Day 82: Four Hundred Dawns

We begin a new series today with what seems to be just a standard run of the mill episode. It takes place on a world that's going to be destroyed in a couple of days, and the TARDIS crew are being held there against their will by the seemingly evil Maaga, who, whilst to all intents and purposes is acting reasonably friendly, is so obviously evil that you half expect her to have Sean Connery tied up in a chair somewhere off screen for purposes of torture. But the sad thing about this episode is that little video footage exists of it, most of it was wiped from the BBC archive, and what remains is about a 5 minute clip of mostly dialogue and a few pieces of footage from some bloke with a video camera pointed at the TV. But what does exist shows that the director, Derek Martinus, seems to be quite innovative, with a wonderful ability to move camera positions from looking down at something to moving in one manoeuvre to a level position with the other cameras. It's a shame that this one is lost, because the direction does seem as if it would lift this story up.