Back to four parters and the return of Christopher H Bidmead
who was the script editor for about 10 minutes in Tom Baker’s final season and
wrote Castrovalva. I have never really had much fondness for this story but if
there has been one repeating pattern over the period that I have been doing
this marathon is that there is the possibility that my opinion might change. I
have to confess that the omens for this story are very good. The opening scene
is quite good and ends with a body disappearing. The first scene that sees the
Doctor, Turlough and Tegan (thankfully no Kamelion) is a strange one because it
doesn’t have any drama to it. Even when things seem to be going wrong then the
Doctor didn’t show it. The Doctor doesn’t want to land but this is a clear sign
that they are about to do this. It’s the standard TV thing of doing the
opposite of what people say or do.
The Doctor goes from telling Range that he couldn’t get involved
to basically offering his assistance. All in the space of one scene. He does
make his stance more clear when he says to Plantagenet that he is going to
leave as soon as possible. Plantagenet is played (brilliantly) by Jeff Rawle.
Plantagenet seems to be enjoying his dictatorship but there is a part of this
performance which suggests that there is an internal struggle. He doesn’t trust
the Doctor and this that the stuff his father did for the colony is very
important. Lesley Dunlop appears in this story, she would go on to appear in
May to December (1989-1994) and has appeared in Emmerdale since 2008. In this
she plays Lorna who is quite a nice character and nice characters are few a far
between.
The story of the colonists is a nice one explained by Range.
It turns out that they didn’t start the problems but a mystery force is
wreaking havoc. The planet is being bombarded by meteors and something that isn’t
referred to is that there isn’t any wood around. It’s all metal and I think
that the whole planet is rather grim which probably plays into what Bidmead is
trying to do with this story. Ron Jones returns to the directing chair after his
previous attempt in the form of Arc of
Infinity and he directs this episode in a solid way and its pace works
quite well.
The cliffhanger is rather good because if you were watching
this for the first time in 1984 then you genuinely wouldn’t see it coming. The
TARDIS has been destroyed and all that survives in a white handstand that was
given more screentime than would have been the norm. I like it as a visual
symbol and what it represents. It’s a sound opening episode and I am really
surprised that I have liked this episode as much as I have. After being
somewhat bored with The Awakening,
its nice that something of note has happened.
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