Doctor Who (1963) 13.01.03

Terror of the Zygons - Part Three

Harry gets free from grip that the Zygons have over him. He rushes into their control room and throws himself on the controls. His efforts disrupt their efforts to kill the Doctor using the Skarasen. The signaling device no longer works and the Zygons no longer have a visual on the Doctor. They assume that he must be dead.

Sergeant Benton and some of the other UNIT soldiers search the inn for hidden cameras or microphones. They don't find any but the Zygons catch on to what they are doing thanks to one of the devices in the main room of the inn. Angus, the inn keeper, after Benton and the others have left finds one of the devices but one of the Zygons finds him and kills him before he can tell anyone about it.

Benton and his men rush back to the inn but Angus is already dead and the Zygon is nowhere to be found. They go looking for the killer and chase it into the woods. They try shooting at it. They wound it but the Zygon gets away.

The Brigadier and Sarah Jane go looking for the Doctor. They find him out on the moor. Together they go to see the Duke of Forgill. They tell him about the monster that lives in Loch Ness, the Skarasen. He laughs at their notion that there is a Loch Ness Monster. The Brigadier gets a call, while they are still visiting with the duke, about the Zygon that Benton and the others are chasing.

The Brigadier and the Doctor head back to the inn. Sarah stays behind to look through the Duke's library. While she is alone in the library she finds a secret passageway that leads to the Zygon spaceship, beneath Loch Ness. She finds Harry and together they get out of there. The Brigadier and the Doctor return to the castle. The Doctor goes through the secret passageway and gets captured by the Zygons.

The Zygons take off in their spaceship, with the Doctor as their prisoner.

Thoughts

It feels as though there are some plot holes in this episode. How did Harry escape? Why did he choose to throw himself on the control panel? Could he tell that the Doctor was in danger? How did that result in the signaling device getting scrambled? How exactly did the Zygons capture the Doctor? He goes down the passage. He screams. Next thing you know he is the Zygons prisoner. Something seems a bit off there. It doesn't seem like the Doctor to go running off half-cocked like that.

I had to laugh at Sgt Benton on two occasions. First he and his men go running toward the sound of screaming (Angus) without their rifles. They should have had their rifles with them. Where did they leave them? Was anybody keeping an eye on their rifles? Second, they went running off into the woods after the Zygon without a radio. He had to send a man back on foot to call the Brigadier on the phone. Very sloppy work if you ask me.

The cliffhanger was a bit weak. The Doctor's life isn't in immediate danger. All we get is a shot of the Zygon spaceship taking off as the music starts to play. What do the Zygons plan to do with the Doctor?

Despite the shortcomings I enjoyed watching this episode again and I look forward to seeing how it all gets resolved in the final episode of this story.