The eighth season of Doctor Who arrives with a strong start in some respects, albeit more of a crash-bang-wallop one when compared to some of the slower stories of the previous season. The faceless plastic Autons return but this time they are assisted by a new character – another Timelord called The Master (a man who doesn't struggle with self-doubt, that's for sure). The Master is clearly up to something and while UNIT and the Doctor race to stop him, The Master is using his mind control to produce plastic items which, when activated, will attack and kill the nearest humans.
The short number of episodes in this serial does mean that it doesn't meander very much and instead it plays pretty quickly through the plot, all the time using that pace to cover up plot holes and some narrative devices that don't particularly work. The story works pretty well, mainly because it has some pretty scary moments; okay they are a little comical if you look at them in the cold light of day, but there are some frightening ideas in there whether it be the toy demon, the Autons with oversized smiling heads, or the famous scene of a man suffocated by a chair. There are more moments like this which are perhaps not as effective but at least still feed into the pace and action of the serial; so for example, the Doctor fighting with a telephone wire, Jo able to knock out a strongman with a drinking glass, or the Doctor showing himself a lot less thoughtful than Batman when it comes to bomb disposal. Ultimately it ends with a bit of an anticlimax (nobody can catch up with a bus?) and feels a bit disposable by virtue of how short it is, but it is still a pretty engaging story.
The addition of The Master is a good one and he is well acted from the get-go by Delgado. He is quite charming, although perhaps his interactions with Pertwee could have had a bit more in the way of edge. Pertwee himself is fin – direct, dramatic and impatient (but not to the point where I disliked him). Courtney gives solid work, but the scientific companion of Liz has been pushed out and replaced by a much simpler character – one that the writers clearly know what they are doing with, since she is a rather ditzy figure. No offence to Caroline John, but the whole seventh season I did feel like nobody knew what her character was and often tried to push her round peg into a square hole. With Manning's Jo things are much simpler and she copes well with the low demands of the material – run, scream, need things explained, stuff like that. She does fine with this but there is not much more to her than that. Wisher's Farrel is well played – a rather tragic figure all told and I felt for him while allowing him to be a good plot device to keep things moving.
A good start to the season then, with plenty of action, new characters, and genuinely quite unsettling moments and images. Will be interesting to see what it does with all the changes, and if the season keeps up that sense of pace and action that it had here.
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