Day 490: The Stones of Blood Part 3

There's a strong variance in tone throughout this episode. On the one hand, there are some absolutely hilarious scenes (this is, incidentally, the second story in a row to feature some truly laugh out loud Physics jokes, The Pirate Planet chose to make a gag about the law of conservation of momentum, here we get a joke about Einstein's theory of Special Relativity). You've also got a villain who appears to be covered in silver paint, Tin Man style, hamming up every scene that she's in and the monsters are some fairly unthreatening rocks. But this is contrasted very easily with some moments of absolute horror that occur throughout the episode. The aforementioned rocks may be unthreatening, but this is only a half truth. In actual fact, they can be quite threatening, such as in the scene where they advance on some campers and drain their blood, meaning that we hear their screams as the life-force is sucked out of them, see their previously flesh hands replaced with that of a skeleton and recoil as the screen fades not to black but the altogether more discomforting red. It's an interesting juxtaposition to view in the story, as it quite clearly wants to be horrific but it wants to have fun whilst doing it and make it fun for the audience. This is a fine balancing act to manage, and I give them props for trying, but there's obviously room for improvement as the series continues.