I've Been Watching...

Quite happy, I launched into The Seeds of Doom. (For some reason, I keep associating it with this song.)

This is a nice, fast paced story. Yes, yes, it's a two-parter, then gets repeated as a four-parter, but it's still nicely paced, a fair bit of action, a fair bit of humour, quite a classic Fourth Doc story in many ways. Okay, fine, the Krynoid is CGI'd into the scene, but that was the style at the time, and compared with certain other previous efforts (*cough* Claws of Axos, Robot *cough*), it's integrated really well.

What helps is that it's all at a human level for a long time. The Krynoid is a costume for most of it, so there is actual interaction without odd eyelines everyone ends up with when dealing with overlay effects, which adds to the suspension of disbelief. And although I was very aware of the model shots (watching the Info Text at the same time as the story doesn't help in that regard), they are well shot and also work well.

As this is a six-parter, there is another disc of stuff, although there isn't really anything special on here that wouldn't have been on a four-parter release. No particular extra-length feature or special behind-the-scenes bits. I think the info text refers to the idea that there was to be a 90 minute version of the story, which was never screened, but for a moment I did entertain while speculative ideas about yet another run through of the story.

Good story, solid release, great watch.

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