It's mean of them to tease me by mentioning that the Doctor was expecting to see Leela on Gallifrey again! I knew full well it wasn't happening, but I would have definitely appreciated it. Still, it's notable that we get such a long continuity callback; those seem to be more common this season. I was interested to finally get a glimpse inside of Romana's room, and the transition into E-Space was quite well done.
Alzarius is just a wood somewhere, but Peter Grimwade makes it spooky and alien as soon as the bog monsters come into shot. The scenes of them rising from the swamp in slow motion are very impressive. Paddy Kingsland turns out an excellent soundtrack here; I was particularly taken by the "K-9 On a Mission" theme. Had that stuck in my head for a good few days.
Adric doesn't leave much of an impression on his first appearance. It's a bit hard to tell why he, in particular, was selected to be a new companion over any of the other actors in this story, but I intend to reserve my judgement until his time is done. The other characters aren't much special, although I enjoyed each of the three Deciders.
The central twist of the story, that the Alzarians are not crashlanded space travelers, but rather the native inhabitants, and that they had rapidly evolved from creatures identical to the marsh monsters, was very well done. It's a clever sci-fi idea which leads to a triumphant ending with the Alzarians finally breaking the cycle and taking off in the Terradonian starliner.
Although it has its rough edges in places, I thought this was an excellent story, and a promising start to the "E-Space trilogy". State of Decay is next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 24 October 2021.)
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