Day 249 — September 6th 2021
The Stones of Blood Parts Three and Four
The Stones of Blood — Part Three
When Graham Williams took over on Doctor Who, one of the instructions he was given was to tone down the scares, and I think he’s been doing that pretty thoroughly. With the exception of Horror of Fang Rock and Image of the Fendahl, they’ve broadly gone for something a bit lighter in approach, and while I was never a huge fan of the Hinchcliffe era in the past, it’s fair to say that this time around that style really chimed with me in a way that the current stuff… doesn’t.
This episode, then, is something of a curious hybrid. There’s material on a Hyperspace ship which looks a bit cheap and plastic and is very much in the style of the current era, but then there’s stuff happening on Earth which wouldn’t have been out of place in Tom Baker’s first few seasons. The sequence in which two campers find themselves killed by the Ogri — even through the attackers don’t move an inch during the scene — is genuinely horrific, and it’s by far the best part of the episode.
Funnily enough, it’s also the only scene from this one which I could remember from my previous marathon, although I’d misremembered it as being the opening to Part One, so when it didn’t happen there I assumed I must have misremembered and invented a scene in my head. I’m really pleased to find that’s not the case, because I think this story would be poorer without it. I’m not the biggest fan of Doctor Who doing horror, but when it’s done as well as this you can’t help but enjoy it.
I’ve not really said very much about the Ogri in general, and that’s because they’re less important to this story than I’d realised. They get the title, of course, and when I think of this one, they’re the first thing which comes to mind, but they’re little more than guard dogs on the whole. Still, the story manages to make them feel like a credible threat in spite of the low amount of screen time, and there’s several little touches which add to the effect — I love the stone and dust being dropped into the scene as one forces itself through a doorway in the cellar of the ‘big house’. It’s another one of those little touches which helps to make the sets feel all the more effective, too.
While I’m on the subject of the monsters, I don’t have a lot to say about the Cailleach but I wanted to note how brilliant the bird costume is, and I wish they’d made a bit more of the mystery about who might be underneath it, because it feels like it only really shows up for a single scene in Part Two and then is rendered redundant in this one when Doctor Who reveals that he knows it’s Vivien underneath it. Give me creepy shots of the figure stood in the moonlit circle!
The other thing I’m loving here — and I’ll apologise for sounding like a broken record because I went on about this yesterday — is the comedy in this story. It works for me so well, and I’ve been laughing my way through this one more than I have through most episodes lately. I could quote so many pieces of dialogue but I’m going to confine myself to Doctor Who and Romana being reunited on the Hyperspace ship;
Romana: ‘Where have you been? What’s happening? Where am I?’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, in strict order of asking, busy, nothing, hyperspace.’
K9 continues to be an enjoyable presence in the story, too, and I love the way that Doctor Who bickers with him while trying to work out how to bridge the gap into Hyperspace. David Fisher makes his Doctor Who debut writing this story, and it feels like he’s the one who’s managed to make the relationship between Time Lord and dog work convincingly. In Season Fifteen especially it felt as though Doctor Who were nothing but cruel to K9, but here when he snaps at him it feels like part of the natural flow, and you get the sense that K9 is being purposely annoying as part of the game;
Amelia: ‘I still don’t understand about hyperspace.’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, who does?’
K9: ‘I do.’
Doctor Who: ‘Oh, shut up, K9.’
While Romana spends a good chunk of this episode locked up in Hyperspace we get to enjoy more of the pairing of Doctor Who with Professor Rumford. The more we watch of these two the more I’m desperate to imagine there was a full series of adventures for them. Beatrix Lehmann and Tom Baker work so well together, and I love her little moment of deflation when Doctor Who suggests to her he might not actually be an alien, before throwing in another fun joke;
Amelia: ‘Are you from outer space?’
Doctor Who: ‘No.’
Amelia: ‘Oh.’
Doctor Who: ‘I’m more from what you’d call inner time.’
Amelia: ‘Ah.’
I’m going with another 8/10.
The Stones of Blood — Part Four
I’ve been dreading this final episode a little bit. I described Part Three as a hybrid, bringing together the spooky Earth-based stuff with the plastic-looking spaceship material, and I vaguely remembered this story falling apart towards the end as we switch from the former to the latter in greater screen time. While it’s true to say that my interest dropped off a little in Hyperspace, I think I had enough residual goodwill towards the story to keep it going all the same.
The biggest issue here is that the resolution is all a bit too simple — though that feels like a bit of a running theme in this season so far. There’s a point not far from the end where it feels like Doctor Who has exhausted all his options. The Megara have refused to do what he wanted, there’s no way of him convincing them that Vivien is the criminal they’re really supposed to be hunting, and he’s about to be executed… and then he’s won. We get a line about the Megara only being able to scan a person’s memory in extreme situations, but it does feel like a bit of a cop out to just have them say ‘oh yeah’.
In spite of that, though, I’ve still found plenty to enjoy in this one. The Megara were far more entertaining than I’d expected, and I really like the realisation of them as flashing lights floating around the ship. It’s another one of those effects where — while I have my suspicions — I can’t tell entirely how it’s been created, so it looks rather good to me. They feel genuinely powerful, too. There’s a moment where they’re able to reduce an Ogri — already presented as almost unstoppable — to dust, simply by looking at the creature. And the idea of putting Doctor Who on trial is something they come back to so often because he’s just the right sort of character for it. He’s so verbose and intelligent, Tom Baker’s incarnation especially, that it’s just fun to watch him exploit legal loopholes.
There’s one thing which really does spoil this episode, and that’s the fact that Doctor Who doesn’t even say goodbye to Professor Rumford. He swans off into the TARDIS and leaves Romana to do the farewells. I like to imagine that some time later he suddenly realised his mistake and went back to collect her — even if we never got to see them I’m 100% believing that Doctor Who and Amelia got to travel time and space together.
Overall it’s another 7/10 for this one.
There’s not been much to note for TARDIS spotters lately, but the departure here gives us a rare side-on look at the box, which clearly reveals the lack of a sign box on the back, owing to the fact it was left completely empty during construction. It’s such a noticeable omission that I’m surprised they decided to frame it like this at all!
