This is a very UNIT focussed story which tries very hard to be action-y and has lots of wowee hardware... principally a big missile.
Ep 5 and 6 cost the most to make of any DW serial in the 70's. The budget was only exceeded by 1982's Timeflight (big aeroplane costs!) in the classic series.
The notion of the Keller machine is very sh*t Sci-fi.
It wipes minds of 'evil' (what is 'evil'? and how does it wipe minds?) and then when it's full (of evil?) it becomes voracious (possibly?) (or maybe greedy?) and starts causing people to feel fear (for some reason) and drop dead. Then by about ep4 it is merely making them clutch their heads and 'try to resist' (again how? and 'resist' what exactly?). Then the machine learns to teleport itself (only ever short distances)... The Doctor manages to stop it teleporting by placing an electro magnetic ring around it. But it 'learns' to escape that... Then Barnham (a mind wipee) finds he can calm the machine down by his presence. So they blow it up...
There's more to it than that (e.g. what about that pink dragon?)
The arbitrary body count in this is massive. Also the unexplained 'he was shot but now he's ok' count is quite high. The gunfight in ep5 & 6 is horrible to watch.
Pertwee gives his most annoying irascible performance (outrating even Terror of A's) He's annoyed at the drop of a hat and condescending and rude and arrogant... routinely but that scene in ep6 where he counters Jo's worries with "Well how do you think it made me feel?" and shoves a cup of coffee at her is also horrible.
Pik Sen Lim b 15-Sep-1944 is a Chinese Malaysian immigrant to the UK. At the time she was married to the show's writer Don Houghton. She speaks Hokkien dialect Chinese and acted as unpaid dialogue coach on the show. And Captain Yates is right. She does have very nice legs.
The Chinese spoken in ep2 and 3 is Hokkien (aka Minnan) which is a southern China dialect widely spoken in Taiwan and Fujian province. As such it probably unlikely that an official delegation of the Chinese communist government would EVER use such a dialect. But who cares..? It's cool to have it in the show....
This one is ambitious and spectacular in places but overall it's underwhelming.
ABM Rating 2.55/4.00
LJM Rating 2.90/5.00
SPJ Rating 6.45/10
No. 32 (out of 56)
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