User Reviews

Proving your innocence can be quite a battle, with Megara in charge, executing full prattle, but the truth does come out, Cessair turns quite stout, and the Time Lords recover their much sought out chattel.

Three down, three to go, the pieces of puzzle now form half of the combo.

I'm glad they keep mentioning the quest to the find the Key of Time at the start of the first episodes, end of the last one, and once or twice in between, because otherwise I would forget since it really serves no real purposes as a narrative device. I presume it will start to come together as we proceed (and the mention here of a Black Guardian suggests a bigger villain will appear), but in this serial it is pretty meaningless as a concern. Instead the Doctor finds himself in modern day Cornwall where people are making sacrifices to Cailleach, the goddess of war and magic, at a megalithic circle known as The Nine Travelers. This is the start but it will lead to hyperspace, a trial, death sentences, and large mobile rocks which even K9 can barely stop.

As the end of that plot summary suggests, this is a bit of a messy serial but it is actually pretty solid. Maybe that is my lowered expectations for this season having an impact, but I quite enjoyed it despite it not really gripping me or doing too much to hold my attention. The serial is notable for its female characters in key roles; not just the number of them but also the positions they play. Indeed, I felt that the assistant role was a bit exposed because here the Doctor had a great 'peer' relationship with Professor Rumford, making me think she might be quite a fun assistant since she was smart but also too old to have time for any nonsense like silliness or screaming in a mini-skirt.

The plot is quite interesting as it mixes style. The first half is a bit old school English horror, whereas the second half jumps to the sci-fi realm and has quite a good trial which occurs. That said, it doesn't all hang together, and the cliffhangers don't really have much impact in terms of keeping the stakes up. The 'monsters' are fun, but not in an effective way so much as it is just plain enjoyable to see a big rock lumbering around the place (every child has fears of Daleks, or statues etc because of Dr Who, but I have never heard anyone scared of rocks because of the Ogri). The variety in the plot does keep it moving through, and I liked that action was spread around, and the serial had a progression so the pace was solid and it didn't feel like it was killing time (even some of the 4-parters can feel like this, like they are just putting characters into trouble for the sake of keeping them busy).

The cast is enjoyable and on good form, and the mix of location shooting, sets, and models all added to that varied feel. Stones of Blood is in no way a great serial, but it is a solidly enjoyable one, which is very welcome in this not particularly strong season.

The Doctor and Romana are now trapped in Hyper Space with Vivien Fay (who is now silver) and the Ogri and close to death.....but the Megara (Justice Machines) step in, and a court scene ensues, and goes on.....and on.......and on...... Emilia and K-9 re-build the device, the Doctor tricks the Megara into assessing Vivien's mind, they discover her secret, that she is Cessair of Diplos, the prisoner that the Megara were in charge of 4000 years ago. They return to Earth, the Doctor takes her amulet which is the artifact they were originally seeking, the Megara are banished and Vivien is turned into a stone.

It pains me to say it, but what a shambles this episode was, three of the best episodes of Classic Doctor Who are sadly concluded with this fall from Grace, it's very tedious and just lifeless. The Megara were not great, fortunately Suzy Engel puts in a good shift, but why is she silver,and why is she wearing a low cut Silver frock!!! and why has she slapped on 2 tonnes of eye liner?

One note I'd like to make, for 3 episodes the lighting was excellent, subtle and atmospheric, in this one it's all so bright, it has lost its eerie quality.

Overall the story is brilliant, just let down at the end, Emilia was a revelation, but as for Part 4, 5/10 Such a shame.

In Part One of "The Stones of Blood," Romana was pushed off a cliff; in Part Three, one of the Ogri stone monsters tumbled off a cliff; and in Part Four, the entire serial plunges off a cliff, dragging this third installment in Season 16's "Key to Time" saga straight down to the rock bottom.

David Fisher's often lively tale of dagger-wielding Druids plotting blood sacrifices for the Cailleach in the Cornwall countryside as the Doctor and Romana search for the third segment to the Key to Time leaps into hyperspace and promptly collapses into dragged-out desperation before cobbling together a rushed, unsatisfactory summation that is surprisingly callous toward the fate of one of the characters, with that pesky third segment hardly an afterthought.

Having inadvertently freed the Megara justice machines (voiced by Gerald Cross and David McAlister) trapped in a cell aboard the prison ship hovering in hyperspace above the Nine Travelers stone circle (and is thus invisible to Earthbound observers), the Doctor quickly learns that doing so without the proper authorization is punishable by death. The Megara, depicted as balls of light that dance about when they squeak-speak to each other, intend to execute the Doctor posthaste once they have tried him for the crime.

Why the Megara, who had been en route to the planet Diplos to administer similar frontier-style justice to a miscreant named Cessair, whose crimes include stealing the Great Seal of Diplos, when the prison ship "ran aground" on Earth, had been locked in a cell in the first place remains a puzzle. Aren't they supposed to be on the good side of the law they fetishize so much?

In any event, the Doctor, Romana, and Vivien Fay (Susan Engel), who in her transition to hyperspace somehow turned silver, experience Megaran justice up close and personal as the Doctor is quickly tried and found guilty but soon wangles his way out of being executed, at least temporarily, by demanding an appeal. Or something. And after Romana testifies at this new proceeding, she escapes back to Earth to join forces with archaeologist Emilia Rumford (Beatrix Lehmann) to dig up exposition to explain to viewers just what the---

---Do you get the feeling that David Fisher woke up late on the day of filming and had to throw together a script at the last minute? Too much of Part Four is given over to the Megara's interminable courtroom procedural, with so many actions punishable by death that it becomes an eye-rolling running joke. In the end, the Doctor is still found guilty, a flash renders both him and Vivien unconscious, and then comes labored contrivance revealing that Cessair is actually---let's just say there is no silver lining here.

Back on Earth, more hasty pudding is cooked to serve up the remaining missing story elements before the Doctor and Romana say goodbye to a somewhat befuddled Emilia and beat a hasty retreat from this narrative disaster to search for the next segment. Emilia is somewhat delighted that another stone monolith has been added to the Nine Travelers, seemingly unperturbed by the knowledge that that stone monolith contains someone imprisoned inside it in perpetuity, a "cat among the pigeons" to confound those who had surveyed the circle and counted nine figures. (But for those keeping score at home, subtract two confirmed kills and one missing in action.)

Delivering a full-blooded adventure with its first two parts, "The Stones of Blood" ultimately turns anemic before it is fully drained of globulin in this impressively disappointing conclusion.

REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?