Meglos - Episode 2

This episode starts off with a very long reprise, it lasts close to two minutes but once that is over with the action starts to get going it kind of stutters throughout. The Cactus Doctor gets to Tigellan first and has to take an oath of allegiance at the insistence of Lexa which is fun to watch everyone around her go mad at her for this. I still have a slight problem with thinking of Jacqueline Hill as Lexa and not Barbara. Sometimes I still think that Ian or Susan would pop up and tell her that she cant change history or something like that. Ok so I am going to try and stop using the term Cactus Doctor and refer to the creature as Meglos. Meglos’ plan is to go to Tigellan and take the Dodecahedron which would explain why he goes to the trouble of looking like the Doctor. I like that the Doctor has been to Tigellan before and judging by some of the lines that are said that he has been during the Doctor’s current incarnation.

I think that the Doctor with cactus spikes on his face and hands is an interesting look and one that looks far better than the other guy I saw in the previous episode. The idea of their being two Doctor roaming around the same place at the same time is something has been done in Doctor Who before but here it seems to be more fun but there seems to be something odd about Tom Baker. I know that he wasn’t very well during this season but there seems something specific that is altering his performance. He does seem like a shell of his former self and almost makes me miss the days when he was very silly. It may be deliberate that his performance is subdued compared to previous stories but its definelty noticeable. The highlight for Meglos comes when he arrives and after going through the niceties (or not), he manages to be alone with the Dodecahedron and somehow take it which is suppose to be vast and probably unmoveable and I like how much worry this causes.

After spending the previous episode doing very little, its surprising (or not really) that K9 doesn’t go very far before his batteries run low and he requires recharging. The thing that comes to mind is knowing that he is due to leave quite soon so there aren’t many more episodes for K9 to take up air time.

The cliffhanger is rather disappointing and this sums up my feelings towards this episode. This is an episode where not a lot seems to happen and compared to the previous episode it seems to have lost a spring in its step and when it did get into life it was quite late in the episode and had to stop at the wrong moment. The cliffhanger used featured Romana whereas I would have finished with the Doctor or Meglos but that’s just me. At the half way point, I am still more positive about it than I was two episodes ago.