The Leisure Hive - Episode 2

This is one of the shortest episodes of Doctor Who ever as it runs at just under 21 minutes. That means that there is no room for padding or taking things slowly. Unlike the previous episode there isn’t any 90 second panning shot but also sadly the entire episode is studio bound. The thing that stands out in this episode are the performances and the characters. Hardin (Nigel Lambert) is a likeable person but it would be boring if he was just likeable. As it turns out he has a bit of a secret and its that he has been lieing to his close friend (Mena) about the results of his experiments and spends a great amount of time working with Romana to try and fix it. This is where the main action is as it leads to the cliffhanger. Mena is another likeable character and it is sad to see her age so quickly.

There are two quite surprising deaths. Klout is the first death that we see although we don’t see the murder. What we do see is him standing in cupboard. The only thing that slightly undermines it is that the face looks like a dummy or a protesthic mask. I can’t quite figure out why they didn’t go and use Ian Talbot. The second death was a lot better because the whole scene was quite good. It was very atmospheric when Stimson is walking around a dimly lit room before being struck down.

There is a line that the Doctor gives when he says “Arrest the scarf” which would have been annoying in the previous season but the humour has been so reigned back that the few moments where there is some light relief it’s very welcome. Tom Baker yet again gives the sort of performance that he would have done three or four years ago. Its weird that when there was a close up of his fingers at the beginning of the episode that look old and it dawned on me that he has been playing the role for such a long time.

The cliffhanger is quite a good one like the previous episode but unlike the previous episode this cliffhanger isn’t as dark. The sight of Tom Baker with a big beard and white hair is how he looks today (minus the beard) and what makes it shocking isn’t the reaction of Romana (which is good) but actually Mena’s because it is one of sadness and this is another example of how nice the character is. This was another solid episode and that’s two episodes in a row where I have found myself enjoying the episode and I didn’t think that this would be the case after the recent run of stories.