The Androids of Tara - Episode 2

With the Prince kidnapped the Doctor proposes that they get the android crowned. The prince isn’t the only one that has a duplicate. Romana meets her double who is a Princess (Princess Strella to be exact) that is being held prisoner by the Count.

The Count doesn’t know that there is an android version of the Prince exists so when he walks into the coronation chamber and sees the android version he believes it to be impossible. It’s quite odd that if the Prince was late then his opportunity would go to someone else. It’s hard to imagine that if Queen Elizabeth were late to her coronation that they would have crowned someone else. That’s the only thing that doesn’t quite make sense on Tara. That said I thought that the room where the coronation takes place looked quite splendid.

Mary Tamm’s performances were splendid. Playing two roles that are supposed to look alike but are completely different is a tricky thing to pull off but Tamm does this really well and due to the fact Romana acts like she’s a princess she doesn’t really have to try too hard to make it work. Tom Baker does seem to not be quite on form in this episode and seems to be on autopilot which shows that perhaps his time on the show should have been coming to an end now. After over 100 episodes I suppose its only fair to expect the occasional off the boil performance.

I’m surprised that the coronation happens so soon in the story. This would have been what the story was building up to and so happened in episode four but I suppose this means that Fisher has plans for the final two episodes so that is something to look forward to. The writing has been just as good and also the directing has been superb. I still love all the location filming but even the studio scenes have been directed with a refreshing pace and it shows that studio scenes don’t have to been slow and boring. The episode zips along nicely and at no point did I feel like the story was stalling.

The cliffhanger is quite shocking because as far as the viewer is concerned, its Princess Strella that walks toward the android King but the Doctor seems to have other ideas and instead appears to strike a blow (off screen). It’s got to be one of the strongest cliffhangers for a while and its clear that David Fisher is very good at coming up with cliffhangers that are strong and don’t feel bolted at the last minute. I am still enjoying this story even though this episode doesn’t have quite the impact that the opening episode does.