Written by Bill Strutton | Directed by Richard Martin | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 02/20/65
Sandifer is absolutely correct - the point of this serial is 100% about the weird visuals.
What else could it be? We get a few more scraps of information about what's going on in this episode. According to the Doctor, they're on Vortis, and he's heard of the Menoptra when he discovers one of their spent chrysalis (which we find out are the butterfly creatures that Barbara interacts with in this episode). The Doctor doesn't seem to have heard of the Zarbi (the beeping ant creatures), however. Why he might have heard of one and not the other is unknown at this point.
The Zarbi use gold to control any creature they want, which is why they were able to lure Barbara out of the ship (I guess we should be thankful none of the TARDIS crew have any gold fillings). The Menoptra seem to be fighting the Zarbi, and apparently have an invasion fleet in space. We don't know if either group of aliens are good or bad yet.
That's about it. Somehow I've watched forty-two minutes or so of this serial and that's all I could tell you about the plot so far. The audience is clearly supposed to just enjoy - or, more likely, be freaked out by - the visuals. It's not as though they're not striking - some of the camera angles are actually pretty good for this weird landscape populated with giant ants and butterflies - but six episodes of this is just too much. Like most Doctor Who serials, I bet this would be a lot more watchable if it were only four episodes long.
Can you imagine what this serial would be like if it were missing, though? The recon subtitles would just be "???" for the majority of it, I bet.
"Doctor Who" puns so far: 2 | Tomorrow: "Escape to Danger"
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