This is Sylvester McCoy’s 20th episode as Doctor.
The last three weeks have gone fairly quickly and there isn’t much time left in
the McCoy era. This story continues its political stance and I think that its
up to the viewer to decide how subtle it actually it. I hadn’t twigged this
until watching this episode but the patrol the second group in the past two
seasons of the show that have featured all women in a group.
The Kandy Man is temporarily stopped by the Kandy Man
walking into some spilt lemonade. This is quite a creative way of escaping.
Even though it’s a clever way of escaping it does show how rubbish the Kandy
Man is and how he can’t really be seen as a visible threat.
The pipe people are introduced into this episode and as a
design they look quite good. They are all played by kids and they fall over a
couple of times which shows that is something that is rather unfortunate but
the low lighting does mean that the
Fifi is an interesting creation but doesn’t really belong in
the rest of the story yet its allowed to take some screen time in one of the endless
pipe scenes. It’s good when Helen A is treating it like most people would treat
a family pet but outside of Helen A scenes its just rather irrelevant.
The best scene comes quite late in the episode where the
Doctor is talking to two people are basically snipers and he tries to goad one
of them into killing him and yet the person with the gun cant go through with
it. So the one without the gun is the one with the power and the gun is
meaningless. Any doubts that people may have still had (even after Remembrance
of the Daleks) should well and truly have disappeared after this scene. I
always knew that this was the case but this scene is a great example of this.
John Norrington is the supporting star of the episode as he
manages to deliver a superb performance with a character that is a stickler for
bureaucracy. When I see him, I still think of his performance in The Caves of
Androzani and even though this is a totally different character, its another
example of how good an actor he is.
The episode ends with the Doctor looking at a poster of Ace
who is about to enter a show. Next to that poster is another one with the
letters RIP written on it (in pink paint obviously). It isn’t the greatest
cliffhanger but I think that it’s been a disappointing episode really. Despite
their being some sparks in this episode, it is a rather forgettable one with
performances that are left to wander around with no real sense of urgency.
Considering that there are only three episodes in this story I would have
thought there would have been a greater sense of urgency. 
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