Rate and Discuss: Stones of Blood

http://home.comcast.net/~smanfred/5c2.jpg

Count the stones! Beware the Ogri!

David Fisher's first Doctor Who story, but is it a good one or not?

I'm split on this one. The first two episodes merit a 10, they are fabulous. People say that the horror was toned down after Robert Holmes left, but the Ogri and their lust for blood are sheer Hammer Horror. Death is usually downplayed a bit in Doctor Who, but we get someone reduced to a skeleton in this story, fully visible on screen!

And you've got wonderful characters too. Vivien, Professor Rumford and Romana work so well together, they could have spun off into their own little drama or sitcom. They're delightful.

I don't think the denouement with the Megara is totally awful, but it is really out of keeping with the build up. There should have been a better way to resolve this story. Perhaps if they'd taken the ending of K-9 and Company and used that here... I like the business with hyperspace and the silver paint for the Calieach looks superb, but it doesn't feel right.

So it's halfway towards being the best story of the season. There's so much to love and with a re-write of the ending, it would have been one of the best Doctor Whos ever.

The Stones of Blood is my favourite story of The Key to Time season. It's dark and atmospheric. Like the previous season's Image of the Fendahl, it briefly returns to the Philip Hinchcliffe Gothic era of the programme.

There's some great acting especially Beatrix Lehmann as Professor Rumford who could have become a companion. However, it's perhaps best she didn't as the actress died a few months later.

It's nice to see cameos from a Wirrn and Kraal android in Part Three but a shame they didn't use the Sea Devil as planned.

Lot's of humour too especially the truncheon part. Great stuff.

10/10

I'm more or less with Steve on this one. The first half is a Hinchcliffe story done the way Mrs. Whitehouse would have preferred, and it works. Not so the second half. Much as the spaceship sets and hyperspace effects work, the execution doesn't. Perhaps given that the prosecution is a pair of silly lights whose logic makes the Cybermen appear random, the Doctor can to a degree mock the trial, but not to the point where it turns into a substandard Python sketch. This just takes away much of the drama and intrigue built up in parts one and two.

It's because of the first two episodes that this, for me, is the best story so far in this season.

5/10

From childhood my memories of this one are of just three 'moments':

1. The continuity announcer billing it as "the 100th Doctor Who story" before part 1. As a kid, 100 was a huge number it made the whole concept of the history of Doctor Who so massive as to be unknowable. Extraordinary.

2. The model shot of the spaceship in hyperspace - that probably burnt into my brain because they show it so often!!

3. The bit with the pictures, where the Doctor lines them all up. I remembered that image for years & years without really knowing where it was from, nor what it meant, and it wasn't until I saw the story years later on Gold that it 'clicked'.

Oh, and I like Romana's hat! :)

I've always liekd the fact that this is a story of two halves- it's quite cleverly done I thought, especially so as the spaceship is in exactly the same place as the stone circle. Clever little twist that.

Of course what really makes this story is its two female guest stars. Beatrix Leahmann is just superb as Prodf Rumford, possibly the best ever supporting character in the show's history. She's got a fabulous rapport with Tom and with K9, and all her scenes are wonderful to watch, even when you get the feeling she's struggling a little to remember the lines. Susan Engel is magnificent as the silky voiced Vivean Fay. Really sinister and meancing, but oozing with sex appeal too! I love the feathered costume too!

It's an all round favourite with me!