Doctor Who - Castle of Fear - Review

Well, I haven't much to say on this one. It's hard to really review a comical story if the humour isn't to your taste, because it has a tendency to overshadow other elements, as is the case here.

The comical voices really detract, I think. Even with the explanations given, they could have been reined in a bit. They did take me out of the story a great deal. Meanwhile Sarah Sutton gave a good performance as Nyssa (playing deadpan rather than acting up to the humour). One of her better performances, though I did think Nyssa had been written with a little more bite than usual. Peter likewise played everything straight, which served him well. He did feel a little bit flat, though. In particular when he yells at the Rutans shortly after the 'very fond' bit quoted above, he didn't really sound convincingly angry to me.

There's quite a good story behind the comedy aspects, I think. The human nature mimicking that of the aliens is a nice touch, and as noted in the extras, I appreciated that even Nyssa isn't all she seems at times. I do like the particular alien on show here, and it did raise my appreciation a bit. (The scenes with the aliens aren't among the more comedic, which helps.)

The sound design is nice too, very rich, it visualises the action well. The sound work on the aliens is great, with the one small hitch that, as others have said, they sound a bit dalek at times. Perhaps the one area I felt things fall down was in setting locations. A bit too often everything just happened in a muddy field in my head.

So, overall I give this a 4/10. Not enjoying the humour it's not really going to be a resounding success with me. I did enjoy some of the other elements, though.