The first couple of episodes seem to revolve around one simple premise – Seaweed = bad. Oh and there’s a thing in a pipe. It’s probably also bad. Nothing really develops very quickly at all. Episodes 3 and 4 seem somewhat redundant and it’s only in the last 2 where anything actually starts to happen.
There’s an awful lot of science babble in this. Can be very hard to follow.
I don’t know if it was the fact it’s a story made up entirely of reconstructions (But there have been entirely lost stories I have loved) but this does drag. A lot.
“I screamed?”
Yes, Victoria, you really, really did… I can’t decide if using Victoria’s scream as a weapon is unintentionally and sadly ironic or avant-garde and self deprecating. I suspect the former.
While watching this I discovered that this is the only Troughton story the title of which doesn’t start with the word “The”. Fascinating fact, huh? Probably that sums up how I was feeling at this point...
And we say goodbye to Victoria – she does scream quite a lot in this story. Finish as you’ve been going on… But her leaving is nicely done. She doesn’t really want to leave The Doctor and Jamie but she can’t carry on travelling with them. And Jamie reacts badly to her leaving which is quite sweet.
Sadly though, that’s not really enough to save it. It’s not actually a bad story, per se, it’s just not in any way interesting. Base under siege without any sort of unique selling point to it.
Very hard work for very little reward, I’m afraid.
4/10
(Points for sentimentality and a couple of amusing double entendre)