The Armageddon Factor - Episode 4

The fourth episode of this story is where the story has its usual change in direction which can sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t. Sometimes it manages to do it without too much of a giveaway and I think that this is the case in this episode. Once the episode starts up there is one thing that seems to suggest the darkness has gone and that involves Shapp. Shapp is definetly a comedic character. This is evident when he shoots the Shadow and shrieks backwards before falling to the ground.  For the Doctor and Romana they have to deal with the Mentalis machine and that seems to be sorted quite quickly.

I like how the Doctor thinks that he can sort of get around the fact he doesn’t have the sixth segment of the key and decides to try and make his own segment. It works but it’s a short term fix. The Doctor tries to talk it into working but that doesn’t do the trick and we are reminded constantly that time is stretching but looking at the clock that is counting down.

There is a bit where K9 does come across as quite stupid. He enters a room with a ringing phone and then when he is transmatted he stumbles across the Shadow and becomes overpowered. To be honest this is best he has been in since he joined the show. I think I quite like bad K9 and I never thought I would put like and K9 in the same sentence without being sarcastic. The Marshall is stuck in a limbo now until the end of the story just as says ‘fire’. It’s a shame that someone like John Woodvine has been reduced to this minor role now. He has been one of the best things in the story and now he’s not. Ok so at least he will be appearing in the rest of the story but he wont be the same and between him and K9 I would rather have more Woodvine.

There is a scene where Tom Baker, Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward are on screen at the same time and its weird to think that two incarnations of the same character are interacting and also Tom Baker is encountering his future ex-wife. Lalla Ward is given some good stuff to do and feels like she is part of the story instead of just being a character that appears in random scenes. Her best period in the episode comes when she is in the TARDIS and is looking at the Key to Time. It was during this time that I realised that I don’t think that there has been so much time used in the TARDIS.

I don’t think that this episode was as good as the previous one but I still think that its maintained my interest and I think that with two episodes left the story is starting to build up to the big finale and the pieces are starting to fall into place.