Friday, 19 December 2014

(583) Arc of Infinity - Part 4

This is the episode which features a large amount of location footage, and considering this is filmed in another country then my excitement goes up even more. I’m sure that I have commented that I love it when there is location filming in real places because it shows us here in 2014 what places looked like in the past. Ok so it wont be a million miles different but its still nice to see this sort of thing and we get a lot of it so it does in a way make me want to go to Amsterdam, although not in mid-December. The episode sees the Lord President help the Doctor and Nyssa escape from Gallifrey to find Omega. This is quite good because its not an easy thing and also there aren’t many instances where the Timelords are good to the Doctor.

The first big scene comes when Omega has finished his transformation and reveals that he now looks like the Doctor. It’s a great effect with two versions of the Doctor and it starts the weirdest chase that there has been on British television. I say weird because it seems to go on for such a long time. The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan are running around Amsterdam, running into people and trying t catch up with an Omega who is about to turn into anti-matter. There is one moment where Omega is standing in a crowd and a blonde boy barges past him. For one moment it looks like Omega is punch the little brat before there is a weird smile that goes across his face.
There is a rare moment that occurs in this episode which comes when Nyssa screams. It’s the only time that I recall that she screams during her time on the show and I think that it’s a shame because the character has always been a strong character in that respect and it just seems like something that the character wouldn’t do. Anyway that is perhaps the worst thing about this episode. The rest of it works rather well and Omega is defeated by the Doctor. Actually defeated by the hands of the Doctor. The Doctor is the one that fires a gun which in itself is something that rarely gets commented on when people talking about the Doctor’s reluctance to be violent.

The final scene is funny because the Doctor and Nyssa are on the verge on leaving and the Doctor is desperately trying to leave but Tegan has been fired from her job and her cousin is going to go back to Brisbane. The look of the Doctor’s face when he realises that he’s stuck with Tegan is priceless. This has been a great story that has some flaws to it but a lot of positives and I think that the location filming helped a great deal but also the return of Omega was done very well and despite not being totally impressed with Gallifrey I thought that this opening story to Doctor Who’s 20th Anniversary gets the season long party off in style.

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