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Doctor Who - The Hand of Fear

episode 87

UK 1976
produced by
Philip Hinchcliffe for BBC
directed by Lennie Mayne
starring Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Judith Paris, Rex Robinson, Glyn Houston, Stephen Thorne, Roy Skelton
written by Bob Baker, Dave Martin, script editor: Robert Holmes, music by Dudley Simpson

TV-series
Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Tom Baker), Doctor Who (classic series), Sarah Jane Smith

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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In his time (& pace) machine the TARDIS, Doctor Who (Tom Baker) takes his companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) back to present day England ... right into the middle of a quarry that's about to be blown up ...

Somehow, both of them survive the explosion unscathed, but Sarah Jane is in shock afterwards - and she has found a stone hand, which is first thought to be a fossile but later found out to be part of a crystalline life form (!). And what's more, when the hand is x-rayed, the radiation brings it back to life, and soon enough, it calls for Sarah (obviously the hand is telepathic) to take it to the nearest nuclear power station for more energy.

The power station is soon on the verge of becoming a desaster area when the hand has itself transported (though no longer by Sarah Jane) right into the highly radioactive center of the reactor, and Professor Watson (Glyn Houston), head of the power station, decides to have it A-bombed in fear of a terrorist attack ... but somehow, the hand absorbs the nuclear missiles as well as the power from the center of the reactor - and comes out a full-grown crystalline being, Eldrad (Judith Paris), who has been betrayed and condemned from her planet some 150 million years ago, and now, out of fear and distrust, acts hostile towards everyone and everything - but somehow the Doctor can convince her to come with him and Sarah back to Eldrad's home planet - but not 150 million years ago but in the now.

Eldrad's planet is booby-trapped to the hilt, as if someone would want to keep her from coming, made all the worse by the fact that she is slowly dying, but somehow the Doctor manages to carry her through all the death traps on the way to the recreation chamber, where Eldrad is finally restored to her (or rather his, she turns out to be male now) actual form, that of a borderline mad galactic conquerer (played by Stephen Thorne). And this was the fact why he was exiled from the planet in the first place by its benevolent ruler King Rokon (Roy Skelton), why the whole planet was boobytrapped and why the whole database Eldrad would need to recreate his race was erased. Eldrad, by now the last of his race by a few million years, is the new king of his planet, a king over nothing.

Enraged, Eldrad wants to force the Doctor to take him back to earth, where he can turn humankind into his new army ... which is what the Doctor cannot allow, and thus he has him trip into a bottomless abyss ...

In an unrelated story, the Doctor receives a call from his home planet Gallifrey, and since he can't take Sarah Jane to his planet with him, he takes her back to earth and bids her adieu - at which point Sarah Jane leaves the series for good ... safe for a few guest appearances.

 

Somehow, this episode seriously lacks direction. In the course of events it seems to want to tell four different stories: That of an energy sucking being threatening the nuclear power stations of earth, that of a frightened alien marooned on earth, that of a mad conquererhaving been duped by all those who opposed him, and that of Sarah Jane leaving the series ... and somehow, the four stories just don't work too well together, since none of them is allowed to develop its full potential, and with each new story, the previous just seems to be dying. A pity, could have been better with a more stringent screenplay.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

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Robots and rats,
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Tales to Chill
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Tales to Chill
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