The Doctor cannot let his life be ruled by threads

The brigadier! Sadly his first moments onscreen are lost but we do get an animated recreation here.

As we saw at the end of The Enemy of the World, the TARDIS door was open while in flight but Jamie steps up at the beginning here and gets them closed. But our heroes find the ship covered in a fearful web and unable to go anywhere.

Once the web clears, the TARDIS puts the pedal to the metal and lands at a tube station. Unbeknownst to them, yeti stalk the Underground and Professor Edward Travers from The Abominable Snowmen, some 40 years older and wiser, has been brought in to help. A fungus that looks suspiciously like bath bubbles, at times, and cobwebs at others, is filling up the tunnels and killing anyone in its way.

A base under siege story, it handles a large cast well with various groups filling up 6 episodes rather nicely. The Underground sets are really good with the various platforms and stretches of rail being moody and having more than a hint of danger about them. The tube stop or wherever the Army has holed up is more than just a single room and there's also a sequence out on the streets so there is nice variety in locations.

The whole story is dimly lit which lends a sense of menace lurking just underneath the surface at all times. (Think Ghost Light.) Scenes in the Underground especially show a nice use of light and shadow. It made me wonder what a story like Kinda could have been with more creative lighting. Episodes 3 & 4 had good cliffhangers, especially the scene where Travers steps between 2 yeti.

The Doctor is gone for roughly 1 episode so I suspect Troughton went on vacation. Victoria is very screamy-whiny here and very annoying at several points. But she is wearing a short dress and does have a nice set of wheels. Conversely, Travers' daughter Anne is a scientist in her own right and works with the Doctor to turn the tide against the Great Intelligence instead of cowering and screaming. Jamie is always ready to take action and, as is his wont, sometimes does so impetuously.

Episode 3 remains lost and was animated for this release. It seems like whoever it was that did the work used a different technique than on the other animated episodes I've seen. The limb movement had a pronounced rigidity and some faces were really flat and not very detailed. At some angles Victoria looked like Mrs. Potato Head. I got used to it and into the story eventually but it was jarring for a couple minutes.

It was really neat to see the debut of the Brigadier, though he's not with U.N.I.T. here. I kept hoping he'd say "Five rounds rapid!" I felt that the yeti were much scarier here than in The Abominable Snowmen with their rifles that spat webbing. With the large ensemble cast, the variety of locations, and some great videography, this was a fine, fine story.