5.4 - The Legacy of Death

The conclusion to the previous month's story, and it manages to carry on the momentum from the previous story quite nicely. There's less time for Romana in this episode, but this allows the guest cast to come into focus in a better way.

Overall, this was a very strong conclusion to the story and it managed to maintain the use of humor along with the serious undertones that made the first story such a great hook. It also clears up all the mysteries established in Part One quite nicely. A very good conclusion to one of the Fourth Doctor's best two release stories.

Continuing on from last month's story, The Paradox Planet, The Legacy of Death drops us back onto a world where the past and present are at war with one another. Only this time, the future is coming back to the past.

One of my biggest criticisms for last month's story was that they had the great concept of a planet at war with itself, and then barely used it past the first episode. This month's episode uses it a lot more, which I appreciated. It was a really concept and I'm glad to see it used a little more here.

Another of my criticisms was leveled at the guest cast, who felt really tacked on, especially so because of Baker's presence and Ward's presence in the story. This month, the guest cast fared a little better, getting a lot more room to shine, as Baker and Ward were more relegated to the edges of the story. Special recognition should go to Simon Rouse as Drang. He did a great job and his character was a actually fairly fleshed out; he wasn't declaring war on the past for no reason, but because of his love for the extinct animals. His final scene was touching and a real highlight of the story.

As I said above, the story did a much better job with the whole "past vs. present" aspect of the story, which greatly improved the story. I really thought that this story was incredibly clever. It reminded me a lot of some of the (forgive me) timey-wimey stories of the New Series. There was a ton of movement from past to future to past again to future again and so on. It was extremely clever and well written, especially so compared to last month's story.

At the same time, I felt that the story still didn't live up to the potential it had. They referenced it numerous times, mostly talking about the dangers of it, but no one from the future ever really faces the consequences of killing someone from the past. It would've made for an insanely complicated story for sure, but it would've also been extremely interesting I feel. And while Rouse does a better job this month, the rest of the cast just really can't compete with Baker and Ward.

So what do I think? I think this story improved a bit on what the first story did, but I still felt that they had a great story that they could've used and didn't. It felt like a missed opportunity here, which is a shame.