Doctor Who (1963) 14-08: The Hand of Fear, Part Four

Episode:

435

|

Serial:

87

|

Writer:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

|

Director:

Lennie Mayne

|

Air Date:

23-Oct-1976

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the final part of the Fourth Doctor serial The Hand of Fear!

The serial is notable for a couple of reasons and sadly one of them is that it was director Lennie Mayne's last story, as he was killed the following year in a boating accident in the English Channel. Lennie had directed four serials for the series, The Curse of Peladon, The Three Doctors, The Monster of Peladon and this, so it seems like he had been the show's go-to for Peladon stories.

Writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin continued to write for the series, coming up with three more serials, all for the Fourth Doctor. In fact their biggest contribution to Doctor Who was still a year away, as they introduced a new companion to the TARDIS. I shouldn't really be talking about the future though.

There'll be SPOILERS here for this episode and anything leading up to it, but I'll be careful not to jump ahead in the timeline. This review should (hopefully) be safe for anyone watching through Classic Who for the first time, assuming that you're doing it in order.

Doctor Who (1963) 14-07: The Hand of Fear, Part Three

Episode:

434

|

Serial:

87

|

Writer:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

|

Director:

Lennie Mayne

|

Air Date:

16-Oct-1976

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It's the first of April today, which means that this is 🎉 Sci-Fi Adventures' 10th Anniversary! 🥳 The site is up to season eleven, so it has now outlasted Stargate SG-1 and is close to overtaking the DC Comics Arrowverse. I'm still a little bit short of matching classic Doctor Who's 26 season run though.

Speaking of Doctor Who and anniversaries, this serial I'm watching turns 50 years old this year and I didn't even realise that until I'd already started writing about it. So that's a lucky coincidence.

I've reached The Hand of Fear, Part Three, which is the 434th episode of Doctor Who. To put that into perspective, the 434th episode of Star Trek was the season 3 Voyager episode The Q and the Grey. Trek needed three spin-offs and a cartoon to get this far. Unfortunately, with how TV production is slowing down, there won't be many more 434th episodes in our near future. If a new series of Doctor Who comes back with 8 episode seasons and a Christmas special each year, then by my calculations I should be reviewing its 434th episode in about... 50 years time.

Alright, I'm bored of numbers now so I'm going to get into the episode. This means that there will be SPOILERS beyond this point, but I won't ruin anything that comes after this story.

Doctor Who (1963) 14-06: The Hand of Fear, Part Two

Episode:

433

|

Serial:

87

|

Writer:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

|

Director:

Lennie Mayne

|

Air Date:

09-Oct-1976

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the second episode of The Hand of Fear, the second serial of the Fourth Doctor's third season.

It was written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who had already written four other Doctor Who serials together, including the 10th anniversary special The Three Doctors. Director Lennie Mayne was also a Doctor Who veteran, with three other serials under his belt... including The Three Doctors. So it's kind of like a reunion, except for the fact that they don't share any actors (except for Rex Robinson, who's back playing another scientist).

Okay I'm just going to go ahead and write SPOILERS for the whole episode. Though if you've seen this far you'll be fine, even if you're haven't seen any modern Doctor Who yet. As far as I'm concerned, right now it's Saturday 9th October 1976, 6:14 PM, and no one even knows what a David Tennant is. No one knows what a Darth Vader is either, how crazy is that?

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

Episode:

432

|

Serial:

87

|

Writer:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

|

Director:

Lennie Mayne

|

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.

Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Era (1974-1981) - Part 1

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm still reviewing (almost) every classic Doctor Who story based on my fuzzy memories of the Twitch marathon aired across June and July.

I've finally reached the part where I get to share my thoughts on the Fourth Doctor era, which is good, because everyone seems to like it, and bad, because man the guy had a lot of serials to write about! Tom Baker was in the role for seven years and had almost twice the stories of any other Doctor. 30% of the classic Doctor Who serials I watched starred the guy with the scarf! Fortunately, his seasons divide pretty well into three eras, so I've split him up into three articles.

This first post will feature Philip Hinchcliff and Robert Holmes' three gothic horror-themed seasons, spanning from Robot to The Talons of Weng-Chiang. If you want a list of what's in there, check at the top of any 'Greatest Doctor Who Episodes Ever' poll.

There will be SPOILERS below for each serial and maybe earlier ones as well, but I'll not be spoiling anything that happens after.