I did not find much that was wrong with this story, although there was some dumb dialogue maybe once along with the typical, upbeat conclusion and a joke which actually jars with the rest of the episode, which is much tenser. the final attempt at an explanation is particularly poor. that aside, it all worked for me. we have had faith as the centre of a story before, see year's one's collision course for example, or for another year two's much weaker new adam, new eve. here it leads to some very interesting hallucination scenes which are very surreal, accompanied by some truly aethereal music from derek wadsworth, this is something which i particularly enjoyed. the cloud is an effective threat, though never properly explained. it also does not appear to be very large as the moon flies through it fairly quickly, which seems unlikely. there is a nice tension between the cloud threat and the need to find tiranium to fix a crewmember's heart. this leads to some nice scene contrasts as we switch from one plot to another. you sometimes wonder whether patrick really is telling the truth after all and is contact with some higher power; or is he a lunatic? this is a disturbing question. the cave sets are nice and dark and claustrophobic, which makes them a good place for a hunt and a chase. the ending was the only thing which really let this story down for me, aside from the comedy element it all ends a little happily ever after. from previous stories we might have expected patrick to receive some kind of comeuppance for threatening the safety of others.
Review of Catacombs of the Moon
strong dramatic story about religious faith, concept more intelligent than usual
15 December 2019
Warning: Spoilers