I’ve just watched the Web Planet.
Definitely both good and bad. Episode one in general was a lot of fun.
For the whole thing, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki were great, really, as can be expected. We get some time with Barbara and Vicki together where we find out a bit more about where she comes from, as she considers aspirin to be on a level with using leaches for medicine.
We also get some good moments with Ian and the Doctor involving Ian’s pen, and then his tie.
I rather liked them having specialized equipment they put on when going out of the Tardis, atmospheric density jackets and respiratory compensators.
I was noticing the Doctor treating Vicki a good deal like a substitute for Susan.
Once we actually start getting into the aliens, we start coping with the weird camera stuff and bad costumes and acting.
The moth people had silly furry striped costumes, but those were actually probably the best costumes of the bunch. The larval ones were a bit sillier, and the ant ones totally took me out of it, as the human legs were pretty obvious.
With the acting, there were a lot of silly voices and bad cavemen impressions, and stuff from the captain kirk school of voice acting.
OTOH, Vrestin was great, and so were Prapillus and the Animus.
The writing… well, sometimes it was great, and sometimes it was “Zarbi! Zarbi! Zarbi!”, or hopping around saying “The Light!”. But, you know, sometimes we were given:
PRAPILLUS: Hilio, the Menoptra have no wisdom for war. Before the Animus came, the flower forest covered the planet in a cocoon of peace. Our ancestors carved temples like this for resting places of our dead, but that was all the work we did. There were no other plans to make. Light was our God and we existed in light, flying above thought. Our banishment has taught us of enemies and weapons, and my captivity has taught me strategy. They tore my wings from me and I felt, as you feel, that all was lost. But if our Gods favour our survival, we must learn their lesson and use our brains and not our wings. This Earth woman we must trust, for she can show us how to exist without wings, to survive and flourish. What should we do?
Like a lot of 6 parters, I do feel it could’ve been shorter, especially since you could cut out a bunch of the bad bits.
The Doctor’s games of wits with the Animus were great, not the least because arguing with a tube meant we didn’t have to deal with wonky costumes.
All in all, I did quite like it, despite some of the stuff it had going against it. Main issue really was that they were trying to do more than they could pull off, and I’d rather that then not trying to do enough…
Vicki and Barbara bantering about what a primitive time Barbara must’ve come from, for example. Part 2… well, it felt a lot slower. Clearly I still need to watch the rest of the serial to judge the thing as a whole, though!