Day 432: The Hand of Fear Part 1

This, as an episode, doesn't quite feel right. It's not like The Seeds of Doom where I can pinpoint exactly where the story deviates from expectations, instead the not-rightness surrounds the episode as a whole, feeling like it's surrounded by a goo of not sitting well with me. It's unexpected that this should happen as well, I last saw this story a year and a half ago and can only remember good things, but seeing it now makes everything feel...odd.

A reason could plausibly be due to the setting. We're firmly in the present day, but not the present day that we're used to. This is the first story since Fury from the Deep to feature no input from UNIT, and even then you'd have to go back to The Faceless Ones to find a story that's within the same category as this, with strange goings on happening in familiar environments (this time a quarry, a hospital and a nuclear power station). Add to this the fact that we have the Doctor separated from Sarah Jane for a vast proportion of the episode, a tacked on prologue detailing the possible origins of the titular Hand, and an odd scene where we see the Doctor not in a sprightly yellow roadster but in a rather more mundane car driving along in the passenger seat to find Sarah Jane, and we have an episode that doesn't sit well with this particular member of the audience.

But I do remember strong things to come in this story, and I look forward to seeing the rest of it as we delve more into The Hand of Fear...