have much sympathy. I’ve gone from finding him interesting to being a pain in the rear-end.

We get to encounter the Silurians properly for the first time and its quite surprising that its taken until the fourth episode but at least its finally happened. Visually, they look really good and I think it’s the best that they will look in any of their other stories. It’s nothing special but its just a great look and the sound of them is something that works because it doesn’t sound human but doesn’t sound too dissimilar.

Liz gets to do something constructive in this episode and actually gets to go down in the caves. According to the information text on the DVD, they wanted Caroline John to be in a mini skirt when she went down in the caves. This is sadly a sign of the time that this story was made in that this would have been a perfectly acceptable thing to do and it’s good that Jon Pertwee insisted that she wear the appropriate clothing.

Geoffrey Palmer makes his first of three appearances in Doctor Who in this episode. He’s curiously called ‘Masters’ but is really just a talking suit from Westminister and seems to try and put off doing anything to help the situation, seemingly unwilling to believe anything of what anyone says. It’s a perfectly fine performance from Palmer and he seems quite good at being a sort of civil servant type. We get a bit more of Dr Lawrence who seems to get more and more irate. His mood doesn’t seem to get any better as the episode progresses which is becoming a funny part of the story. At least he features more in this episode than he did in the previous one. Peter Miles is a very reliable actor and he makes me understand the position that Lawrence is currently in and with the arrival of Masters, it feels like Lawrence has his back against the wall. Miss Dawson makes an appearance at the 20 minute mark and no explanation has been made as to where she was between her final moments with Quinn and when she does appear she’s discovered that Quinn is dead and immediately decides that the Silurians should be killed. I’m finding her rather much the same as Major Baker and that’s not a good thing. Quite why she survived and yet Quinn got killed is somewhat of a mystery.

I thought that this was a perfectly fine episode, nothing special but it just carried things along. We’ve got to the half way point of the story and there are still loads of interesting things to happen and with the introduction of Masters it feels like things are moving at a good enough pace and I find my interest at the same level as it was at the beginning of Episode one.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 3

At the end of the previous episode, Liz was the one in danger from the Silurian. Unlike the previous episode, this one doesn’t have a flimsy conclusion. Liz is still unconscious after the Doctor and others arrive and it takes several moments for her to recover. This seemed like she was destined to do very little in the episode and I don’t think that she was given much to do as everything in the episode took my attention.

This episode shows Dr Quinn’s involvement become a bit more dubious and he spends the early part of the episode trying to locate the rogue Silurian whilst getting around the UNIT soldiers. After getting the Silurian, Quinn then has to try and see off the Doctor’s unscheduled appearance at his cottage and has to try and pretend that the heating is due to a fault with the heater. It’s a fun scene because its clear that Quinn is squirming and the Doctor is loving this as he clearly suspects something. It’s a shame that he dies at the end of the episode which I think is a wasted opportunity as he had a lot more mileage in this story and after just three episodes I think that they made a mistake in killing of the character. Miss Dawson goes from being very close to Dr Quinn to someone who thinks that things have gone to far. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is where she goes after her final scene just before the Doctor discovers Dr Quinn.  Major Baker is a character that is growing more interesting with every episode. It does feel like they have been building up his character and its fun to see him clash with the Doctor.

I’ve not really commented on the trio of Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John. It’s going to form part of the Pertwee era (except we replace Caroline John with Katy Manning in the next season) and it does feel like a family. Nicholas Courtney is the father in the group and is the voice of reason, Caroline John is a sort of sister figure and is willing to go with the Doctor up to a certain point but then feels the need to take a step back. Jon Pertwee is just having fun and flits from one scene to the other with the same sort of energy and enthusiasm that the show needs and its clear why ratings went up from around three million in the latter stages of the Troughton era to eight million for these episodes. It’s not just because of the performances buts the writing and directing. Both Malcolm Hulke and Timothy Combe have worked well to give us something that feels like we are progressing towards something and not just waiting until the business end of the story before things get interesting.

The cliffhanger was rather good but it was slightly strange in the sense that I didn’t get the feeling like the Doctor was in terrible danger. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s a good cliffhanger but it probably wont go down as one of the greats in Doctor Who. I thought that this was another solid episode which moved the story on just enough to keep the interest going a bit.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 2

At the end of the previous episode, it looked like the Doctor was in trouble but it was dealt with in rather a wet way. No sooner was he in trouble that he walks back into the Brigadier’s office. I was slightly disappointed by this as I felt that it trivialised the cliffhanger. I know that having regulars in a cliffhanger can be a slightly futile idea but I would have liked a better resolution to the cliffhanger.

There are more examples of Liz Shaw being sent to the side-lines as when the Doctor and the Brigadier go into the caves, she’s told not to come. After six episodes, I cant say that Caroline John’s been particularly well used so far and if my memory serves me correctly, I don’t think that the character of Liz will get anything better to do.

Dr Quinn’s true colours is shown in this episode and shows that his nice as pie persona was just an act as we find him in the cave talking to one of the Silurians. Miss Dawson doesn’t really do much in this episode as I think that it gives Quinn the opportunity to stand out as the stronger of the two.

The cave sets are very impressive I should have said something yesterday but now I am putting it right. They are lit brilliantly and I believe that even though I know it’s a studio set, that its very atmospheric and its good to know there are more scenes set in these caves. Another thing which is distinctive but probably a bit grating in a few episodes is the music. It sounds quite good but there is a repetitiveness that wouldn’t be so bad in a four part story but in seven it just gets annoying.

I like how the actual silurians are being held back for so long. There was a brief dark shot of one of them in the early part of the episode. We get to see a POV shot and the occasional hand shot so its done to stoke our interest and give us something new to get interested in.

One of my favourite parts of the episode comes when the story moves to the farm and when the farmer discovers the Silurian. It leads to the cliffhanger which involves Liz and the whole barn section is good because it feels like a natural evolution of the story and I found the cliffhanger to be a sensible and exciting way to end the episode.

This is a stronger episode than the first as we get a glimpse of the Silurians and certain characters develop and become more interesting as a result. After two episodes my interest is still around and I feel like the Pertwee era is continuing to get better and it seems odd that I Jon Pertwee has settled into the role and the stories match his Doctor quicker than Patrick Troughton’s opening episodes. It took an awfully long time before Patrick Troughton got a grip of the character but after just a couple of episodes I feel like Pertwee has already got to grips with the role and is just having fun.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - Episode 1

After doing a good job of introducing the world to Pertwee’s Doctor, we get what is really his first proper adventure. After the initial scene we get our first glimpse of Bessie, a prop that would feature largely with Pertwee’s Doctor but make an appearance with Tom Baker’s Doctor and Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor.

The idea that the Doctor is at the Brigadier’s beck and call is something that wouldn’t be the case for William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton. Though on the plus side he can get to things just by saying that he’s an associate of UNIT. I like Jon Pertwee in this episode as he flips between being curious on whats going on and winding up Dr Lawrence. Caroline John spends a lot of time either having a headache or doing ‘research’. I know that Liz is suppose to be a different from previous companions but I think that she’s not being utilised in the best way. I think that Nicholas Courtney is having fun in this episode and seems to put up roadblocks in the Doctor’s way. Not in a malicious way but it’s the military mind and its going to be a good constant source of friction.

In their first scene with the research facility staff, its clear what sort of ride that we are going to get with them. They are all people with things to hide. Dr Lawrence is in charge of the facility but doesn’t want people to look over the problems that its having. I liked Dr Lawrence from the very moment he appeared. Peter Miles is the sort of actor that can be relied upon to come up with an enjoyable performance. Dr Quinn is a likeable and on the face of it trustworthy character. It’s strange that he would go on to play the horrible Mr Mackay. The trustworthy vibe lasts about 10 minutes before this disappears as it seems that he is in league with whatever is affecting the facility. Miss Dawson is the only female member of the facility and she’s a bit more like Dr Quinn and also seems to be in collusion with the unseen threat.

The cliffhanger is quite good as it isn’t obvious and it answers the question as to what the two cavers saw at the beginning of the episode. It was a good opening episode. I cant say that there was anything special about this episode but that’s not a bad thing but it does a good job of just introducing us to the setting and the characters that we will be watching over the next six episodes. A good start.