I watch these episodes at the moment on my Xbox and usually
when I finish an episode I stop it straight away and come the next episode and
it was whilst watching the closing credits Barry Letts’ name pops up and I
forgot that during this time on the show we have the partnership of Barry Letts
and Terrance Dicks in Doctor Who. Sadly this isn’t 1970 anymore and the heyday
of Tom Baker’s tenure has gone so whilst it’s good to have a Doctor Who story
with Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks credited it’s sad to think in a way that
this isn’t their show anymore. The episode was watched by 4.4 million viewers
which bearing in mind that just a year before episode three of ‘Nightmare of
Eden’ which aired on December 8 got 9.6 million viewers it must have looked
like they needed to hit the panic button but I can’t think why this episode got
such low viewing figures. If I didn’t know I would have thought that the
nightmare episode would have got 4.4 million viewers and this episode got 9.6
million.
The opening scene seems quite a long one compared to usual
episodes and that’s not a critiscm because it’s a really well performed one
with all the important characters (except Adric). Aukon is by far the best
performer in the scene and the Doctor is a close second. It’s during this scene
that the Doctor and Romana first hear Adric’s name. I still think that its
impressive that Adric has been side-lined for so long. Really the Doctor and
Romana should have seen this coming considering in a normal story with the pair
they would have been separated at the earliest moment yet in episode three they
have hardly been apart. Matthew Waterhouse has a pretty easy time of it in this
episode as he doesn’t appear until the final few minutes of the episode. When
he does appear his costume has improved dramatically and its just a shame that
he doesn’t wear it past this story.
The episode features a scene where the Doctor is locked in a
cell with his companion and he talks about a hermit on Gallifrey. This is very
much a Terrance Dicks trait because it appeared in two Jon Pertwee stories
(where he was script editor). I thought that it was a nice bit of continuity in
a time when the show was looking towards the future its nice that they did this
nostalgic moment.
This episode was one of those that was a collection of
moments and that is why this episode is quite good because those moments are so
good and another of those good moments include any scene with Zargo and Camilla
because it has a Macbeth feel to it which when done right (as in this case) is
a strong image to have on screen. The death of Tarak is very grim by Doctor Who
standards and not because its gory or particularly violent (even though it is),
its because its quite prolonged. Instead of a quick death which is over in a
second or two, Tarak’s death takes considerably longer.
The last minute sees Camilla about to attack Adric and
Romana leaving him to his fate which I thought was very strange and not really
in the spirit of the show but then she got her comeuppance of sorts when she is
facing Zargo and this is the cliffhanger which normally would make me groan
with disappointment because people would know that she is going to appear in
future stories but in the case of this particular cliffhanger it works well and
I am looking forward to the final episode. At the moment this is falling just
short of ‘Full Circle’ in terms of ratings but I wouldn’t be surprised if the
final episode goes just ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment