Bigger Is Better.

Watching Doctor Who: Series 2 Serial 1: Planet Of Giants

My synopsis:

The sound of klaxons fill the air, not to worry thought... it's just one of those things, everything is fine. Everything is... well shiiiiiit, maybe not. Outside the TARDIS everything appear to be normal, apart from the giant dead earthworm, and the giant dead ant, and the giant poster of some plant, and the giant matchstick... wait a second! Occam's razor... they're at some sort of art installation. (Damn it, Ian!)

Ian gets trapped inside a giant matchbox and is transported down the oversized garden to the patio. In the land of the giants there are discussions about a new insecticide, but due to it's highly deadly nature it is being rejected. This could mean great losses for the company and giant number one is shot dead by giant number two.

The team are reunited and try to consider the next tiny steps they should take. But when a giant leg comes towards them they panic and scatter, and all sense goes out of the window. The Doctor and Susan are safe in the garden, but Ian and Barbara run for the briefcase.

With the team separated by the wall of a house they try and discover and entry/exit points. In the heat of the moment Barbara forgot the golden rule don't touch anything. Usually the rule is poke everything, but in this episode there's deadly insecticide. Hiding her poking of the wheat she lets Ian take the lead trying to find a way out. Then a eureka moment, a giant paperclip ladder!

As Ian carries Barbara off after she collapses, the Doctor and Susan make it up the plug hole into the sink. Susan's loud annoying voice comes in handy to draw the others to their location and it's time for everyone to escape down the plug hole... no one could possibly want to use this sink, it's not like someone has had to hide a dead body and got covered in blood and dirt... oh.

Ian and Barbara manage to get back out of the sink, but the Doctor and Susan were still inside when the giant turned on the tap. Luckily with some quick thinking they manage to climb into the overflow pipe and once the giants have left they attempt to make contact with people through the telephone.

The telephone operator's suspicions are aroused and she's convinced that the man she had previously spoken to on the phone is not who he says he is. As the policeman leaves to investigate, the gang go about trying to set a fire to alert people that something is wrong.

Success seems imminent as the policeman apprehends the two giants. But can the gang get back to the TARDIS in time to save Barbara and get themselves back to full size?

The opening scene might actually be real life in this one as the TARDIS has managed to somehow miniaturise itself. And of course that's a bit of a shame seeing as it seems to be the first time that the Doctor has managed to get them back to anything like their own time on Earth. Accident or by design? Who knows, but we do know that the TARDIS is just as stubborn in her later life as the Doctor is, so perhaps she's keeping them around a little longer.

Having watched one of the documentaries early on that said about this episode being put off I was keen to see how they dealt with it. I was sad to see that it was only three episodes long, but having watched it I was relatively please with what was delivered.

I thought the sets were very good. Yes, yes, I'm sure that the bugs weren't accurate, but they did look impressive. Considering some of the things you see in modern low budget films, I think these things were positively award winning.

I love Ian in this one, everyone else is quite open and willing to go with the "we're shrunk" option, but not him. "No, Susan. What we have here is some sort of art installation... and if I start climbing on it then some security guards are bound to come along and we can get right on with the storyline." To be honest, I might have been more willing to go along with that than to go along with the idea that some government scientist would just have dropped his briefcase and matches on the lawn like that.

Little bit of a downer in the fact that the cat wasn't involved more. I had visions of a possible wall of fur that they cling onto as they hitch a ride across the patio on their trusty stead. *sigh* Never mind.

Being a short set of episodes things had to run a bit quicker, I can understand that, but I did feel like the team's reunion was rather rushed after the scientist was murdered. Maybe just a little bit of them running together at the last moment rather than cutting to all four of them standing together would have been more effective.

The Doctor seems to have taken a more kindly turn at the beginning of this season. He's more concerned than Susan is about getting inside the house to save them and he's generally nicer to them. Still a little brusque at the beginning, but he does apologise.

I have to say I'm torn over this one as a whole. I really enjoyed the larger than life setting, and it was nice that they were back on their Earth (probably). But it felt a little blah. I wasn't so bothered about what was going on with the giants at all. Admittedly having all those familiar things around makes it much easier for the audience to engage with what's going on, but it felt a bit wrong that they'd essentially been thrown into an episode of Perry Mason.

But I can't stay too mad, it was still entertaining... and there are Daleks coming up next!