Doctor Who The Hand of Fear: Part Three (1963–1989) Online

Review of all 4 episodes:

Sarah Jane Smith is thought by many, myself included, to be the greatest ever companion for The Doctor. It is incredibly sad to see her leave at the end of this story but overall this is a good send off for her. It is a great pity that the 4th and final episode is a bit of a letdown after the terrific opening three parts but the final scene between The Doctor and Sarah Jane is a good, subtle and poignant farewell.

The start of episode 1 shows an alien world where a being that has been judged as a criminal is being supposedly destroyed. The Doctor and Sarah are then seen arriving in a quarry where rock blasting causes them to be buried by rubble. This opening couple of scenes does not indicate any greatness for this story, it is all pretty uninspiring. That is until Sarah reaches from under the rubble to take a hand she believes to be a rescuer only to find it is a hand not attached to a body. That moment is unnerving and quite intriguing. From that point on the opening episode gets better and better as it builds the suspense about the hand and its dangerous nature. It is, of course, the hand of the supposedly destroyed 'criminal' Eldrad. It has been in the ground for 150 million years but it now takes telepathic control of Sarah and makes her into a temporary (and convincing) villain. She takes the hand to a nuclear power station pursued by The Doctor. There are a couple of believable, very well acted characters interacting brilliantly with our heroes and the story is now extremely interesting. The cliffhanger of episode 1 when the hand absorbs radiation and begins to move is brilliantly done and exciting. The second and third episodes are absolutely marvellous and have Eldrad restored to a full female body. This alien being is a fabulous creation in every respect - visually superb, full of interesting character, brilliantly acted and showing friendly and likable traits as well as threatening ones. The script is expertly advancing an intelligent plot up until the final episode with action and excitement side by side with clever and thoughtful ideas.

The final episode disappointingly throws away a lot of the fantastic build up and turns into a pretty unexceptional 'monster trying to destroy the universe' conclusion. Eldrad changes into a male that neither looks anywhere near as good or has any of the fascinating character depth of the female version. Male Eldrad is also acted far less well, with a scenery-chewing performance that is rather a let down. It is a shame this less impressive part of the story is Sarah Jane's last episode (until returning in 1983's The Five Doctors, 2006's School Reunion and spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures). However while the episode would fall from a 10/10 down to a 7 or 8/10 it is actually saved by the scenes where Sarah leaves. This is done with such class and poignancy and so wonderfully acted that it lifts the episode back up to a 9/10.

It a pity they could not have thought up a better finale to the Eldrad story but at least Sarah's finale is done well and if any character deserved a good farewell it is the delightful Sarah Jane Smith. Rest in peace Elisabeth Sladen, you played the best companion with sheer quality at all times.

Doctor Who: The Hand of Fear: Part Three starts as security guard Driscoll (Roy Boyd) opens the nuclear reactor core & steps in, there is a huge unexplosion & all the radiation & energy is absorbed by the hand. The army is called in & the RAF drop several bombs to blow the power plant up but the hand also absorbs the energy from them to finally regenerate into an alien being named Eldrad (Judith Paris) who looks like a blue skinned human female, the Doctor (Tom Baker) talks to her & discovers that she wants to go back to her home planet Kastria. Realising Eldrad doesn't belong on Earth the Doctor agrees & takes her aboard the TARDIS to Kastria but is Eldrad telling the truth...

Episode 7 from season 14 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during October 1976, directed by Lennie Mayne The Hand of Fear has been a very enjoyable Doctor Who story so far although I don't think I would call it amongst the show's greatest ever. The script by Bob Baker & Dave Martin is the first time in a number of years that a contemporary Earth set Doctor Who adventure didn't involve UNIT in any capacity, I think I'm right in saying the last one was the Patrick Troughton story Fury from the Deep (1968) although I could be wrong, it's certainly been a long time anyway & it's another indication of the new production team wanting to take the show in a different direction from the Jon Pertwee era. Anyway, after a cracking couple of opening episodes The Hand of Fear has tailed off somewhat with a largely chatty & uneventful Part Three, it's still enjoyable though, there's the trademark Tom Baker humour, the good solid script, decent character's & an intriguing storyline. The other thing that slightly goes against Part Three is the lacklustre cliffhanger ending which is poor & has the bad guy Eldrad impaled! He's the bad guy for Christ's sake, who cares! The ending just doesn't work, I mean at this point the audience should want him to die!

Part Three sees the introduction of Eldrad in the form of a blue skinned woman with an elongated head wearing a odd outfit, I thought she looked pretty cool actually & one of the better designed & realised aliens from the show & a big improvement on the other Kastians at the start of Part One who were all wearing stitched together duvet's! I think I spotted a script goof here, in the nuclear power plant control room after Eldrad almost kills Watson the Doctor, Sarah Jane & Eldrad leave with Miss Jackson entering the room literally seconds later only to tell Watson that she saw the Doctor & Sarah Jane drive off in his car which is impossible when you think about it. The power plant was huge so there's no way the Doctor, Sarah Jane & Eldrad could have left the plant & drove off with Miss Jackson seeing them & then her entering the power plant & getting to the control room in less than five seconds. I mean it probably would have took a good five minutes just to get out of the place from the control room.

The Hand of Fear: Part Three isn't quite as good as the first two episodes but it's still enjoyable & overall it's an enjoyable story so far despite the sinister living hand plot being totally done away with.