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16 May 2024
This review contains spoilers!
Though I liked the setting of Lost Hearts better, I think in terms of story, Slow Beasts was my favourite from this boxset. I love the gothic, but I felt that Slow Beasts comment on colonialism was a much tighter concept.
The gang arrive on the planet of the 'slow beasts' - monolithic creatures whose hearts beat once every thirteen days. We are then treated to a thrilling tourist ride around the beasts, showing them off as an attraction rather than as a living, breathing species in their own right. Which is the whole point of the episode - the creatures, in fact, were artificially slowed down in order to let the human colonists take advantage of the land.
This is one of the themes of an awful lot of BF stories, but pleasingly this one pulled it off well. The land is returned to the creatures, the humans vanquished, and the Doctor, Liv, and Helen fly off again for more adventures. I am perhaps being a little more flippant than I really feel here - as I say, I did genuinely enjoy this episode, and I thought it hit all the right beats without being overly saccharine, or overly forced.
However, it caps off a rather decent-to-average set with another story that sits well within the status quo. And that's not a bad thing, exactly, but coming from a range that has historically had episodes like Scherzo, To The Death, UNIT Dating - well, it feels safe. And safe is enjoyable. But I can't help wishing for more.
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