Assignment 4

From the worst to the best. This is a four parter, it's tight... and it's brilliant.

I presume this was a set on a studio, but it easily could have been a simple building they found somewhere. S&S is often minimal of set, and this is another one of those. Three rooms and a stairway, really. The menace is a chap who lives in photographs. Every photograph. Including your photographs. And that's a freaky premise that's amazing. The figure can be any figure, and switches between two from one shot to the next in a very casual way that demonstrates its power. And S&S are other outmatched. The figure plays with and traps them easily, and only barely get a sort of win due to someone else's intervention. (Supposedly 75 years after they would be around to trap the figure again... but now?)

Great performances. And especially so when there are moment when all you are doing is looking at a picture with voice over. Now that's simple camera work, and yet it's a tense moment. The first time with Ruth being trapped and then dying, and then later with S&S trapped... the photo is the threat, not a moment to look away bored. (Although the CGI composition of the man into the photos does leave rather a lot to be desired.)

While I do like the longer stories, this one works well as a four parter, and any longer it would repeat itself. This does what it needs and gets out. Everything together, this is easily my favourite of the series.

[END]