Doctor Who (1963) 14-05: The Hand of Fear, Part One

Episode:

432

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Serial:

87

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Writer:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

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Director:

Lennie Mayne

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Air Date:

02-Oct-1976

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm back to Doctor Who season 14. Not the Ncuti Gatwa season with the Space Babies. I'm going way further back to when Peter Hinchcliff was producer, Robert Holmes was script editor and Tom Baker was the Doctor, as this week I'm writing about... The Hand of Fear!

Season 14 started in 1976 and consisted of six serials. This one was the second and I've actually already covered the fourth one, The Face of Evil. Well I've covered them all really, as I gave them each a bit of a review after watching a classic Doctor Who marathon. But this time I'm going through each episode and each scene individually to give the story some proper attention. 

Hang on, The Hand of Fear, The Face of Evil... I'm spotting a bit of a pattern there. There was The Brain of Morbius and The Talons of Weng-Chiang as well, so the Fourth Doctor had a lot of evil body parts to deal with in the Hinchcliff era. This is also the second thing to be 'of Fear', as there was a Second Doctor story called The Web of Fear. That was the first appearance of the Brig if I remember right...

Anyway, I'm going to be going through each episode writing words under pictures, so if you haven't seen the story yet then there will be SPOILERS. But if you're that one person on Earth who's watching through the classic series before moving on to modern Doctor Who you don't have to worry, as this is first time viewer safe.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-10: Rubincon (Quick Review)

Episode:

10

|

Writer:

Alex Kurtzman & Kirsten Beyer

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Director:

Olatunde Osunsanmi

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Air Date:

12-Mar-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Starfleet Academy's season one finale, Rubincon!

When I heard that this had the same title as Discovery season 4 episode Rubicon I was a little surprised, but only a little. We got Prodigy's Kobayashi less than two months after Disco's Kobayashi Maru (also from season 4). Plus Disco season 4 stole the title Anomaly from Enterprise, which is the only time two Trek episodes have ever 100% shared a title.

It turns out however that it's actually called Rubincon, with a second 'n'. Maybe it's the name of a planet, I don't know.

But I do know that the director this time is Discovery's Olatunde Osunsanmi! He's the guy who brought flame throwers to Discovery's bridge and to that planet in Section 31, so if I had to make a guess at what I'll be seeing in this episode it'd probably be flame throwers.

The episode was written by Kirsten Beyer again, along with Star Trek overlord Alex Kurtzman. This was his first time writing for the series, but he's had a big influence on it from the start. He even directed the first episode himself and established the show's style. All of his episodes have had co-writers so I'm not sure what I think of him as a writer, but I've typically enjoyed stories with his name on them so I'm cautiously optimistic.

There will be SPOILERS below.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-09: 300th Night (Quick Review)

Episode:

9

|

Writer:

Kirsten Beyer

|

Director:

Jonathan Frakes

|

Air Date:

05-Mar-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the penultimate episode of Starfleet Academy's first season. It's called 300th Night, it's written by Kirsten Beyer (writer of all my least favourite stories) and it's directed by Jonathan Frakes (who's done some good stuff in the past).

There's only one episode left after this and I've been thinking about things I could write about in my season one review. One complaint I've had is that the series hasn't done a great job of showing the passage of time, but they've been doing better at that recently and now this episode's literally called 300th Night. We've never had a Star Trek episode pin down when it takes place so specifically in the title before. To my recollection.

The Original Series had The Naked Time and Amok Time, but you won't find those events on your calendar and The Deadly Years actually only lasted a few days. Tomorrow is Yesterday presumably takes place the day before tomorrow, which is today, so that doesn't help narrow it down. And the Day of the Dove presumably didn't become a Klingon holiday.

The Next Generation was even less specific. Parallels took place on Worf's birthday, which comes right before Captain Picard day in The Pegasus, but neither were in the title. Voyager did better with 11:59, but it doesn't say if that's AM or PM. Though we also got Day of Honor, which is a Klingon holiday! So I think Voyager actually wins this time.

Warning: there will be SPOILERS below. For this, Discovery and Picard.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-08: The Life of the Stars (Quick Review)

Episode:

8

|

Writer:

Gaia Violo & Jane Maggs

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Director:

Andi Armaganian

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Air Date:

26-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching The Life of the Stars, the 8th episode of Starfleet Academy. A TV series that I'm not really enjoying much.

There are some familiar names in the credits for this one. It's got the same director as the previous episode, Ko'Zeine, and the two writers have both worked on episodes already. That's all the trivia I've got, sorry.

This is going to have SPOILERS for the episode, so if you haven't watched it yet maybe consider doing that first. Or not, if you're not really enjoying the series much either.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-07: Ko'Zeine (Quick Review)

Episode:

7

|

Writer:

Alex Taub & Eric Anthony Glover

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Director:

Andi Armaganian

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Air Date:

19-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Ko'Zeine. Isn't that a type of drug?

Both the writers have written for Starfleet Academy already, as Alex Taub co-wrote prank war story Vitus Reflux and Eric Anthony Glover co-wrote Klingon debate contest story Vox in Excelso. At the very least they'll have a good grasp of who the characters are.

I'm a bit surprised that this wasn't directed by main Discovery (and Section 31) director Olatunde Osunsanmi, as I know he's working on this series, but it doesn't seem like there are enough episodes left. Each director has been given a pair of episodes so far, so that means there are five directors. I've heard that Jonathan Frakes is the fifth and it turns out that Andi Armaganian is the fourth, so I guess Osunsanmi won't be directing this season after all?

Andi Armaganian is also a Trek veteran, having directed Rubicon and Jinaal for Discovery and Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach and Through the Lens of Time for Strange New Worlds. Damn, there's no chance of mixing up which series those episode titles belong to. I don't recall her episodes standing out due to the visuals or performances, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Alright, I'm going to try to give this episode a bit of a review and there will be SPOILERS below.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-06: Come, Let's Away (Quick Review)

Episode:

6

|

Writer:

Kenneth Lin & Kiley Rossetter

|

Director:

Larry Teng

|

Air Date:

12-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Come, Let's Away, the sixth episode of Starfleet Academy.

Director Larry Teng is back after directing last week's Series Acclimation Mil, but co-writer Kenneth Lin is new to the show. He's not new to Star Trek however, as he did several episodes of Discovery, including The Sanctuary and Whistlespeak, while the other writer, Kiley Rossetter, worked on Picard episodes Assimilation and Võx. 

Disco writers teaming up with Picard writers is interesting, but I'm more curious about what happens when Lower Decks writers team up with Prodigy writers. What does an episode co-written by Mike McMahan and Aaron Waltke look like? Or failing that, they could just write episodes separately again! I'd be okay with that.

Anyway, this review is going to have SPOILERS for the episode.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1-05: Series Acclimation Mil (Quick Review)

Episode:

5

|

Writer:

Kirsten Beyer & Tawny Newsome

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Director:

Larry Teng

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Air Date:

05-Feb-2026

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching episode 5 of Starfleet Academy, called Series Acclimation Mil. People who got to see the first five stories in advance have been saying that this is the best of the set, the one worth waiting for. So I hope I end up loving it, or else I'm really out of sync with the show's fans.

The episode was co-written by Tawny Newsome, who played Mariner on Lower Decks. There have been lots of actors-turned-directors on Star Trek over the years, but the list of actors who've written a episode is way shorter. Walter Koenig wrote The Infinite Vulcan for The Animated Series, Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones in The Trouble with Tribbles) co-wrote The Mark of Gideon... I've got nothing else. I suppose there's Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the Star Trek Beyond movie. Anyway, I like Tawny's performance as Mariner but I've got no opinion on anything she's written as I haven't seen any of it. She knows her Star Trek though, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

The other co-writer was Kirsten Beyer, the woman who wrote my least favourite episode of Discovery (Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum), my least favourite episode of Picard (Stardust City Rag), and my least favourite episode of Strange New Worlds (Wedding Bell Blues). I've got nothing against her, but it's starting to seem like she's got something against me!

Though I've been thinking about two other Trek writers who made a habit of writing stories I hated: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky. Separately they wrote Threshold and Masks, but when they got together they came up with great episodes like Year of Hell and Timeless. So maybe this team-up is going to come up with something spectacular! Actually, it's probably best that I don't get my hopes up.

There are going to be SPOILERS below for this episode and for Deep Space Nine. In fact they should've put a spoiler warning on the episode as well!