The penultimate story of this third series sees the return of a creature that made their only appearance 35 years ago but it was quite an important appearance in the shows history. The Eight Legs appeared in Planet of the Spiders back in 1974 which was Jon Pertwee’s swansong. In that story there is a group that use are a sort of new life place and they use the Eight Legs to get their goal. This story is written by Eddie Robson who has written the series finale from 2007 with Human Resources which was a superb ending to that series and he manages to do something different with this story.
The story takes quite a long time to get going, most of the this story consists of the Doctor working with Dr Avishka Sangakkara and Lucie with Karen at the old BBC Television Centre with the Eight Truths. When we get to the cliffhanger what we get is a bizarre conclusion which doesn’t really seem to have much going for it. This at least the second time this series that Lucie has screamed out which seems to be a bit of a letdown .The conclusion of this story is much better as we have chaos and the revelation of the Eight Legs. The conclusion of this episode was truly spine-chilling. I’m not a massive fan of spiders and so the sound of them crawling about and the music used help to make me genuinely fear that I have never felt in all my years of watching or listening to Doctor Who which spans 17 years. We got a brief glimpse of the queen at the end of the first part and she sounded exactly like she did in 1974. When we get to part two we see that time has progressed by about three weeks and that the Earth is being joined by a sun but as the episode progresses it is in fact just pretending to be a sun (like you would expect). The Doctor was injured by a bomb that had some dangerous gases and that resulted in him shutting his himself down to recover properly. This was unexpected and was actually more of a concern plot wise than Lucie’s predicament.
Paul McGann has put in another superb performance. His Doctor doesn’t have much time with Lucie but that’s not really a major problem because he works so well with Dr Sangakkara. He seemed quite perturbed about Lucie’s behaviour. Sheridan Smith is good when she is nice normal Lucie but when she becomes possessed by the Eight Legs she doesn’t quite pull it off. I don’t know why but whenever Lucie is in this position she just doesn’t pull it off. Despite that though she did come close and on some occasions she sounded a little menacing.
Sanjeev Baskhar is best known for starring in the BBC comedy Goodness Gracious Me and also more recently the ITV comedy Mumbai Calling. In this story he plays Dr Avishka Sangakkara, this character has been written as a likeable character that gets on well with the Doctor. We learn that he isn’t the sort of person that takes fools gladly but ultimately knows when to trust someone who knows far more than he does. It’s good to see Katarina Olsson back in the series as the Headhunter. She made a triumphant return in Orbis and we have not heard anything from her since. Her first scene was a bit underplayed which was different for the character. Olsson seems to enjoy playing this role and in this story she is never actually recognised as the Headhunter but her tone and the way she speaks to Lucie shows that she is the Headhunter. I’m not sure whether it was worth bringing back Karen into this story. She was integral to Human Resources because it explained the reason why Lucie was placed with the Doctor and in Grand Theft Cosmos she served a comedy purpose as The Headhunter’s sidekick. However whilst it would have been good to mention Karen and she isn’t wasted in this story I don’t know whether it would have been better served to get another character or actor to play this part. Kelly Godliman is very good as Karen and is one person out of four (the others being Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith & Katarina Olsson) to have appeared in all three series as the same character. Sophie Winkleman is another big name to appear in this story. She has appeared in The Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look and played Kelly Westwood in this story. Westwood is a reporter to is trying to uncover the truths about the Eight Truths Westwood sounds like your usual journalist/author. She wants to get the truth and has contacts which include people that use to be a part of the group and is reluctant to give any information from her book to the Doctor. Stephen Moore is a name that isn’t necersarily one that jumps out at you but when you hear his voice or see him on the television you know who he is. He did the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the Radio and TV. He also played Kevin the Teenagers Dad in the Harry Enfield Sketch Show. In this story he plays Clark Goodman and his voice gives the impression that he is a leader who has the respect of everyone in his group. I think that he was superb in this story and possibly we may get a new side to him in Worldwide Web.
Essentially we have a four part story and as such the story feels like it is structured that way. The first two parts of this four part story is the build up and as there is not much coming from the Eight Legs it gives Robson chance to give some good character development to Clark Goodman and the rest of the Eight Legs as well as make Sangakkara a stronger and more rounded character. Robson is one of my favourite writers in this range and he has delivered a slow but steady story that gives enough to fans who remember when the Eight Legs appeared in Doctor Who and what happened in the end. Nicholas Briggs has done well in the directing chair helping to create a different feel to the previous stories in this season. Knowing how important the ending to the series is this story bodes well for Worldwide Web.
The story takes quite a long time to get going, most of the this story consists of the Doctor working with Dr Avishka Sangakkara and Lucie with Karen at the old BBC Television Centre with the Eight Truths. When we get to the cliffhanger what we get is a bizarre conclusion which doesn’t really seem to have much going for it. This at least the second time this series that Lucie has screamed out which seems to be a bit of a letdown .The conclusion of this story is much better as we have chaos and the revelation of the Eight Legs. The conclusion of this episode was truly spine-chilling. I’m not a massive fan of spiders and so the sound of them crawling about and the music used help to make me genuinely fear that I have never felt in all my years of watching or listening to Doctor Who which spans 17 years. We got a brief glimpse of the queen at the end of the first part and she sounded exactly like she did in 1974. When we get to part two we see that time has progressed by about three weeks and that the Earth is being joined by a sun but as the episode progresses it is in fact just pretending to be a sun (like you would expect). The Doctor was injured by a bomb that had some dangerous gases and that resulted in him shutting his himself down to recover properly. This was unexpected and was actually more of a concern plot wise than Lucie’s predicament.
Paul McGann has put in another superb performance. His Doctor doesn’t have much time with Lucie but that’s not really a major problem because he works so well with Dr Sangakkara. He seemed quite perturbed about Lucie’s behaviour. Sheridan Smith is good when she is nice normal Lucie but when she becomes possessed by the Eight Legs she doesn’t quite pull it off. I don’t know why but whenever Lucie is in this position she just doesn’t pull it off. Despite that though she did come close and on some occasions she sounded a little menacing.
Sanjeev Baskhar is best known for starring in the BBC comedy Goodness Gracious Me and also more recently the ITV comedy Mumbai Calling. In this story he plays Dr Avishka Sangakkara, this character has been written as a likeable character that gets on well with the Doctor. We learn that he isn’t the sort of person that takes fools gladly but ultimately knows when to trust someone who knows far more than he does. It’s good to see Katarina Olsson back in the series as the Headhunter. She made a triumphant return in Orbis and we have not heard anything from her since. Her first scene was a bit underplayed which was different for the character. Olsson seems to enjoy playing this role and in this story she is never actually recognised as the Headhunter but her tone and the way she speaks to Lucie shows that she is the Headhunter. I’m not sure whether it was worth bringing back Karen into this story. She was integral to Human Resources because it explained the reason why Lucie was placed with the Doctor and in Grand Theft Cosmos she served a comedy purpose as The Headhunter’s sidekick. However whilst it would have been good to mention Karen and she isn’t wasted in this story I don’t know whether it would have been better served to get another character or actor to play this part. Kelly Godliman is very good as Karen and is one person out of four (the others being Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith & Katarina Olsson) to have appeared in all three series as the same character. Sophie Winkleman is another big name to appear in this story. She has appeared in The Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look and played Kelly Westwood in this story. Westwood is a reporter to is trying to uncover the truths about the Eight Truths Westwood sounds like your usual journalist/author. She wants to get the truth and has contacts which include people that use to be a part of the group and is reluctant to give any information from her book to the Doctor. Stephen Moore is a name that isn’t necersarily one that jumps out at you but when you hear his voice or see him on the television you know who he is. He did the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the Radio and TV. He also played Kevin the Teenagers Dad in the Harry Enfield Sketch Show. In this story he plays Clark Goodman and his voice gives the impression that he is a leader who has the respect of everyone in his group. I think that he was superb in this story and possibly we may get a new side to him in Worldwide Web.
Essentially we have a four part story and as such the story feels like it is structured that way. The first two parts of this four part story is the build up and as there is not much coming from the Eight Legs it gives Robson chance to give some good character development to Clark Goodman and the rest of the Eight Legs as well as make Sangakkara a stronger and more rounded character. Robson is one of my favourite writers in this range and he has delivered a slow but steady story that gives enough to fans who remember when the Eight Legs appeared in Doctor Who and what happened in the end. Nicholas Briggs has done well in the directing chair helping to create a different feel to the previous stories in this season. Knowing how important the ending to the series is this story bodes well for Worldwide Web.
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