By Richard Sellers
Much like the last episode this one doesn’t really get going until the twelve minute mark. That’s how long it takes Earth command to decide to let Jamie go with The Doctor and Zoe in the three man rocket. The Doctor and Zoe are shoe-ins since they’re the only ones with any space flight experience on the entire planet. Ms. Kelly finally convinces them that Jamie can go since they don’t really need any one to fix the moon base since she can just walk them through the complicated machines by radio. Oh, and forget about the Tardis, it’s too unreliable for short distance travel.
As The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe make their way to the moon in the same model rocket the Eldred was showing off in the last entry in this series, the two remaining techs on the moon base are carrying out two very different plans. While the braver of the two escapes and sets about rigging traps and trying to contact Earth, the other cowardly bastard is willing doing the bidding of the Martians. He repairs the stations T-mat system, but as ordered he sets it only to receive.
At once Earth command sends Ms. Kelly and a couple burly technicians to try to get the base up and running. The sniveling tech tells them that his commander went nuts and killed everyone else after sabotaging the equipment.
Meanwhile the other surviving tech uses some heat lamps amped up by the station’s power supply to reduce one of the Martians to ash. Unfortunately this also causes the station’s landing beacon to go off line and since the rockets communication system went haywire shortly after liftoff, it looks like The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe might be making a new crater on the moon’s surface.
Although I’ve commented in the past about the awesome job done with such a small budget in this arch it really shows how little money they had. I was not kidding when I said the same model from the first episode was used for the rocket stand-in in this one. Along the plant pots and garden lights this was the worst use of miniatures I’ve seen in this series thus far.
Doctor Who #233 S06E05P02/ The Seeds of Death part 2
Original air date: February 1st, 1969
3/5 sniveling technicians
As Always, Richard
