Day 232: The Seeds of Death Episode 1

The major thing that I took away from this episode was in the way in which the villains were revealed. As has been mentioned several times on this blog, the tradition is to keep the monster hidden for the majority of episode 1, with the episode 1 cliffhanger being the revelation of the monster, sending children scurrying down behind their sofas. This episode finds an interesting spin on that scenario. It chooses to keep the monster hidden, not by keeping them behind a door, but instead through carefully choosing the camera angle at which the action is shot. Suddenly, all we have to associate the monster with is its voice, which hisses orders at its captives. It's an entertaining spin on the concept as it allows for enough action to occur for the story to continue, whilst simultaneously building tension about what is going to happen due to the monsters attacking. It also means that when the monsters are revealed, in this case the Ice Warriors, it means that the cliffhanger is not relying on the memories of the children watching to recall a monster that last appeared over a year ago.