Meglos: Part Four

Meglos puts The dodecahedron to use together with the screens, the aim is to destroy Tigella.

There is an air of silliness about this last episode, the same fate as The Leisure Hive, with the narrative losing focus, and too much emphasis on the visuals as opposed to the story. Almost as if they had lots of ideas, but were unsure of what do do with them in the limited time. The episode feels loose somehow.

Once again Tom is very, very good, he's sincere and incredibly charismatic.

Some good special effects, the two versions of Tom together look great, some not so good, The CSO looks poor at times, Tom looks almost invisible in some scenes. The music to round it off is different, love it.

It's ok, just a bit silly, 5/10.

Your loss is my loss, and that loss is Meglos, a whole lot of dead moss, that's compounded by more dross, a marauding green candy floss, who's very, very, cross, that removes all the gloss, and becomes a crispy lettuce.

The second serial in this eighteenth season of the original series is a solid enough affair. It continues a good start with a serial which is not particularly remarkable, but does the job mostly. It sees the Doctor invited to help on a planet, but get trapped in a time bubble while a villain called Meglos manifests himself in the body of a human, and enlists the help of a warring planet to steal an all-powerful energy source.

In the course of telling the story, there are high-priestesses, comedy villains, cactus-like make-up and effects, and lots of moving parts. It all works pretty well but it too often felt like it had too much going on and probably it could have easily dropped a character or idea or two and been better for it. In terms of tone it could also have done with being a bit sharper and focused to produce a more consistent feel; parts of it feel overly-heavy, others have a bit of slapstick. It all works more or less, but as a whole it feels a bit messy and uncoordinated. The cast and performances are decent - although the return of one actress didn't add much beyond a trivia item on IMDb.

Solid enough despite not offering a great deal on the whole.