Doctor Who - The Hand of Fear [VHS] (1975)

The Doctor hypothesizes that the hand, originating from a silicon-based lifeform, is alive and is using radiation to regenerate itself. That does explain why Sarah comes out of the radiation chamber alive and well despite being exposed to enough radiation to kill a school of whales. But who or what is Eldrad?

There is a scene when the director of Nunton, Professor Watson, phones his wife and tells her in a calm voice that he may be delayed. He lies that there is nothing wrong and to kiss the children for him. This is when it looks like the facility might undergo meltdown. At the end of the call, his expression is one having resigned to the fact that he might well die before the day is over. This is Glyn Houston's best part in his role as Watson.

The crystalline costume for Eldrad is quite a beaut, which is clearly a blue-gray body suit with crystals and metal pieces attached to resemble a clump of jewels at various points. Judith Paris's portrayal of Eldrad retains the alien nature of this being, down to the voice. As Eldrad has been an alien exiled from Kastria and sentenced to obliteration, something that didn't succeed, the obsession of paranoia, in not trusting people, is well-acted. And the sight of a hand moving by itself isn't something one sees everyday. As Sarah says, "Careful, that's not as 'armless as it looks." Harmless, armless,... right.

The one thing that may throw fans is the farewell between the Doctor and one of his longest traveling companions. In contrast to the Third Doctor being shattered when Jo leaves him, here, the Fourth Doctor's not too emotional goodbye is a bit questionable. Then again, Tom Baker and Liz Sladen reworked that part of the dialogue themselves, so who knows?

The scenes in the nuclear plant, mainly episodes 2 and 3, are the bright points of The Hand Of Fear, as it's fast-moving and tense. Indeed, location filming was done at the Oldbury Nuclear Power Station in Avon, where the people there were enthusiastic in helping out the production team. Things slow down in the last episode, but it's an all right story.

The episode kicks off by making fun of the series itself: the TARDIS materializes in what looks like yet another rock quarry --Sarah immediately concludes that they have once again gone astray and landed on some remote alien planet. The joke is, of course, that they have in fact arrived in present-day England...in an actual rock quarry!

The first half of the story plays out in the present day, with the Doctor interacting with ordinary everyday characters in a hospital, a pathology lab, and a nuclear reactor complex --certainly no clue is given as to the long-ago and far-distant goings-on of the planet Kastria and the fate of its people. Eldrad goes from being a fright element that possesses people (in two cases, to their deaths), to an actual multifaceted --even passionate-- character who elicits some audience sympathy, then finally into a stomping, shouting, villain who only dreams of conquest --the sort of shallow character with which Sarah and the Doctor are altogether too familiar, thank you. Perhaps the Kastrians knew something about themselves and their nature that Eldrad was never willing to accept?

Of course this episode is critical to the overall Doctor Who story arc because it features Sarah Jane's departure; hands-down she is the most popular traveling companion in the series' history to date, and rumors of her exit actually make a few headlines and the evening news. Sarah certainly gets put through the ringer in her swansong: she is nearly crushed to death in a rockfall, she is possessed by an alien intelligence and nearly triggers a nuclear reactor meltdown; she is shot at, dodges alien traps and pitfalls with alarming regularity, and even must endure the indignity of being "re-hypnotized" by the Doctor all over again. It is little wonder that after departing Kastria, she snaps and launches into a long-overdue angry tirade. Actress Elizabeth Sladen improvises this "rant" with such petulance that the audience is clucking in total sympathy by the time she storms out. Not one of the greatest Dr. Who episodes of all time, but definitely one of the best of the Tom Baker era.