A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 60. Crater of Needles (The Web Planet Part Four)

Here is where this serial breaks utterly for me.

Not because there's more endless exposition.  Not because of the unintentionally silly ass combat sequence between the Menoptran Spearhead and the Zarbis.  Not because of the surreal scene where it looks like Vicki is slow-dancing with a Zarbi.

Here we meet the Optera, and I realize that the budget given to this serial just cannot be stretched to accommodate its ambitions.

The concept behind the Optera is pretty sound--as Vrestin and Ian learn, these are the descendants of the Mepoterans who stayed on Vortis and headed underground, thus losing their wings are becoming grub-like beings who treat the original Menoptrans as gods.  However, it is impossible to take them seriously with their styrofoam costumes.  I could never take them seriously whenever we got a close look at these outfits; they're just too artificial.  And given that the actors in the Optera costumes are highly restricted by those outfits, they don't even have the benefit of choreography to convey their alienness like the Menoptra do.

There is a definite sense that this is one of those episodes where everyone is running in place.  The combat sequence takes quite a largish amount of time, and there are moments that are striking--the way the Menoptrans swoop in, legs clenched together and swinging gives us a sense of their insectness....but then they're on solid ground wrestling with those guys in the plastic ant suits, and my suspension of disbelief is once more snapped.  The whole thread involving the Doctor and Vicki chases its own narrative tail, as we go back to the organic hairdryer crying that the Doctor betrayed them only for the Doctor to claim that all-important information the hairdryer needs is coming until the Spearhead lands and the hairdryer accuses him of betrayal yet again...I am confident in saying you could cut this entire episode out of the serial without affecting the narrative at all.  And that includes the nonsense with the Optera.

Even though the first half of this serial did keep my attention, it was doing so only tenuously.  Here is where my attention wanders, and no amount of creative costuming can help me get it back.