The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Part Two

Review of all 6 episodes:

This is as good as Doctor Who gets. This is a frontrunner for best story ever for me alongside Pyramids of Mars which has some similarities as a pseudo historical with an evil 'ancient God' as well as similar brilliance of writing and characterisation.

The Doctor and Leela arrive in the 'pea-soup' thick fog of Victorian London and the perfectly realised atmosphere of that period with echoes of Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes help to make this one of the great adventures.

Girls have been going missing in the squalid streets around a theatre run by Henry Gordon Jago. Chinese performer Li H'sen Chang and his creepy dummy Mr. Sin are secretly serving Weng-Chiang, considered to be an ancient Chinese God. The Doctor and Leela team up with Jago and Professor Litefoot, a pathologist, and try to solve the mystery and stop Weng-Chiang from getting his hands on an item in Litefoot's possession which has powers unknown to its owner and dangerous to them all.

As well as capturing the Victorian setting perfectly there is a host of colourful and truly inspired characters all acted magnificently well. The wonderfully endearing and engaging Jago & Litefooot played to perfection by Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter make such an impact that they have inspired a series of prose and audio spin off adventures. They provide such charm and humour and make me really care about them. Chang, Weng-Chiang and Mr. Sin are chilling and effective villains who are hugely impressive and scary. Casey and other small cameo parts are extraordinarily good too. Tom Baker is extraordinary as The Doctor. His every line, glance and expression is phenomenally mesmerising and sublime. Leela makes an exciting, interesting and likable companion. She is very bright as well as physically dynamic and brave, Louise Jameson plays the role expertly.

The dialogue throughout is absolutely terrific, entertaining, absorbing, intelligent and convincing as well as being delivered with superb style. The plot is fantastically rich, fascinating and engrossing and the horror aspects are scary and captivating. This is basically grand guignol style horror with thrilling, macabre delights which I thoroughly enjoy. The make up and costumes are tremendous as well as the fabulously realised sets and period setting. Every aspect of the production is of the highest standard with the slight exception of the giant rats which guard the sewer. These rats are not problematic for me at all though because they are cleverly hidden in darkness and still work as a result. If this story was re-released with new computer generated effects re- creating the rats it would be great and would make this a flawless production but the ingenious way it is filmed manages to make the rats work as monsters despite limitations of the technology available.

The horror, excitement and menace of this story are simply superb and the characters and dialogue cannot be bettered. This whole story is sheer magic from start to finish and one of the all-time greats without doubt. For me it is one of my joint favourite stories. AMAZING!

My ratings: All 4 episodes 10/10.

Better than the last episode, but it's really not that good. It's not a 10/10. I can't believe it's 6 episodes long. It has enough plot to fill 3 episodes.

Having escaped a giant rat in the sewers, The Doctor and Leela try and discover what's going on, and who's behind it.

The story carries on at a very high pace, it moves quickly and purposely. The mystery deepens, we have this sinister shadowy figure who's in search of a Time Cabinet, we're left wondering who and what.

Robert Holmes I pretty much showing off here, the script is so imaginative, so varied, only in his imagination, could we move from a Jack The Ripper vibe, straight into Phantom of The Opera at The Theatre.

These characters are superbly drawn, each is well drawn, and meaningful, Jago, Casey, Litefooot, Chang.

I love the conclusion of this episode. The scenes and Litefoot's, and those at The Theatre are brilliant.

It's perfect, 10/10.