The Living Stones

Reviewed by Kathryn A

The second adventure in the second season also had similar flaws and strengths. "The Living Stones" could have been retitled "The Tomorrow People meet Invasion of the Body Snatchers" - and I'm not spoiling anything; anyone decently versed in Doctor Who could have guessed what was happening in the first five minutes of the first episode. And yet, if you didn't know anything about SF, if you didn't know it was an unoriginal plot, they certainly put it together decently. Harking back to "Terror of the Autons" or any SF where familiar people are taken over by aliens, they weren't playing it for laughs at all when they got a little old lady to wear dark glasses and attack Our Heros. No, here the comedy relief came from General Beaumant-Savage, who interfered, took over the military part of the operation, and made a complete and utter fool of himself.

Sid & Nancy scale: someone better than Enid Blyton does The Seeds of Doom

Well, to recap: this season they improved by tossing the OTT villains, and got worse by having worse plots, well, perhaps not worse, but less original (after all, I reckon the idea in "Monsoon Man" was very good, but it was spoiled by having a completely silly and unbelievable villain). Otherwise, it was about the same, fairly enjoyable (and hooray for Adam!) (and Megabyte too I guess.) They seem to be playing switch-the-female-TP; every season they seem to change who the third Tomorrow Person is. I'm glad at least that they seem to be happy with Adam and Megabyte; I do like those characters. Though they seem to have boxed them in to particular roles - Adam is the sympathetic hero type, and Megabyte is the sceptic. Which is a far cry from what Megabyte was in the pilot! Bring back plucky Megabyte!

Well, maybe someday they'll get it right. Until then, let's enjoy the good bits.