Doctor Who:
The Hand of Fear
By Bob Baker & Dave
Martin
SARAH: Don't forget me.
DOCTOR: Oh, Sarah. Don't
you forget me.
SARAH: Bye, Doctor. You
know, travel does broaden the mind.
DOCTOR: Yes. Till we meet
again, Sarah.
The Doctor and Sarah
arrive in a quarry on Earth and the weird thing is they don’t realize that
there is something wrong. It couldn’t
have been any clearer for them as the warning alarms are going off which
indicates that blasting is about to commence.
There is even a guy waving his arms trying to get their attention and
when Sarah realizes that something is wrong it is too late as the place where
they are standing explodes into a sea of rock burring them under it.
The Doctor lucks out as he
is not buried all that bad but Sarah is under some huge boulders and is lucky
to be in an air pocket where she has escaped harm. Sarah starts reaching around when she freaks
out when she grabs an alien hand. For
some reason Sarah is still holding on to it and she even has the starnge ring that
was attached to it. At the hospital
Sarah is now possessed by the ring and is following the orders of the arm that “Eldrad
Must Live” and is instructed to head to the nuclear power plant to get the hand
near radiation so it can regenerate.
The problem that The Doctor and everyone else around is that if Sarah or anyone else possessed by Eldrads hand gets into the reactor they will trigger a nuclear explosion and take out half the country side. What happens is totally unexpected and The Doctor and Sara need to get Eldred off Earth and back to its home planet.
The Hand of Fear is the last
story that Sarah Jane Smith was a regular until her many guest appearances
later on in the show like in The Five Doctors and in the new series most
notably School Reunion. For a farewell
it kind of comes out the blue as there was not really any hint of her leaving
until the last 5 minutes of the story.
Other companions when it is their last story there is some hint throughout
the story of that they are leaving whether they are arguing a lot with the
Doctor or catch the eye of some handsome guy and leave because they fall in
love.
Well Sarah doesn’t get
that. She gets unceremoniously dumped
after The Doctor gets the call from Gallifrey as The Doctor deems it too dangerous
to bring her there. I never liked the
way that Sarah left the show and was glad that she got a proper send off in
School Reunion all those many years ago.
The Hand of Fear is an
interesting story. The first half we are
watching the people at the nuclear power plant squirm as the threat of a
nuclear explosion might occur and the second half is spent on Eldrads planet as
he figures out that he is a kind of a dead world. It is pretty basic but using the threat of a
nuclear explosion does build on the fears of the day as in the 70’s that was
something going through a lot of peoples mind at the time.
The story was well done
and focused a lot on Sarah being possessed and in essence she was the bad guy
for a third of the story. It was interesting
seeing The Doctor all concerned and trying to convince everyone that Sarah isn’t
herself and that he must be allowed to save her. The Doctor shows some real concern more than
he normally does toward Sarah which in a sense makes her dumping her just that
much sadder. Eldrad was an interesting
character and unfortunately he was more interesting as a female as the
character was trying to adapt to Earth and figure out what is going on. The Hand of Fear isn’t the best of stories
and not one of the worst but it is the last one for Sarah Jane Smith and does
hold a special place in classic Doctor Who fans hearts.
Grade B –
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