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Doctor Who - The Stones of Blood
episode 100
UK 1978
produced by Graham Williams for BBC
directed by Darrol Blake
starring Tom Baker, Mary Tamm, John Leeson (voice), Beatrix Lehmann, Susan Engel, Nicholas McArdle, Elaine Ives-Cameron, Gerald Cross (voice), David McAlister (voice)
written by David Fisher, music by Dudley Simpson, script editor: Anthony Read
TV-series Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Tom Baker), Doctor Who (classic series), K9, Key to Time storyarc
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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The search for the third segment of the Key to Time takes Doctor
Who (Tom Baker), his assistant Romana (Mary Tamm) and his robot dog K9
(John Leeson) to present day (well, the 1970's) earth, were they are soon
dragged into a mystery that involves a Stonghenge-like stone circle called
The Nine Travellers, a gang of druids led by DeVries (Nicholas
McArdle) - who would like to do nothing more than to turn the good Doctor
into a blood sacrifice -, and benevolent scientist Prof.Rumford (Beatrix
Lehmann) and her assistant Vivien Fay (Susan Engel). What is complicated
enough as it is turns out to be positively threatening though when the
Doctor finds out that several stones of The Nine Travellers are
actually crystalline lifeforms who like to suck blood, that Vivien Fay is
actually a malevolent alien who has been living on earth for 4000 years,
and that the solution to the whole mystery cannot be found on earth at all
but on a spaceship hidden away in hyperspace.
Naturally, the good Doctor finds a way to take himself and Romana to
that ship - but once there, he accidently destroys a seal that activates
the justice machines - judges and executioners in one (and actually
silly light effects voiced by Gerald Cross and David McAlister) -, who
promptly condemn the Doctor to death for breaking the seal ... but the
Doctor takes his defense at his trial into his own hands, and before you
know it, he has turned the trial around and has exposed Vivien Fay as the
wanted criminal she is and leave the justice machines with no choice but
to punish her - by turning her into a stone within the Nine Travellers
... and before the machines can actually get around to executing the
Doctor, he has them teleported away ...
A Stonehenge-like stone-circle, druids, bloodsucking stones and some
fun on a spaceship in hyperspace should all make an enjoyably silly
sci-fi-adventure ... and indeed, The Stones of Blood is a fun
little Doctor Who-story. Of course, it's far away from being
great science fiction or even the best episodes of the series, still,
provided you don't take the whole story too seriously, you will probably
find yourself well entertained ...
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