Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 454: The Hand of Fear, Episode Two
Dear diary,
I spent much of The Masque of Mandragora banging on about just how brilliant the locations looked, but the same is true of this story - perhaps to an even greater extent. Oldbury Nuclear Power Station, used for the interiors of the Nunton Power Complex, is huge, so it really makes an impact on screen. Way back during The Dalek Invasion of Earth, I was impressed because when Ian and the Doctor found a flight of stairs to go up, the camera followed them… and just kept going! I’d become so used to the size of set the programme could build, and was ready for them to cut away. That same feeling is in place here today, when the Doctor and Dr. Carter rush after Sarah, and then engage in a fight on a gangway. Watching as Carter falls over the edge and plummets to his death below only helps to increase the scale.
It’s also inspiring some rather brilliant direction from Lennie Mayne, in his final work on the series. While the location is vast, and we’re able to get some stunning shots which really highlight how much space they have to play in this week, many of the individual areas of the power station are very cramped, filled high with machinery and equipment. Thus, they’re having to be clever with the placement of the camera when they’re taking many of the close up shots. Mayne has turned this into part of the serial’s style, and you notice that the shots are becoming more and more unusual as we focus on any character who’s been possessed by Eldrad.
Ah yes, Eldrad. I know enough about this story to know that - at some stage - the hand will grow into a crystalline blue woman, but I’m surprised it wasn’t the cliffhanger to this episode. I’m assuming it will come as the next cliffhanger, meaning that she spends less time being part of the plot than I’d expected. Instead, we’re left with the hand to entertain us for these 25 minutes. That’s not a complaint, mind, because it’s very well realised. There’s some shots where the CSO trickery is very evident (and one where you can tell the actor is being hidden away just behind the set), but then there’s other bits, like that first shot of the hand coming to life in the tupperware box, where I really can’t tell how it’s been done. I’m assuming that it’s CSO, the same as elsewhere, but it’s just done far better than I’m used to!
Aside from the effects and the location, I’m really rather fond of the characters we’ve got in this one, too. Just as with Giuliano and Marco in the last story, it feels like we’re being given added depth to the characters here. Many of them are scotched in with the briefest of lines, but it gives us just enough detail to fill in the rest of their story. I wondered, for example, what the relationship might be between Miss Jackson and Professor Watson: there’s enough of a hint between them to suggest that there’s a little bit of a workplace romance going on. And then, when things get dire, he’s sent everyone out of the building… and he phones his wife. It’s a beautiful exchange (where he even briefly speaks to his daughter), and while he never tells her that something serious is happening and that he might not come home that night, he tells her everything she needs to hear for a final conversation.
In The Writer’s Tale, during the planning of The Waters of Mars, Russell T Davies speaks a lot about how important the ‘messages from home’ are for the crew of Bowie Base One. He talks of the way they ground the story in reality, while at the same time helping to reaffirm just how remote the situation is. It has the same effect here, and it helps Watson to be ever more real. I do wonder if the dram is undercut somewhat by having the complex evacuated, then bringing the staff back in, only to evacuate it again: It’s difficult to take the threat seriously a second time (indeed, there was once a day at work when the fire alarm went off three times. By the end, we were genuinely unsure wether to bother going back inside again). But that one phone call, a brief scene of calm in an episode where a lot is happening, means that I care about Watson. I worry that he may end up becoming collateral damage before the story is out - and I feel sorry for his wife and daughter. Now that’s an example of good writing in a Doctor Who episode.
