Ep. 23 The Screaming Jungle

 As a countdown to the 50^th anniversary of Doctor Who I and my wife will be watching an episode a day until we are caught up to whatever the Beeb has planned. This is a record of my initial reaction to each day's episode published with minimal editing and crappy synopsis.

"When the whispering starts, it's death I tell you."

   I appear to have mixed something up at the end of the last episode.  I thought that Altos was traveling with the Doctor, but when we start he is with the others making a stab at the screaming jungle.
   The female leads don't do so well this go around.  Susan and Barbara both have moments of hysterical screaming.  An argument could be made that Barbara's was somewhat justified, I wouldn't react well to a plant wrapping itself around me.  Susan, on the other hand, shows up, hears some strange noises, senses "evil," and cranks it up to 11.
   There's an interesting piece of dialog where Susan tells the others that she left early to avoid saying goodbye to her grandfather, that she doesn't like goodbyes.  In about another 30 episodes Terry Nation will write Susan out of the series.  I wonder if he had this in mind when he had the Doctor force her off the TARDIS.
   The five travelers find a stone building surrounded by a lush jungle.  Barbara works her way through to an idol with what seems like the key.  The key is a a fake; bait for a trap.  The idol closes it's arms around Barbara and the whole section of wall pivots into the building.
   The idol's arms are obviously the painted arms of an actor, but the prop works smoothly and looks good.
   Altos, Sabetha and Susan decide to go ahead.  Barbara thought that they had achieved the real key and might have used her travel dial to go to the next key cache.  Ian stayed behind to confirm that Barbara was still able to use her travel dial and find the real key.
   Once inside the building Ian discovers that the whole place is booby trapped.  There isn't enough time or money to properly establish this and we're left with some pretty crumby obstacles.
   Behind the traps is another monk who couldn't act his way out of a paper Dalek.  Maybe he was an amazing actor in other things, but he didn't bring his A game to this one.
   Crappy acting monk gets fatally wounded by a plant and gasps out the clue needed to find the key.  The fact that he chooses to be obscure rather than explain what he meant is annoying.  If he had died faster, acted better and the script been a bit better polished I might have bought the fact that he died before explaining it all.  But he clearly had time to say it's in a jar labeled DE3O2.  Not that hard.
   I will give credit to the two leads.  There is a sense of tension in their searching in the cramped lab room.  They sell that scene. 
  
Next up: The Snows of Terrror