Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 13- The Trickery Lantern

 "Well, one can't desert a brother when he's put a fork through his foot."

So that's it, certainly for this season. This has bee a decent little quirky kids' farcical comedy, but I can't say it's more than quite good, or is particularly worth watching for those, like myself, with no particular nostalgic memories of the programme. It is, at this point, by no means certain that I will eventually blog the second series. It's more Sapphire and Steel first.

This final episode is different from the various farces that preceded it in that this is the episode where Catweazle- suddenly, after a much underexplained epiphany at the end of next episode- knows how to get back to the th century just like that. It feels very much as though he's doing this just because the series is ending, which he literally is. But at least we finally have an episode where the reset button won't just be pushed at the end.

It's also nice, and unexpected, to see a young-looking Nana Moon from EastEnders as Flo, George's ghost-obsessed sister, who seems to recognise Catweazle as a ghost from her childhood- it's a shame the episode doesn't end with Catweazle travelling back only forty years to meet her as a little girl.

So thar's it. I'm almost as shocked as Carrot to see Catweazle go. I assume the next series doesn't have quite the same premise?

Go on then. I'll watch the next season if anyone can persuade me it's worth my while!

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 12- The Wisdom of Solomon

 "My mum's cousin had a horse that looked like that once. We had to shoot it."

This penultimate episode of the series is the best we've had in a while. Patricia Hayes is splendidly awful as the vile Mrs Skinner, whom George has hired as a housekeeper along with her equally loathsome son Arthur who goes to school with Carrot (their uniforms have caps.which dates the episode just as much as the reference to ten bob), and threatens to ruin and expose everything. They are by far the modt effectively evil baddies we've had so far, and the theatrically passive-aggressive Mrs Skinner is a masterful creation.

Their nastiness makes their inevitable comeuppance at Catweazle's hands all the more enjoyable.

This all even leads to permanent changes- Castle Saburac is no longer available, while Catweazle has an idea, involving water. I somehow suspect he won't be arund much longer, and I'll be able to replace Catweazle with the second series of Sapphire & Steel...

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 11- The Flying Broomsticks

"I shall not be so easily gulled by false magic!"

This episode is pretty much a farce, as they all are, but it's above the usual standard. We even get some minor arc progression as Catweazle finally exhausts Rapkyn's spell book. Never mind the fact that Sam starts out back in Geirge's employ again, as though nothing at all had happened between them.

This time the foil is a new police sergeant, a city boy who knows not of country ways. So, when he ses broomsticks being nicked and burned (Catweazle's doing, of course), he assumes some kind of satanic ceremony. And a series of comical misunderstandings puts Sam in potential trouble although his only actual offence is to be late renewing his car insurance.

The farce is well done, and the ending is both funnier and goes further than expected. There's even a nice little subtext in how the town copper is too quick to stereotype country people. Nevertheless, even a good episode of this is not quite enough to make me anything other than relieved there are only two episodes to go.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 10- The House of the Sorcerer

 "Canst thou wind me back?"

It's still all farce... but this is a better episode. Yes, it concerns an an eccentric wildlife obsessive, a nice little guest part for Bernard Hepton, who is mistaken, inevitably, for a wizard by Catweazle, with predictable farcical hijinks ensuing. But there's also an amusing little scene where Sam quits, and both he and George dissolve into childish argument in what is a rather good little bit of character comedy. Will he get his old job back after the end?

The best bit, of course, is a glimpse at life in 1970, hence the hijinks with tape- and, with some jealously, how easy it seems to be to casually quit a job and start a new one. Overall, though, there's not much going on here.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 9- The Demi Devil

 "No more monkey business!"

In a sense, this is yet another straightahead farce, in this case based aroung the idea of Catweazle thinking he's turned Carrot into a monkey, and later getting blotto on posh wine. I realise farces are complex and take skill to write well, but I'm struggling wth this series and may not watch the second series. That's no reflection on the cast, but I personally cannot subsist on a diet of farce alone.

Geoffrey Bayldon is nevertheless superb, as ever, but the character he's playing is now starting to seem a bit one-note. It's also extremely cool, mere weeks after the casting coup of Hattie Jacques, to get another Carry On star in Peter Butterworth to play the Colonel, although he's blatantly too good for the part.

Otherwise, I'm just hoping- probably in vain- that the last four episodes of this series give us something a bit different.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Bruce Partington Plans

 "All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men cannot avail us in this matter."

This is the final episode in the guise of The Return of Sherlock Holmes; sees the return of Charles Gray as Mycroft; and is one of the finest episodes thus far, after a couple that were perhaps a little below par. It's a fitting end to the eighties for the regular episodes.

Brett and Hardwicke are very much on form, with plenty of character moments, and the deduction in this episode is first class- the way Holmes sees the significance of the points, and what they mean for Cadogan West's place of death, is an extraordinary sequence. We also have some superb guest actors, not least of which is Catweazle himself.

It's also exciting, especally at the end, so see Sherlock Holmes straying into spy territory. It's also interesting to see how Mycroft is far more important within the Civil Service than we had previously been told, beng a kind of proto-Cabinet Secretary. This is an appalingly small Civil Service, too, with "clerks" being given what seem like senior responsibilities. On the other hand, "junior clerk" Cadogan West appears to be paid rather well, so some Victorian values are certainly worth emulating. It's also instructive that MI5 does not yet exist, so Inspector Bradstreet is called in.

Diversions aside, though, this is a truly fine episode.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 8- The Power of Adamcos

 "I am doomed!"

"Here, have some more brandy."

Now that's much better. This whole episode is pretty much just a farce about Caweazle losing his dagger, Adamcos, and the hilarious goings-on in retrieving it, but it's amusing enough, and Geoffrey Bayldon carries the whole thing as ever.

The comedy has some nicely done moments too- Catweazle trying to use the "telling bone" from last episode, and Mr Milton fainting as a figure rises from the sarcophagus. And of course it's fun to see Catweazle running from "Normans", however contrived the explanation.

What really stands out, though, and reminds you that this is 1970, is the fact that George is so casually unbothered about Carrot being off somewhere and not panicking as a parent would today. Also there's the casually unbothered attitude towards knives (they're for whittling, not stabbing!) and the incredibly camp, very Julian and Sandy antiques dealer played by Aubrey Morris at a time where being camp was fine but actual gay sex had been illegal just three years previously. As ever with Catweazle, what really fascinates is the social mores of fifty years ago.

And yes, I am offended by the fact that 1970 was fifty-one years ago...

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 7- The Telling Bone

 "Though braying bolster! Thou black beehive!"

This episode is... well, more of the same. It's another farce, as Catweazle's spell goes wrong and he ends up not in the 11th century but hanging precariously on to a church spire, where he meets the vicar (Mr Barraclough from Porridge) and a series of comical misunderstandings ensue, mostly based around the telephone.

Also, Sam has a vintage car, which he gots for £10 and which Mr Bennet disparages as an old banger. I suppose, in 1970, it would be the equivalent of an old '80s banger. But all we get is by-the-book farce and comedy based on Sam's mother being a bit of a battleaxe. Bayldon is wonderful, as ever, and so is Brian Wilde. But this episode is a bit of a pointless misfire. Kids' telly should aim higher than this.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 6- The Magic Face

 "Such an English face!"

This is, perhaps, one of the more bog standard episodes with little to make it stand out. Even the plot, an American photographer (and isn't it amusing these days to see film having to be developed, much as the quality was generally better?) taking a picture of Catweazle and his thinking that he is therefore her slave, is humdrum. The fact that Mrs Derringer is such a stereotypical American also helps to give the impression that rather less care was taken with this script than some of the others.

Still, whatever else is going on and in spite of the unremarkableness of the episode, Geoffrey Bayldon continues to be eminently watchable and charismatic, as even Mrs Derringer can see. 

Two shillings an hour to wash a car, that's slavery, though...

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 5- The Eye of Time

) "Thou ass-eared turnspit!"

I know I've done several episodes of Catweazle in a row and seem to be procrastnating over the last ever episode of Life on Mars. Bear with me; things are a bit hectic. Catweazle is short so it's something I can just about manage to blog when time is short. Life on Mars concludes soon, then other stuff will follow.

This is a fine little episode, amusing as ever with Catweazle getting some truly splendid dialogue for the mighty Geoffrey Bayldon to deliver. Even better, the wonderful, extremely funny and actually rather sexy Hattie Jacques is in this in a nice little role as a fortune teller in cahoots with the local betting shop. Catweazle has her number in a wonderful scene in which the two of them get to spar magnificently. It's a real treat to get a guest star of this calibre. In theory, with Catweazle being able to predict every horse race, he and Carrot can become millionaires and lead a life of luxury- but dad says no, and that's that. And Catweazle, for some reason, still wants to return to his extremely unpleasant time.

Yet again it's fascinating, fifty years on (this was filmed in late 1969) to see a Britain in which bets are "five bob" each way and a fortune telling is "seven and six".

Asylum (1972)

"Never turn your back on a patient..."

I've seen a far few Amicus portmanteau horrors by now; I know the score: three or so flashback segments, each a suitably camp little horror story before the framing sequence becomes a story in its own right, with a twist at the end.

This film fits the template exactly and, while there are better examples among the other Amicus anthologies I've seen, this film doesn't disappoint in following the template to perfection while giving us some enjoyably camp body horror and some gleefully insentitive attitudes to mental heath, the camera lingering early on over some lurid old James Gilray cartoons set in a Georgian asylum.

The first sequence, starring a delightfully gruff Richard Todd, is splendidly bonkers, with body parts wrapped up in parcels attacking an adulterous couple in order to exact revenge. The whole concept starts out serious and sinister but soon dissolves superbly into farce in the best way possible.

The second story is a bizarre tale involving a tailor, Jewish stereotypes, and a great deal of fairytale logic. This one is genuinely creepy and arguably the best tale of the lot, with the dark fairytale quality and the presence of Peter Cushing elevating it somewhat, although it is of course as camp as a row of tents.

The third sequence, with Britt Ekland and Charlotte Rampling, perhaps drags a little and is slightly lacking in camp, although Rampling's evil laugh is a thing of magnificence. But the fourth sequence, with its little murdering doll, is just pure weirdness, but you have to admire the decision to actually proceed with something so stark raving bonkers. This is where the framing sequence comes into its own, with a strong performance from Robert Powell and a superb one from Geoffrey Bayldon.

Not every sequence is brilliant. But the whole film is enormous fun throughout.
 

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 4- The Witching Hour

 "I say, they boy's hair needs a jolly old cut!"

I'm not saying this is the greatest television programme ever or anything- it's a kids' show from the Light Channel- but I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. On the surface it's a fun little farce based on a bit of misdirection- Carrot thinks his dad is going to marry the rich Miss Bonington to save the farm, but actually she's just an influential councillor whom George (his dad has a name!) needs planning permission and not, in fact, a "shrew".

It's fun, it's splendid stuff, but there are all sorts of questions. Is the farm in financial trouble? Is Carrot's family (what happened to his mum?) landed gentry who are now falling on hard times? Why, for that matter, is Catweazle (still with Rapkyn's spellbook) want to travel back to his own unpleasant time, full of nasty racist Normans, rather than stay in 1970 where nobody wants to kill him? I approve of Catweazle's view of hairdressers as "monstrous", though. Hair is, indeed, magic. Mrs Llamastrangler gives me a very slight trim every six months, whether I need it or not. That's enough for anyone.

But, as ever, much of the attraction is gawking at domestic life in 1970. The HP Sauce bottle. The cars. The fashions in the hairdressers. The glimpse of the high street, including a Spar. This programme may not be the deepest stuff ever, but it's such fun.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 3- The Curse of Rapkyn

  "'Tis all here, Touchwood. Here lies our way back!"

Another fun little episode here as Catweaze discovers a curse on the farm, helps Carrot get rid of it while getting into a series of scrapes while ending up with a spellbook at the end.

There's more slapstick humour, which works well and showcases Geoffrey Bayldon's comic talent as, among other things, he chases Touchwood around the museum as a bunch of schoolgirls- and their teachers- scream at the toad. There's also a highly enjoyable guest spot from a pre-Last of the Summer Wine Peter Salls who, this time, leaves the Yorkshire vowels to Catweazle.

It's also amusing, half a century later, to see £800 referred to as a massive amount of money, and reassuring that no one seems remotely bothered by the references to Beelzebub and Lucifer, amongst various pagan entities. You certainly wouldn't get away with that on kids' TV today.

It's easy viewing, yes- it's old kids' TV- but I'm enjoying this.

Catweazle: Series 1, Episode 1- The Sun in a Bottle

 "I'll feed thee anon, bizzlegut!"

Fear not; I'm stil blogging the usual stuff, I just needed something short to fill limited time. So this isn't, at least for now, the start of me blogging all of Catweazle, not least because Britbox only has this episode.

It's a fun little kids' show, though; the fashions and, especially, the cartoon opening titles, reveal this to be a fifty year old television programme, but it's a wonder to behold. I can't begin to imagine anything like this being made today, party because it's very noticeably an all-male cast (did nobody notice?), but because fun, intelligent, whimsical, live action telly for children is a thing of the past.

This is an entertaining and successful introductory episode in that it introduces Catweazle- a wizard from 11th century England, shortly after the Conquest, who finds himself in a spot of bother with a bunch of Normans speaking a suspiciously modern, Parisian French and then, via some kind of magic, a barn somewhere in the West Country in the age of Harold Wilson and Jimi Hendrix. It's quite a culture shock, and we have some fun with tractors end electric lights while establishing his friendship with young Carrot, and that he's to be kept a secret.I think we probably ought to gloss over the fact that modern English and old English are certainly not mutually intelligible.

But there are two things which are truly wonderful. One is Gorffrey Bayldon's extraordinary charismatic performance, bonkers yet mesmerising from the first scene as a character who nicely taps into that contemporary counterculture fascination with a pagan past- never mind that pre-conquest England was nothing of the sort. And the other, despite the historical nonsense of having Catweazle speak a kind of cod-Shakespearan early modern English from much closer to our time than his, is the poetic richness of the dialogue.

One day, I hope, I shall see more.

Tales from the Crypt (1972)

"Who's next? Perhaps... you?"

At last I get to see a proper Amicus portmanteau film; I’ve been meaning to for ages. And this one certainly doesn’t disappoint. The format means the film never flags, and the top notch cast and direction make for a superbly unsettling experience.

I’ve never read any of the EC comics upon this was based (although I certainly do know that Dr Fredric Wertham smelled of poo, and was a quack to boot) but I get a distinct impression of the lurid style here, and highly entertaining here. The framing device is simple; a bunch of tourists get lost in a crypt and accosted by a sinister monk, who speaks with the actorly tones of none other than Ralph Richardson, who is having enormous fun here. We hear their sinister stories one by one until the conclusion gives us a delightful twist.

All of the stories are compelling, although some more than others, and there are standout performances from the likes of Peter Cushing in one of his best roles, but the segments are carried well by the likes of Joan Collins, Ian Hendry and an unrecognisable Richard Greene, too old for Sherwood Forest. There are powerful moments- the Balentine’s Card scene is heartbreaking- and the comeuppance of the mean major by the blind men he’s been mistreating is glorious. I’m not sure it’s an obvious leap from EC Comics to a film directed by Freddie Francis and crammed with British character actors, but it really works.

Dracula (1958)

“Sleep well, Mr Harker…”

We get a statement of intent very early on, with some blood spattering on to a coffin- these early Hammer horror films certainly like their bright Technicolor red blood!

We're in some vague part of Horror Film Mittel-Europa in 1885. As with Curse of Frankenstein, this is a stylised and intentionally vague setting.  Jonathan Harker is heading to Castle Dracula and, in a slight nod to the epistolatory nature of the novel, this part of the plot is narrated through his diary. The inside of the castle is at the same time luxurious and bleak, with the large rooms marked by harsh straight lines and a total absence of carpets or any hint of softness.

After a brief and disturbing encounter with a woman whom Dracula is apparently taken prisoner, Harker finally meets Christopher Lee’s Count who, although sinister, appears polite enough, to the point of complimenting a picture of Harker’s fiancée, Lucy Holmwood. It seems Harker, a scholar, is to work as his librarian, but it soon becomes apparent that Dracula is only available during the hours of darkness, and that Harker’s door is locked during the night.

But Harker, we learn, has ulterior motives, and is here to kill the notorious Count, who from this point on ceases to be a character and just becomes a monster, never speaking another line for the rest of the film. But poor Harker is doomed; he agrees to help the temptress he met earlier, and gets bitten in the course of a vamp-fight between her and the, er, vampire. Both she and Drac look great, and there’s lots and lots of blood.

Harker, himself doomed to become undead, manages to make it to the crypt before sundown, but chooses to stake the woman before the Count himself. WHY?

The inevitable happens, and we cut to Peter Cushing in one of those Hammer inns where all the locals stop talking as soon as a stranger enters. Still, armed with Harker’s diary, he’s soon delivering the news of Harker’s death to Arthur Holmwood (played by Michael Gough, later to play the Celestial Toymaker in Doctor Who and Alfred in Tim Burton’s Batman), brother of Harker’s fiancée, and his wife Mina, future star of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s splendid The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He receives a frosty reception, however, and Lucy can’t be told the news as she’s very ill with anaemia.

We soon see the reasons for this, however; Lucy is delivering her windows open at night and removing her crucifix, allowing Dracula to come in and bite her, night after Night. The erotic charge is so electric here that I’d be tempted to say “get a room, you two” except… they have. For the first time in the film we have the obvious use of vampirism as a metaphor for sex, and as we’ll see this tells us quite a lot about the sexual mores of late Victorian times as opposed to the late 1950s. On the surface this is an unhealthily puritanical message about sex but I don’t think the film is quite playing this straight. Like Curse of Frankenstein there’s something camply humorous about this film, even if it’s played very, very deadpan.

It’s a bit jolting to see Van Helsing listening to audio recordings of himself, even if it is from an ancient-looking gramophone and even though his butler seems to be amazed. There are plenty of audio recordings from the 1880s on Youtube (look for Gladstone and a very drunk Robert Browning!) but none of them have anything approaching this sound quality.

Van Helsing uses this rather obvious expository device to inform us that vampire bites are addictive and that this eventually results in death through loss of blood. Consulted by Mina, he soon discovers that this is what is happening to Lucy. He orders the windows to be closed and Lucy’s bed to be surrounded by garlic, but this is not adhered to and the girl dies.

Van Helsing now has no choice but to let Arthur into his confidence, especially as the undead Lucy is now walking the grounds of the house, threatening their daughter Tania. Arthur catches the undead Lucy the following night, and is only saved from being bitten by Van Helsing. These scenes are atmospheric, effective, and really bring home how this film is set in a dreamlike, stylised world of cemeteries, castles, inns, sleepy border guards and nothing else, which feels culturally German, Slavic and Romanian all at once, and vaguely evokes the cultural mix of Habsburg Austria, yet is full of characters with English names.

Lucy is stakes, and Van Helsing and Arthur have a bit of a chat in some comfy chairs with some brandy, as gents in Hammer films are wont to do. It seems that vampires cannot in fact turn into bats; evidently the budget won’t stretch that far. But, just as our heroes are beginning to get a grip, Mina is lured to Dracula’s base of operations, and from that point onwards is under his spell. Again, there’s a sexual subtext here, and in this case it’s a rather emasculating one for poor old Arthur; apparently he’s not satisfying her. Actually, given the blatant eroticism of what can only be described as the sex scene between Dracula and Mina, I’m not sure the word “subtext” is entirely appropriate…

Arthur’s implied emasculation is even more tragic as he’s clearly a decent and loving husband, as we see him selflessly donating an alarming amount of blood to save his wife, who presumably shares the same blood group. Understandably, he’s a little sapped after this, but Van Helsing has some sound medical advice: “Now, you need plenty of fluid. Tea, coffee or, better still, wine.” Yes, that’s right, Van H. Wine isn’t in any way dehydrating, is it?

We finish with a chase, incorporating a bit of comic relief at the border, and Dracula’s final gruesome death by sunlight. An excellent film, this- atmospheric, just erotic enough, just gory enough and very well-acted indeed.

Doctor Who: The Creature From the Pit

Part One

“What are you doing in the Place of Death?"

“Oh, just pottering around. I have this insatiable curiosity, you see… why do you call it the Place of Death?”

“Because anyone found here is automatically condemned to death.”

“Ah.”

This is a story I’d been looking forward to immensely, as I remember finding this story an utter delight back when it was released on video- silly in a good, Season Seventeeny way, with lots of Douglas Adams-esque witty dialogue which often did extyreme violence to the fourth wall. Plus, it’s written by David Fisher, who penned two great stories last season. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, K9’s new voice, for a start. Perhaps it’ll grow on me, but David Brierley’s vocal style lacks the prissiness of John Leeson’s, and doesn’t deliver the lines the same way. K9 suddenly seems to have lost a large chunk of his personality.

The TARDISeers land on an alien planet where the our heroes attacked by silly yet convincing looking “Wolfweeds” and threatened with death by Eileen Way, a real face from the past. Some of the dialogue sparkles a bit, but it all seems a little formulaic, however much this is acknowledged in the dialogue. And then we get our hirsute cockney bandits, who all seem to be played like Fagin and out to pick a pocket or two. This is a little unfortunate, especially as they’re portrayed as grasping and greedy. Still, I love Romana’s attitude to being captured, and the cool way she contrives her escape.

It’s quite surprising to see Morris Barry turning up in an acting role here, executed for his unfortunate lack of “a teaspoon and an open mind”. But the main baddy is played in a suitably pantomimish fashion by Myra Frances- it’s not a particularly subtle performance but Lady Adastra is such a fun character, and there’s no other way her lines could have been delivered. She’s a pure cipher, but this is of course quite deliberate. This story knows exactly the sort of thing it is, as clearly shown by the dialogue’s frequently wrecking ball-like relationship with the fourth wall: “We call it… the pit!” / “Ah, you have such a way with words…”. It’s just that, for the first time in the Graham Williams era, this is all starting to sound a slightly troubling note. This story may know it’s a formulaic runaround crammed with stock characters, but that doesn’t stop it being a formulaic runaround crammed with stock characters.

Oh, and why on Earth does the Doctor just chuck himself into the pit at the end?

Part Two

“We call it… the creature!”

“Ah. That’s original.”

There’s a justly famous scene at the beginning of the episode, with the Doctor, hanging off a ledge halfway down the pit, consulting a climbing manual called Everest in Easy Stages. It’s in Tibetan, so the Doctor pulls out another tome from his bottomless pockets, this time titled Teach Yourself Tibetan. It’s a terrific gag, and I wouldn’t dream of being so churlish as the bring up any linguistic skills the Doctor may or not have displayed in Planet of the Spiders.

We get introduced to the fab Geoffrey Bayldon as Organon in this episode, and he gets by far the best line: “The future foretold, the past explained, the present… apologised for.” We’re also introduced to the eponymous creature, which looks almost exactly like a massive green… words fail me.

We’re introduced fully to the underlying concept behind the story here too- metal is rare and Adastra has the monopoly. It’s fundamentally a sound basis for a story, but never explored in any depth. In fact, much about this society is left vague- what’s the tech level? What about those other communities without a metal mine? How come a single mine produces so many different kinds of metals?

Part Three

“I thought you were dead! Why haven’t you died?”

“I’m sorry, my lady. It was… an oversight.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that this isn’t going to be as good as I remembered it. It has lots of good one-liners and a fun camp villain, both of which protect it from falling too low in my affections, but I must admit the plot itself is very much by the numbers. Plus, I don’t like the way an astrologer is allowed to be a major character in here without astrology being seriously questioned at any point. That’s not the way Doctor Who has traditionally dealt with the subject.

The most eye-popping moment in this episode (and perhaps in all of Doctor Who thus far!) is a certain moment involving the Doctor and the creature’s, er, protuberance. I suspect it’s this more than the story’s perceived shortcoming that led to this story being one of the last out on video and is delaying its DVD release.

Part Four

“Have a care, Doctor!”

“Have a care yourself. Have a care for your people for a change.”

We finally get the big revelation- the creature, or Erato, is in fact an ambassador from Tythonius, who rather conveniently comes from a world with loads of metal and a deficit in chlorophyll, and arrived on this world to arrange a trade. Adrasta, wishing to retain her monopoly, kidnapped him, shoved him into a pit, and proceeded to drop engineers and astrologers on him. Instead of, say, just killing him. Once the secret is out, both Erato and her own people have a bone to pick with Adrasta and she is quickly killed. End of story. Except we’ve still got most of the episode to fill.

And there lies the problem- with the plot wrapped up, the episode just feels like padding to fill up the time until the end of the episode. Which is exactly what it is. And I’m not entirely sure the science is accurate!

Well, I’ve not exactly been complimentary about this story, but in spite of everything it has enough wit and charm about it to protect it from a seriously low rating. This is an odd one, the first genuine guilty pleasure because the fact is, despite its faults, I can’t help being fond of The Creature From the Pit. 3/5.