Sunday, 2 November 2014

(536) Full Circle - Episode 3

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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