Y’know how there are some stories you remember fondly and go into them with a sense of warmth and nostalgia? Yeah, this isn’t one of them. This is one I’ve been putting off as I remember it being dire. So on the plus side, it doesn’t have too high a standard to live up to…
The story does start off in quite an interesting fashion, with two plot threads seemingly irrelevant of each other. Jo and The Doctor are on a ship in the Indian Ocean but we also have some aliens trying to get through customs on a faraway world but being hampered by other (less colourful) aliens. The two threads come together fairly speedily as we see that our heroes are trapped inside a miniturised zoo that the aliens are carting around the place. But interestingly, while there is some interaction the two story threads don’t really meet properly until the end of the third episode.
The banter between Jo and The Doctor is good and the use of language is enjoyable – an Orwell quote is paraphrased wonderfully. The gatekeepers of the alien world are enjoyable as well and they provide the story with a healthy dose of political intrigue and xenophobia.
The moral of the story is somewhat clunky. The commentary on zoology is blatent and obvious from the start. It gets a bit painfully obvious when The Doctor and Jo have a conversation about it.
The story has a lot of characters in it – from the people trapped in the “miniscope” to the two alien races at the spaceport. The banter between them is fairly fun.
I will confess this is better than I remember but it doesn’t really ever feel great. I can’t quite put my finger on why – it might be something as silly as the absurdly garish costumes of the aliens, it may be that the moralising it too blatent.
Like I say, it’s better than I remember and “I can’t put my finger on it” probably isn’t good enough reason to mark it down too much.
7/10
The story does start off in quite an interesting fashion, with two plot threads seemingly irrelevant of each other. Jo and The Doctor are on a ship in the Indian Ocean but we also have some aliens trying to get through customs on a faraway world but being hampered by other (less colourful) aliens. The two threads come together fairly speedily as we see that our heroes are trapped inside a miniturised zoo that the aliens are carting around the place. But interestingly, while there is some interaction the two story threads don’t really meet properly until the end of the third episode.
The banter between Jo and The Doctor is good and the use of language is enjoyable – an Orwell quote is paraphrased wonderfully. The gatekeepers of the alien world are enjoyable as well and they provide the story with a healthy dose of political intrigue and xenophobia.
The moral of the story is somewhat clunky. The commentary on zoology is blatent and obvious from the start. It gets a bit painfully obvious when The Doctor and Jo have a conversation about it.
The story has a lot of characters in it – from the people trapped in the “miniscope” to the two alien races at the spaceport. The banter between them is fairly fun.
I will confess this is better than I remember but it doesn’t really ever feel great. I can’t quite put my finger on why – it might be something as silly as the absurdly garish costumes of the aliens, it may be that the moralising it too blatent.
Like I say, it’s better than I remember and “I can’t put my finger on it” probably isn’t good enough reason to mark it down too much.
7/10