There's hardly any recap of part one shown at all, and this is because the remaining manny comes in and recaps what has happened at the fort for the benefit of the Doctor, Jo, and us:
"He's dead! They killed him! Came from the sea! The sea! A Sea Devil!"
This is almost a clang! except he used the singular instead of the plural.
There is a Sea Devil there, we see it follow them out of the room. The Silurians spent a lot more time in their story unseen or as POV monsters than the Sea Devils have done - almost three whole episodes out of seven, as opposed to less than one here.
The Doctor meets the Sea Devil and it pewpewpews at him, but misses so the Doctor runs away. He gets back to the room with Jo and the manny (who is now having sleeps) and barricades the door, but says to Jo
"Those creatures can cut through anything. Rock... metal... anything!"
It seems he is right as the Sea Devil begins a classic slow cutting through the door. When it puts its paw through the hole the Doctor electrics it and it runs away. The Doctor and Jo turn the tables and start chasing it, but it gets away by jumping out of a window like Hitler escaping from Danger 5.
The Sea Devil has stolen the fort's telephone so the Doctor tries to make one out of a radio. His first attempt fails, leading to a komedy moment that entirely fails to be either as charming or as funny as the Master's little scene of watching Clangers was in the preceding episode.
The writer of this story was Malcolm Hulke, who also wrote Doctor Who and the Silurians, and he obviously wanted to connect the two because there follows a scene where the Doctor gives Jo some exposition about the earlier story:
"Those things that attacked us. You said you'd seen something like it before?""Something very similar, certainly. They emerged from some caves in Derbyshire.""The Silurians, wasn't it? The Brigadier was telling me.""That's a complete misnomer. The chap who discovered them must have got the Period wrong. No, properly speaking, they should have been called the Eocenes.""That was that race of super reptiles that had been in hibernation for billions of years, wasn't it?""That's right, and if you want my opinion, there's another of their colonies right here beneath us."
Right... so... where do I begin? Dr Quinn dated the Silurians to 200 million years ago, which would put them in the Jurassic Park Period, not the Silurian (445-415 million years ago) nor the Eocene (56-34 million years ago). As for Jo's "in hibernation for billions of years," well, she did at least admit to failing her level in science, I wonder how many attempts the Doctor took to pass his?
The Doctor eventually gets the radio-telephone going, and manages to contact one of the poshest mannys to have ever been in Doctor Who to get him to come and rescue them. They are taken back to Captain Hart, who still doesn't believe them:
"How can I go to the admiralty with a story like that? Sea Devils? If only you had some proof!"
Clang!
Trenchard also visits H.M.S Seaspite, along with the Master, who is in disguise as a naval officer. He steals some equipment from the base, but is spotted from a window by Jo. By the time the alarm is raised, the Master and Trenchard are already away.
The Doctor and Jo go back to the prison, where Trenchard shows them the Master is (back) in his room, but they are still suspicious so the Doctor sends Jo to contact the Brigadier (the real one, as opposed to his frankly useless substitute, Captain Hart) while he goes to confront the Master.
When the Master hears that the Doctor knows what he has done he pulls a gun on him. The Doctor Venusian Karates the gun out of the Master's paw so he then grabs a sword which just happens to be on the wall in the corridor outside his prison cell. I'm sure it is perfectly standard for the corridors of maximum security prisons to be decorated in this fashion, mew.
The Doctor says
"Like that, is it?"
and gets a sword of his own.
This is a wonderful scene, and the Doctor certainly seems to enjoy it, although the Master looks angry throughout much of it - perhaps this is because the Doctor has him outclassed, to the extent that he even takes the time out to nom a sandwich in the middle of the fight. But it is over all too quickly - even the Doctor seems to think so because when he wins he purposefully makes the fight longer when he gives the Master a second chance.
The Doctor wins the swordfight (again), but then the Master has the knife that we saw him take earlier at the same time as the gun, and he throws it - straight into the cliffhanger!
No comments:
Post a Comment