433 The Hand of Fear Part Two

EPISODE: The Hand of Fear Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 433
STORY NUMBER: 087
TRANSMITTED: 09 October 1976
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Hand Of Fear

The alarm sounds allowing The Doctor & Dr Carter to evade the guards holding them. Reactor head Professor Watson orders the reactor shut down. Watson, and then the Doctor, tries to speak to Sarah but all she says is "Eldrad must live", which echoes round the mind of the controlled Dr Carter. The Doctor is attacked by Dr Carter on his way to the reactor, with Carter claiming "Eldrad must Live" but he slips and falls to his death. The Doctor repeats the phrase to gain the possessed Sarah's confidence then overpowers her removing he from the reactor room. In the process she drops the ring she's been holding. Sarah is tested and found to be free of radiation. In the reactor the hand crawls towards the source of the radiation. A technician, Driscoll, is sent to retrieve it and places it in a container. He also finds the ring and becomes possessed like Sarah was. The Doctor asks for the ring but Driscoll denies having seen it. The Doctor hypnotises Sarah and asks her to tell him what was happening. In the decontamination area the hand tries to escape from where it has been stored. Driscoll retrieves the hand and returns it to the reactor, pursued by the Doctor & Sarah. Driscoll sets the reactor to overload causing Watson to evacuate the complex. Driscoll opens the reactor up and carries the hand in.....

Lots of running around and shouting "Eldrad must live!" but it's a decent fast moving episode. Oddly just one character from the first episode, Doctor Carter, appears in this one and he gets bumped off half way through! So we get introduced to a whole bunch of new characters and actors. Glyn Houston plays Professor Watson: he'll be back as Colonel Ben Wolsey in The Awakening. Frances Pidgeon is Miss Jackson. She was previously in The Monster of Peladon as an uncredited handmaiden. She was the wife of Lennie Mayne, the director of both this story and Monster of Peladon. Technician Elgin is played by John Cannon who was later cast as an executioner in Shada but as we will see never made it onto the screen.

The phrase "Eldrad must live!" is used repeatedly throughout the story and starts a run of catchphrases in Bob Baker & Dave Martin stories. We'll hear that "Contact has been made!" in Invisible Enemy and then in Underworld we'll repeatedly hear that "The Quest is the Quest!"

Liz walked in while I was watching part 1, took one look a the screen and said "Eldrad must live!" If I know my readership "Eldrad Must Live" comments will be covering episode 1 here, on Facebook and on the TMUK Forum already.......