The Web of Fear - Episode 2

With episode one already found before the rest were back in October 2013, this is the first of the newly found episodes and it’s also where the story starts to pick up. Within the first two minutes of the episode, suspicions are raised as to what Jamie and Victoria are there for. There is no Patrick Troughton who’s on holiday in this episode so this allows the army, the Travers and Jamie and Victoria to cover his absence and it also allows suspicion to be aimed at the Doctor which would only work because he’s not there.

So that the entire story isn’t filled with army characters they have added Chorley. Chorley is the journalist and is quite keen to get the dirt of the situation but not to put his backside in danger. His best scene comes when he gets into a verbal altercation with Ann Travers and they have a discussion about the morals of journalism which still rings true today. Ann is quite good as well as she’s a no nonsense person who is the complete opposite to Victoria. It’s a nice balance between the two. This is the episode where Travers is reunited with Victoria and Jamie and its surprising that its Victoria that realised this. It was good though to see Deborah Watling reunited with her father. After this both Travers become more mellow and likeable and they become the ones to believe that the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria aren’t in league with the Yeti. Speaking of the Yeti they are far more active in this episode than the previous one. There is a rather good shoot-out with them.

The army soldiers are all cockneys and its quite amusing. There are only a few of them with speaking parts and they are all quite good and this helped get over the fact that there were so many army people and that we are missing Nicholas Courtney. There is a new army character introduced in the form of a chap called simply Driver Evans (according to Wikipedia). Evans is a Welsh soldier that somehow finds his way into the tunnels. The explanation he gives is rather implausible and I think that a better way could have been found to introduce the character.

There is another good cliffhanger with the tunnel being filled with foam. It’s a bonkers way to end the episode and I thought that it was quite a clever way to end the episode. Overall I think that the lack of Troughton has hurt the episode somewhat. When Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling go on holiday (like they did in Enemy of the World) then their absence doesn’t have so much of an effect on the story but this time Troughtons vanishing act hasn’t been a good thing. Anyway he’s back in the next episode and so does another Doctor Who legend.