The Web of Fear - Episode 1

VidFIRE, shiny shiny VidFIRE, yay! The episode looks amazing, clean and neat. And it opens with a glorious shot of Victoria and her beautiful shapely legs stretched out on the TARDIS floor as the ship struggles to survive last episode's ending with Salamander being sucked out into the void. Very nice, Victoria. The scene of the Yeti reawakening is very effective. The army scenes are definitely reminiscent of soon-to-come UNIT stories. Captain Knight looks an awful lot like George Lazenby in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". And to think that the BBC did not use the actual London Underground to make the episode... the designers and everybody did a great job on the sets! It's a shame that this is the only episode of this story left, and not just because more episodes would mean more shots of Victoria in her short skirt. It's a classic story, excellently told and directed. Having the first episode merely whets one's appetite. Plus Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart (soon to become Brigadier) is nowhere to be seen in this episode. He arrives later in the story. It's a shame that one of the series' most beloved characters first appears in an episode that has been wiped by the BBC. Grrr.

Sadly, this is where we must say goodbye to Victoria. Her final story, "Fury from the Deep", would have been next in our marathon, but alas, no episodes survive of that one. Deborah Watling did her best to portray a not-very-well-fleshed-out character, who ended up doing not much more than scream and get in trouble. But that's what most companions do. Oh, well. At least she was amazingly pretty. Next up are a few episodes of "The Wheel in Space", where the Doctor meets another new friend...