Day 497: The Power of Kroll Part 2

This episode is bookended by two noteworthy cliffhangers. The first is the resolution to the previous episode's cliffhanger, which was Romana being menaced by a fairly unconvincing monster. She is saved by the Doctor, who unmasks the monster as just someone dressed in a fairly unconvincing costume. This is fantastic, as it plays on the fact that the audience would not completely expect the monster to be convincing in the first place, by virtue of this being a 1970's Doctor Who story. Thus, we are surprised to learn that our initial suspicions are correct from when we first saw the monster, and that it really is just a man in a suit.

The same can't be said of the episode's ending however, which features a fairly unconvincing tentacle grabbing a refinery worker and dragging him into a fairly unconvincing pipe. It's built up to well with some excellent acting from the supporting cast, and there's a somewhat effective jump scare that signals the beginning of the cliffhanger but it just doesn't work, because the effects simply aren't up to scratch. It's not the best thing to see in the story, but that doesn't really matter at the end of the day, as there are more important things like script and character to distract us from the fairly shoddy effects.