Doctor Who continued …

As someone who likes well done “bottle shows” (I’m thinking the likes of “Sapphire & Steel” here), this one comes across as a bit confusing.  In production terms and mystery, it works very well.  In providing explanations and solving that mystery, it somewhat fails.  So the TARDIS can’t tell them that there’s a switch jammed into place because it’s not a “fault”, but it can concoct a convoluted brainwashing scheme to alert the crew to the same?  Why’s it going through all of this if it doesn’t believe there’s a fault?

Barbara is congratulated for solving the mystery, except that the explanation for everything that she comes up with is woolly at best, preposterous at worst.  These “clues” were nothing of the sort.  They’re just random unconnected things intended to scare the viewer while we’re waiting for the end of the story.

More could have been made of the antagonism between the Doctor and the schoolteachers, with Susan’s loyalty torn between the two, but what little of that we had was muddled about with the amnesia stuff.

I appreciate that this story was done in a rush, but it would have been better done as a proper “whodunnit” rather than “everyone has amnesia, and Barbara guesses the solution”.

Next time … Marco Polo