The Web Of Fear is just classic and a fantastic(perhaps even better) sequel to The Abominable Snowmen. It's a great example of how to get continuity right. Not to mention how incredibly well-written the whole thing is.
PLOT
After Professor Travers accidentally reactivates a Yeti control sphere, the Great Intelligence finds its way back to Earth and proceeds to try to capture the Doctor to absorb his knowledge(I wrote a fanfic about that without knowing it actually happened!!) in the cut-off London Underground.
CHARACTERS
Patrick Troughton is as great as he's ever been. I loved his cunning plan to stop the Intelligence(although I don't get why he instructed Jamie to use the microphone thingy if he didn't want that to happen) and the scene where he apparently waits his mental demise was brilliant.
Jamie has his best moment to date, when he tells the Doctor, deadpan: "You're not going to give yourself up." The Doctor should have companions as loyal as this more often. I watch Jamie and I wonder why the hell the Twelfth Doctor still bothers with Clara.
Victoria is still a screamer, but she still makes it believable. And it pays off very well with the obvious closeness between her and Jamie.
Nicholas Courtney is legend. He's like the epitome of a trustworthy soldier, someone with an open mind, but a pragmatic view of reality. I love that calming, authoritarian voice of his.
The Welsh get royally screwed over with poor cowardly Evans, though. To give him credit, he maintains a certain level of likability about him. You can't rely on him, but you can't hate him either. Maybe it's the down-to-earth accent, I don't know.
The Yeti redesign isn't an improvement over the blank-faced originals, but it's not a downgrade either. It's just different.
Professor Travers really does look changed. Kudos to the make-up people and of course, the actor himself. I was only confused by his sudden expertise in the robotic Yetis and their tech when in the previous story, he only cared about the real ones. I also hated his performance as the Great Intelligence, it was too over-the-top.
Anne Travers started out really annoying with her "ooh, I'm a tough woman so beat it!" attitude, but once she got rid of that, I liked her interactions with the Doctor.
The guy playing Staff Sergeant Arnold did a great job. When he was Arnold, he was just the kind of reliable old dog you'd expect and when he was the Intelligence, he was eerily distant.
NOTES
*Hail the recorder! The Doctor plays a sad tune whilst the mind extraction machine is being prepared.
*I thought the microphone and control box were the same thing, but apparently not.
*I loved the early long scenes in the TARDIS. We don't get to see the TARDIS nearly enough. And were those sandwiches from the food machine?
*No offence to Courtney, but what exactly was Lethbridge-Stewart's point in the story? They could've easily just kept one of the earlier military dudes alive without having to make up some kind of wacky reason to have him show up out of nowhere and take charge.
*That mysterious music from The Shining and The Enemy Of The World is here again! It plays during Episode 1 when we first see Travers.
*When the Yeti fight the military outside, we hear the Troughton-era Cybermen theme, which I believe is called Space Adventures.
*How did the Great Intelligence go from "Revenge is for losers" to "I'll kill myself to have revenge"?
*The Yeti didn't need nursery rhymes to be scary.
*Should I watch Downtime(of course when I'm done with the classic series)?
CONCLUSION
A dark, gripping Base Under Siege with one of the best Doctor Who villains of all time. It's one episode too long, but that's the only real complaint. I now uncontrollably want UNIT to show up already.
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