"I've seen more death than you can imagine."
The cat quickly becomes bored of the shrunken time travelers, but there isn't time for them to catch their breaths before Forrester returns with Smithers (not that one) in tow. Smithers is the genius who invented DN6 and wants to use it to eliminate hunger throughout the world. A laudable goal that could be applauded if it weren't for his willingness to turn a blind eye to murder.
The four travelers are sent running in two directions by the approach of the businessman and the scientist. Ian and Barbara barely make it to the safety of the dead man's valise while the Doctor and Susan make it to cover beside the house.
Forrester makes up a cock and bull story about defending himself. Smithers sees through it with a casual examination of the corpse. Forrester decides to take take the body out to sea and deal with it there. In the meantime they clean everything up, including bringing the valise into the lab.
The Doctor and Susan realize that the others have been taken inside. The Doctor is insistent that they have to mount a rescue operation. Quiet a huge departure from the Doctor of last season who would have taken Susan and gotten back to the ship without a seconds hesitation. The Doctor is becoming more and more the man that he is meant to be.
They discover a drain pipe that must be used for chemicals. There is a strong smell of chemical residue emanating from it and the interior of the pipe is corroded from the harsh materials. The Doctor insists on climbing up the interior of the pipe to find the others. Susan objects, but he shoots that down fast.
Inside the lab Ian and Barbara stumble out of the case. Barbara twisted her ankle running from Forrester. That's part of the reason that she and Ian were seperated from the other two. The female companion falling and twisting her ankle is a much hated cliche of Doctor Who. This is the first time that I've noticed it in the Project so I might be willing to give it a pass if it weren't for something that happens to Barbara later in the episode. I'll get to that later.
The teachers explore their surroundings. It soon becomes obvious that they have been brought into a lab when they find test tubes, litmus paper and a pile of seeds coated in what we later find out is DN6. Barbara picks up one of the seeds to examine it while Ian is looking the other way. Ian is more than a bit oblivious at this point. Barbara clearly says that there is something sticky on the seeds, even asks him for his handkerchief to wipe it off, but Ian doesn't seem to pick up on the fact that she's touched what he later warns her not to touch.
Hill does a nice bit of acting in this one. She's now aware that her rash action may have poisoned her and is almost constantly trying to wipe her hands.
Ian decides to try to fully open the valise so that they can rifle through it in search of something to make a ladder out of. While he is doing that a fly lands near Barbara. She turns and it is there. She faints.
This is the only live insect that we've seen so far and it's good enough for the minute or so that it's on screen alive. They do a little bit of camera trickery, framing the shot so that Ian moves in, the fly camera pans from the fly to him, we hear a flutter of wings and Ian looks up as if the fly flew off.
So now Barbara has done the twisted ankle and the fainting bit. She even came close to giving up until Ian gave her a pep talk. I can make excuses, but if I make them it's to preserve the integrity of the character, not to defend the choices that the scriptwriter made.
My excuse for the fainting is the fact that she's poisoned. A minute after the fly goes away, it lands on the poisoned seeds and dies almost instantly. This is nasty stuff and Barbara had a dose of it. It's put her off her game and caused her to collapse in a situation where she normally wouldn't. The twisted ankle earlier was just a fluke thing, could happen to anyone.
I emphasize again that I'm making this excuse for the sake of a character that is one of my favorite companions.
The Doctor and Susan make it up the drain pipe and into a sink. The Doctor is exhausted. The sink acts as an echo chamber and Susan is quickly able to get the attention of Ian and Barbara. The four plan to head down the drain when Smithers comes in to wash up. Ian and Barabara, who hadn't made it down the sink, go in one direction. While the Doctor and Susan hide in the drain.
Smithers washes up and drains the sink.
Aside from the writing decisions regarding Barbara this was a good one. The sets are effective, things move quickly and they even manage to throw in some science explaining that the sound of a shrunken human voice be be too high for normal humans to understand what someone was saying while at the same time making the "giants" voices sound like thunder.
Smithers and Forrester don't come off as terribly well rounded, but they are competently acted.
Next up: Crisis
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