Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 455: The Hand of Fear, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The pacing of this story is really throwing me. Episode One moves relatively slowly (though that doesn’t mean it’s boring in any way), then Episode Two really races by, with two nuclear threats and lots of people getting possessed by Eldrad. Then we reach Episode Three. I’d assumed Eldrad’s full reveal would be saved for use during a cliffhanger, so when it didn’t arrive yesterday, I wondered what that would mean for the pacing of today’s instalment. I wasn’t expecting to see the fully-formed creature emerge a little way into an episode.

I then also wasn’t expecting us to leave the location of the power station this early, either. I had no idea that we spent time actually on Kastria - I assumed we only saw it during that opening scene of the story. Events at the power station are left a bit suddenly, but we do at least get a nice send off for Professor Watkins wondering who’s going to believe him about all the events we’ve just been through!

To be honest, it was looking like we were heading for the kind of story I’m more familiar with from Dragonfire - the guest villain would want to get back to their home world, only to find that so long has passed, their world is long since dead. There’s certainly shades of that kind of story in here, but at least there’s a home for Eldrad to return to. I’m convinced that there’s more to her story than we’re being told, though. If she’s such a key person in that planet’s evolution, why would they have been so keen to destroy her? The booby trap in the cliff hanger adds another dimension to the culture, too. Did she place it there to deter intruders, or was it designed to keep her at bay should she ever return?

I’m also loving her bargaining with the Doctor. This season is seeing a heightened amount of ‘Time Lord’ being added in to his character, and it’s making for an interesting new thread. During the Pertwee years (and even into Season Twelve and Thirteen), the Doctor was unhappy to be sent on missions for his people, but now he seems to be talking a greater interest in their cause. During The Masque of Mandragora, he claims that it’s ‘part of a Time Lord’s job’ to step in and save the day against the Helix. Here, when Eldrad questions him about his home world, he says again that he has to protect the indigenous population when they’re threatened. Obviously, the next story will see our first proper trip to Gallifrey (as opposed to the brief excursion at the end of The War Games), so maybe they’re trying to thread them in deeper in preparation?

And then there’s all the stuff in the TARDIS. I only touched on the new console room briefly when it first appeared in the last story (to be fair, it does only make a fleeting appearance itself before we’re off to Italy), but now that we get to spend some proper time in here I’m really rather fond of it. As I said the other day, this room has always stuck out as something of an anomaly, but I’m really rather impressed by the set. Something about it feels so right, and it really does suit Tom’s Doctor. We’re given a slightly odd description of it, though. The Doctor explains that when they’re inside the TARDIS, they don’t really exist, so they can’t be harmed. Now, in one of the Matt Smith stories he describes this ‘state of temporal grace’ as being a clever lie - so maybe he’s trying to throw Eldrad off here? - but it is a bit of an odd one!