The Tiger Who Came To Tea: The Hand of Fear

Love that oil-on-water effect in the beginning titles.

Martin Curnow ‏@mjCurnow Seasons 12-17 best title sequence ever in my view.

It's only a model.

Eldrad "the traitor" lives in an igloo on the moon. Next door to the Soup Dragon by the looks of it.

Must be cold on this planet, these guys are wearing duvets as jackets.

Duvet-man 1 is ordered by the king to obliterate Eldrad.

There's a 1 in 3 million chance of survival? Bet he does survive. Not what I'd call "total" obliteration.

As Duvet man 1 drags dead Duvet man 2 away, we hurtle across space...

(Eldrad's in-flight music is from a fairground. Poor bugger.)

...and arrive in a quarry. I mean an actual quarry.

Chris ‏@KosmicKris always loved the contrast between the exotic alien start and the mundane 'power station' of Earth.

With a siren blaring and workers setting explosives, the TARDIS arrives.

Hang about, it's a quarry... but it actually *is* a quarry. I'm confused.

Oh, unlucky, Lis. Did SJS get dressed in the dark or something? The Andy Pandy style outfit... the shame...

This isn't South Croydon!" Was Sarah already headed home?

"I know 'a quarry', but where?"
"How do I know, I don't know all the quarries."
"You bloody well ought to by now."

The Doctor and Sarah are blissfully unaware that the quarrymen are about to bring the house down.

There's a blast...

...and though the Doctor surfaces unscathed if a bit dusty...

...Sarah is nowhere to be seen...

This guy in the quarry reminds me of Tobias Menzies. Maybe a cross between him and David Walliams...

"You must have heard the hooter!"

Sarah's unconscious, and clutching a strange stone hand. Looks like part of a statue... don't blink, Sarah.

Bet it's one of those "of fear" doodahs.

Blimey, that ambulance got there sharpish.

Sarah's unconscious...

...but still clutching the hand.

The Doctor's doctor thinks Gallifrey's in Ireland, and a running joke is born!

It's the Time-lords that make Guinness, is it?

M.R.Michael ‏@The_Cybermatt Like the set up for the next story, reminding the audience about Gallifrey.

Yes, good point! Setting up the last scenes of part 4, too, of course!

The medic says Sarah's still in shock, and theorizes that her kung fu grip on the stone hand was the result of psychological stress.

The hand is with Dr. Carter in the Pathology lab.

Oh aye, Rex Robinson? This one's directed by Lennie Mayne, then!

When the Doctor concludes that the Hand is from a silicon based lifeform, Carter thinks it's a hoax.

Once Sarah's alone, she opens her eyes, and reveals that she's clutching a jewelled ring from the hand.

That ring's got a glowing blue crystal... this better not have anything to do with giant spiders.

The Doctor's pulled some strings to get an electron microscope.

He soon works out that the Hand is 150 million years old, and extra-terrestrial.

The Doctor thinks he's doing Sarah a favour by guaranteeing her some shut eye...

...but she's on the loose, not to mention a mission to pinch the Hand.

Sarah fancies a Hand sandwich for her picnic and pops it in some tupperware.

No point trying to keep it fresh, Sarah, it's already 150 million years out of date.

Sarah uses the ring to zap Carter.

"Eldrad must live." Uh-oh, Sarah's hearing voices. "It is his will that all shall obey. None must interfere!"

In the quarry, the Doctor's on the lookout for plastic Jurassic spaceships. As you do.

"You reckon this fella copped it in a crash, like?" Shakespeare it ain't.

Carter recovers and raises the alarm.

"Yes, pink striped overalls! Yes, just like Andy Pandy who wore blue!"

The Doctor theorizes that the Hand "wanted" Sarah. Randy Handy.

Carter's sample has begun regenerating itself by absorbing radiation from the electron microscope.

Now the Doctor knows where Sarah's headed with the hand: "Where's the nearest nuclear reactor?"

Lis Sladen is simply wonderful as the Eldrad-possessed Sarah; that blank stare is so cold.

Love the camera work on the possessed Sarah; really simple but so sinister.

There's still an Axon wandering around that power station somewhere. Think they filmed an episode of Blake's 7 here, too.

Someone's been mucking about with the nuclear reactor. What could possibly go wrong?

Another innocent bystander blinded by a flash of Sarah's ring.

That's three people "ringed" now. Sarah's on a rampage.

Where's the psychic paper when you need it?

Didn't this alarm get used on Skaro, in Genesis?

She waltzes into the maximum security reactor room...

...and opens her tupperware to begin her picnic. Cucumber sandwiches and the Hand of Fear. Yum!

Great cliffhanger - and does exactly what it says on the tin: it's the Hand of Fear!

Jason McLaughlin ‏@jangomac72 One of my earliest memories of the show, that hand moving freaked me out as a kid! A simple scare and proper behind the sofa moment that the current series seems to forgotten about delivering!

The head of the Complex, Professor Watson, mans the control centre and orders the alarms off, to no avail.

The Doctor and Carter arrive...

...but Sarah has locked herself in the fission room.

"Will you shut up!" Love Prof. Watson's reaction to the alarm.

Eurgh, he's got a fly on his head...

"Some idiot, some suicidal maniac - a YOUNG WOMAN!!!" Deary me, Professor.

Amazing security this nuclear power station's got, by the way.

Anyway, "idiot"? SJS? I'm not having that.

Professor Watson and Miss Jackson are like Reggie Perrin and Joan.

Rex Robinson hears the call... this sounds like a job for Badgerman!

The Doctor tunes into SJS FM, but he's getting some interference: "Eldrad must live!"

Sarah says Eldrad is "the creator, the saviour." Don't let Dawkins hear you...

Thing decides to go for a scuttle, while Badgerman's been hypnotized into stalking the Doctor.

The Doctor searches in desperation for the BBC bar...

Badgerman tries to put a spanner in his works but ends up taking quite the shortcut to the ground floor.

Eldrad must live! But Badgerman must take a dive over the stairs...

Watson's call home to his daughter is quite affecting; great bit of acting. "Goodbye..."

Finding his way into the fission room via an airduct...

...the Doctor tricks Sarah with a quick "Eldrad must live!" and knocks the trance out of her.

He carries her away from the crawling Hand, but she drops the ring on the way out...

Watson is relieved to hear that the Doctor has got Sarah down to Decontamination.

The last thing Sarah remembers is being buried alive. "Someone held out a hand to me. I thought it was you."

Watson isn't particularly inclined to believe that SJS was under the hand's control.

SJS doesn't remember Dr. Carter. Never mind, then.

There's no trace of radioactivity on Sarah at all, even though she was exposed to enough "to kill a school of whales"!

The Doctor starts at the beginning - a very good place to start.

The Hand's still on the loose...

Redshirt Driscoll is sent to pick it up and take it to Decontamination.

Driscoll's taken a shine to Eldrad's ring.

"That's not as armless as it looks!"
"That's it, last story for you."

"Ah, no, that's not fair, not again..."

Sarah was also hypnotized by the Doctor in Terror of the Zygons and previous story the Masque of Mandragora.

The Doctor clocked it on that occasion because she asked about the TARDIS translation circuits.

Under the Doctor's hypnosis, Sarah reveals that those "who've seen the light of Kastria" must obey.

The Kastrians, who were Blinded by the Light, are big Springsteen fans. They love rock music. (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry).

They should have let Tom have the hand on his shoulder like that talking cabbage he always wanted.

Mark ‏@Th3DarkMark well he got Adric, which is close enough to a talking cabbage!

Now Driscoll's the one taking the Hand out for a quick bite of nuclear reactor...

Driscoll walks right into the reactor; Watson orders an evacuation.

The console explodes, throwing Watson to the floor.

Cliffhanger resolution a bit on the weak side here: they all get back up again.

The Doctor is able to seal the door to the reactor room.

There's been an "un-explosion!"

Driscoll's been vaporised, and Eldrad is absorbing the radiation to regenerate...

"Fission took place but instead of the explosion going outwards it went inwards!"

Watson's plan is to have the nuclear power station bombed. Now, I'm no nuclear physicist but that doesn't sound too clever.

The Doctor want sto stay and communicate with Eldrad.

Eldrad starts to melt through the door...

The RAF arrive to launch missiles at the nuclear power station.

Yeah, duck and cover, you're well protected from that nuclear explosion that's about to happen 50 feet away.

Mark ‏@Th3DarkMark protect and survive! Otherwise known as 'please bury yourselves'.

The missiles hit... but nothing happens.

The Doctor thinks they should try much older "weapons": Speech, diplomacy.

Eldrad is a deep voiced crystalline alien woman.

Her reflection doesn't seem to be what she expected.

Must admit, she doesn't look like she grew from that hand.

The Doctor heads back inside, and though he tells Sarah to stay behind...

...she's got a personal stake in this.

Just lovely little moment between the Doctor and Sarah here: "I worry about you."

But, y'know, 'the classic series never did emotion' and all that.

Other Pete ‏@other_pete It did it much much better, less clichéd, and without so many reset switches.

The Doctor tries to reason with Eldrad, but she's rather single-minded.

Eldrad probes the Doctor's mind with her lie-detecting glowy eyes.

Watson loads a gun, just as the Doctor tries to convince Eldrad that humans aren't always violent.

Eldrad wants revenge against the people that betrayed her, but she's been on Earth for 150 million years.

Eldrad wants the Doctor to uphold the laws of time by going back and changing Kastria's history. Nice try, Eldrad.

Eldrad claims that Kastria was laid to waste by a war between two alien races.

The Doctor agrees to show Eldrad the way to go home.

Eldrad built machines to see to their physical needs. Bow-chicka-wow-ow-ow-ow-turn-it-off.

Watson's bullets have no effect...

...which is probably just as well.

The Doctor gives Eldrad a lift in the TARDIS, leaving Professor Watson to do all the explaining.

"Well, we don't know what's happened yet. Well of course there's going to be an inquiry."

Never been overly keen on Tom's wooden console room, though I know it's popular. I don't *dislike* it, though.

Mark ‏@Th3DarkMark like the idea of it, think it just needed to be slightly grander.

artwork by the late, great Phil Bevan, from DWM 227

Chris ‏@KosmicKris It was a lovely idea. Apparently warped like hell in storage (also, never looked particularly spacious). Nice change though!

Eldrad's glowy eyes won't work in the TARDIS.

"We're in a state of temporal grace. We're multi-dimensional... in a sense, we don't exist while we're in here."

Are you paying attention, Saward?!

The Doctor says Eldrad has a "paranoid obssession with treachery."

Kastria's a right dump.

"The solar winds have devastated it, but I will reclaim it again."
"You may have left it a bit late."

Eldrad had created barriers to keep out the freezing winds, but they've been torn down...

Love that the Doctor gives Sarah his coat. We've seen him tolerate the cold before in stories like The Seeds of Doom.

Eldrad plans to descend to the thermal chambers, and jump starts the power.

"Energy drawn from the core of the planet. My gift to Kastria."

As the Doctor takes back his coat from Sarah...

...Eldrad is caught full in the chest by an acid-filled spear!

Always the way when you just want to descend to the thermal chambers, isn't it?

The spear contains an acid designed to dissolve the Kastrian form.

Eldrad was the one that developed the acid, so really that spear is her own petard...

A computer, watched by a shrouded figure, detects the intruders as they descend.

A jet of gas catches Sarah, but it turns out it's only harmful to silicon based life.

Sarah's doing a hell of a lot of screaming in this story. "Stop making a fuss, Sarah, you're from South Croydon!"

The Doctor & Sarah help Eldrad struggle to the local rock hospital.

Sarah isn't too chuffed to hear that the sand they're treading on is the crumbled dead of Kastria.

The Doctor thinks it's a massive coincidence that Eldrad's "alien invaders" were also silicon based.

He knows - his lines about how rare silicon based lifeforms are, are directed very pointedly at Eldrad.

"It's an abyss!"
"It's a long way down too!"

Eldrad's almost completely paralysed now, which allows the Doctor to carry her like a plank.

The Doctor's worked out how the regenerator works, but can he activate it in time?

They place Eldrad in the regenerator...

...which crushes her to dust. Or does it?

Eldrad's gone all Brian Blessed.

Or, because it's Doctor Who, Stephen Thorne.

Eldrad's ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!

Seems the female form of Eldrad was only temporary and was based on an impression of Sarah. Should Sarah be flattered?

Driscoll was the last one to come into contact with the ring, but I guess it spent more time with Sarah & Driscoll was covered by a radiation suit more of the time?

Eldrad plans to conquer the universe but the Kastrians have beaten him again; the race banks were obliterated too.

Rokon's left Eldrad a prank holo-voicemail. "Hail Eldrad, King of nothing! SUCKER!"

Eldrad's plan B is to take over the Earth and enslave humanity.

The Doctor chucks the ring so that he and Sarah can escape while Eldrad scrabbles after it.

Then he uses his trusty old scarf to trip Eldrad into the abyss.

The Doctor tosses Eldrad's ring.

And that's the story over. Isn't it...? Because otherwise...

The Doctor sets about repairing the TARDIS.

The cold's made Sarah fed up.

"I'm sick of being cold and wet, and hypnotised left right and centre..."

"I'm sick of being shot at, savaged by bug-eyed monsters, never knowing if I'm coming or going or been."

"I want a bath. I want my hair washed. I just want to feel human again."

"And boy am I sick of that sonic screwdriver!" Steady on!

The Doctor doesn't seem to be paying attention, so Sarah leaves to collect the Goodies.

She can't really mean she's leaving... can she?

Whether she is or not, an unexpected signal suddenly reaches the TARDIS...

"The call from Gallifrey.After all this time... I can't take Sarah to Gallifrey. Must get her back home."

Simon G ‏@SHGB001 But yet he can take Leela 2 years later!

I guess if we're being kind he deliberately breaks the rules to take Leela as she's part of his plan to arm the outsiders, and he's unable to ditch Nyssa in Arc of Infinity as she's in the TARDIS when it's dragged back to Gallifrey? Or something.

Sarah was only joking... but the Doctor isn't.