Ok so After not being bowled over with ‘Four to Doomsday’,
it was time to get ready for this story which is one of those that I really
disliked when I first watched when I bought it on VHS many years ago but in
recent years I have started to appreciate the story. I have to say that on the
basis of this episode I am going to like the story more than ever. This is a
story that is Nyssa-lite and that’s because the problem with having a crowded
TARDIS is evident and after a brief scene, she is hurried into the TARDIS and
that is it until episode four. This story is a Tegan story because she features
in it so much.
Tegan’s story is one that is very interesting because its
all in the mind. She first comes across Anatta and Annica (Anatta played by
Eastenders star Anna Wing). They are playing chequers which is mirroring what
Nyssa and Adric were doing at the beginning of the episode and I think that was
really clever and a nice thing by writer Christopher Bailey. The next
interesting figure she encounters is Dukkha (played by Jeff Stewart). The three
characters that Tegan meets are very striking and its hard to find something terrifying
in their performances and how they look.
It’s not just Tegan that’s getting some good stuff to do in
this story as Adric and the Doctor encounter the colonists. They are all
brilliant with Simon Rouse being the best of the trio as Hindle. He starts off
the episode as a bit of a whinger but by the end of the episode he is going to
kill the Doctor and so has clearly gone barking mad. The next character that is
fun to watch is Richard Todd who plays Sanders. He might as well be called
Colonel Sanders because his views do seem somewhat outdated and really all that
you can do is just laugh at his backward thinking. Nerys Hughes plays Todd and is the only one
out of the three that has any sense to her character. She is the one that
actually treats the Doctor properly so is the one that will the fans will be
liking.
The episode is a great opening one that tells two sides of
the story well and sets things up nicely. I will be honest and say that I haven’t
missed Nyssa despite being a big Nyssa fan but I think that just shows how well
Christopher Bailey has written the story and how well Peter Grimwade has
directed a story that moves along well and at no point was I bored during the course
of this episode which wasn’t the case at all during the previous four episodes.
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