Who Reviews The Hand of Fear by Matt Rabjohns

To many fans the Hand of Fear must have been quite some monumental moment. For this was to be Elisabeth Sladen's last regular appearance in the show. And Sarah Jane Smith had quickly become one of the most enduring and popular companions to ever travel with the Doctor. And for the task of writing out the wonderful Miss Smith, we have stalwarts of Doctor Who, Bob Baker and Dave Martin on board. How much did they succeed in bringing about an epic finale for the character?

Let's start from the beginning. This story has many good points, but some bad ones too. Let's list the good point though first which far outweigh the bad. The first is the setting of the Nuclear power complex, this gives the story a genuinely unsettling feel as the makers of this story were permitted to enter and film in a real nuclear power station. This gives the scenes set there an added feel of realism indeed.

The opening shots in the quarry too are very nicely done. Especially the effects of the massive explosive demolition, although under a massive tirade like that I am rather dubious as to how Sarah emerges from it without a scratch at all. In fact, the Doctor looks the worse for wear than she does when emerging from the rubble. And judging by the amount of stones on top of her when she's discovered, how could she possibly have been left untouched?!

Elisabeth Sladen gets to act possessed in this story. And if there is one thing Lis was superb at, it was acting possessed. She is phenomenal within this story, with a cold dead pan icy featured face that really unnerved me when I first saw this story as a kid. She truly is one of the most superb actresses for unsettling one with her sublime performance as a person enslaved to a malign will.

Glyn Houston takes what could have been a totally thankless role of being the head of the Nuclear Complex and gives it a really nice amount of believability. Especially in the scene where he contacts his wife to tell her he will be on at the complex for some time. Sometimes the show really surprises you with its little moments of beautiful scripting that elevate a story no end. Glyn is sublime in this part and truly delivers all the goods as the character.

Rex Robinson makes his third appearance in a brilliant Lennie Mayne directed story. I always really liked his performances in the stories he appeared in. Here his performance as the ill-fated Dr Carter is dependable and he too is very good when possessed by the will of the Kastrian Eldrad.

The truly shining diamond of this story though is Judith Paris as the first, female form of Eldrad. Not only does her costume look extremely impressive, but she gives such a brilliant and engaging performance. She steals every scene she is in. And I for one actually for once can’t help but feel cheated a little when she is crushed on Kastria and reverts to her natural form. Stephen Thorne is good in this role, but this time he's not a patch on the sublime performance that Judith gives. The cliffhanger to part three also was one of those very very rare surprise endings that made me absolutely jump out of my skin when I first saw this episode. Judith's anguished cry of agony as she reels round with the kastrian spear through her is a triumph of a scene. After following this lead Stephen Thorne is left with a perfunctory over the top shouty performance which somewhat diminishes the character at the end of the day. And that he ends the story just by merely tripping over into a chasm feels like another far too easy cheat on behalf of the story's writers. After such a brilliant build up, it falls in its final hurdle.

And that's not the only way in which it fails. Considering just how superb and popular Sarah was as a character I can't help but feel that her goodbye scene to the Doctor is surprisingly extremely lacklustre. The scene of the Doctor not being able to take her to Gallifrey just smacks of yet another far too easy solution and leaves one rather deflated. Though Lis Sladen and Tom Baker do do the scene well, it just seems flat and uninspiring for an end of an era to me. Although I am very very glad, they didn't decide to kill the character off, I am also left somewhat underwhelmed by the climax of the story. In fact, this was the case with rather a lot of the Philip Hinchcliffe produced Doctor Who stories. They start grand and are all let down somewhat by a lacklustre finale. Although I did like the way she is annoyed with the Doctor after he's left, and she realises she is not in South Croydon at all but actually she's in Aberdeen! I love how she pats the dog on the head and just playfully states "Hey you, he blew it!" At least this very final scene did make me smile, it's just the main goodbye scene was totally uninspired and dull. Mind you I suppose I must be glad that at least Sarah Jane Smith gets an exit. Unlike Liz Shaw and Romana 1.

On the whole though The Hand of Fear is a reasonably solid story, with some very very good performances in it. But its marred by a crippled ending that sadly leaves rather a lot to be desired to this reviewer. Still saying this, it is still eminently superior to a huge amount of the new series episodes and that is for absolutely certain. This is just perhaps for me Bob and Dave's weakest story for the series and could have been so much better.