The Web of Fear - Episode 3

This episode is the only one that doesn’t exist sadly. However it does come with telesnaps. This is the episode where Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart makes his first appearance and Nicholas Courtney’s first appearance since ‘The Daleks Master Plan’ where Sara Kingdom killed her. The first thing that should be explained is how and why Lethbridge-Stewart is down there. He is now in charge which is pretty much the course for next 21 years. After being on holiday last week, Patrick Troughton returns and uses the line that he was knocked out from the explosion. This was a throwaway line to explain it and I thought that at least they tried.

The plot doesn’t really move away from figuring out who’s working against the army. The finger of suspicion has moved away from the Doctor and now comes the thing that I like about this story and it’s the air of uncertainty that exists. Who is working with the Great Intelligence? There are several potential people who could be working with them and this episode seems to have decided to point the finger at Chorley and this is done because he is acting even stranger than usual. Even Lethbridge-Stewart is under suspicion so that will be the theme for the next couple of episode.

Nicholas Courtney is brilliant from the moment he first appears and instantly carries the authority with him. He might be in the cockney army but he’s managed to insert his authority and does it quite quickly and he shows the sign of a diplomat when he tries to be all smiles to Chorley. The rest of the performances were all quite good and I think that Chorley is becoming a strong character along with the Travers’. Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines are quite good in this episode yet the only thing that Deborah Watling gets to do is to tell Chorley about the TARDIS and annoying the Doctor. This seems that its back to normal in terms of the way people are treated in the story.

I must comment on the telesnaps episode. I think that it’s well done and as I am watching it on iTunes I think that despite not having any narration it is still enjoyable. There is only one moment where text is needed to explain what’s going on but that its. I think that it was well done and I did enjoy it. I don’t think it’s the best episode of the story so far but I think that it’s got enough going for it to help me enjoy it.