Something struck me as I started to watch this episode and
that its weird to see Tom Baker’s face when the theme tune plays. It’s a title
sequence that is more associated with Peter Davison and Colin Baker so its
still weird even though this is the tenth time that this title sequence has
played. Upon watching the reprise, I was hoping to see K9 get his head knocked
off but sadly not. What is shown are the spiders which look worse than they did
in the previous episode. It’s still a major problem that I have with the story
and the only time that they look ok is when the Doctor is looking at one later
on in the episode.
I have been thinking about the deciders and come to the
conclusion that despite having the War Lord as one of their crew, I actually
think that Login is the stronger of the trio. I think of Inspector Wexford
rather than Login when I look at George Baker. Login is the nicest of the trio
and the one that at least comes across as having any morals.
Tom Baker is perfect in this episode because he does seem to
have gotten his mojo back and does both comedy and serious acting. His comedy
comes with his reaction when the Outlers are coming out of the TARDIS instead
of Romana. His serious side comes when he shows his anger at the deciders and
also at Dexeter who shows his mean side when he is about to perform his
experiments on the captured Marshman. I hadn’t noticed how good Tony Calvin was
because he had really been in the background of all the characters that have
been in the story so far. Lalla Ward doesn’t really give a bad performance but unfortunately
doesn’t really
The story seems to progress quite quickly in the scene where
the Doctor points out that the Starliner has been ready to take off for
centuries and that people are replacing perfectly fine parts. This moment is
added with the announcement by the deciders that no one knows how to pilot the
starliner.
The cliffhanger is another good one and does slightly mirror
the first cliffhanger in that it involves several Marshmen and the music adds
to it. However this one is slightly better because it sees the Marshmen
penetrate the starliner and this sets up the final episode perfectly. This was
another solid episode and I think that over the past three episodes this serial
has done what Doctor Who should do and that’s tell a fun story with some good
characters and the E-Space Trilogy is a nice thing for the season to get
involved in and keep peoples attention until the final few stories to see the
departure of Tom Baker.
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