"This whole place is one big booby trap!"
And she's not wrong. This is a lovely linear episode, moving from left to right around Lime Grove's Studio D. We start in the jungle where Susan hears voices and noises and decides to have a nervous breakdown. Maybe it's the thought of another jungle. And she did so well on Skaro.
There are some lovely set designs by Ray Cusick...
Then we move through the arch and find the statue with the human arms.
We're just wondering if this is stretching believability a bit far when there's a fabulous moment of realism as the soldier statue takes a swipe at Ian, even leaving an imprint of its axe on the paving slab. Great stuff, and unknowingly prescient of the marvellous Gundan robots far, far in the series' future.
While Ian goes to get an iron bar and ends up behind a load of them, Barbara moves through a door and finds herself in a chain mail net under a descending ceiling bristling with sharp sticks!
Luckily our trap setter gets to her in time and we move through the next door in time to rescue him from his own botched experiment.
I know it was his own silly fault, but I felt rather sorry for Darrius (in the picture above with Barbara). He's obviously lived alone for ages and then when genuine people turn up he pops his clogs within five minutes of meeting them. (The actor does reappear, however, in several future stories playing William Hartnell's double.)
Through one last door to my favourite scene with Ian and Barbara looking for DE302 in Darrius's laboratory as the jungle encroaches.
I was taken right back to the two of them in Ian's own laboratory in Coal Hill School and reminded that their utter realism is so important in order to contrast with the alien worlds around them. And I count our own past and the Doctor and Susan amongst those. Two great actors playing two strong and well-drawn characters.
They find the key and escape in the nick of time only to find themselves freezing to death in...
Next episode: The Snows of Terror
Article: And Now on BBC1...
