Rate "The Hand Of Fear"

Ah, the ubiquitous quarry.  What would Doctor Who be without them?  But in this case, it really is a quarry, and an explosion unearths a calcified hand, which is inadvertently discovered by Sarah Jane.  And this is no ordinary calcified hand revealed after a quarry explosion to be thousands of years old, either.  It's all that remains of Eldrad, a silicon-based life form whose mind has taken control of Sarah Jane and compelled her to take the severed hand to a nuclear reactor so as to facilitate the regeneration of Eldrad's full body.  All of this makes the Doctor a little mistrustful of Eldrad, but he agrees to return the alien to its home planet of Kastria, from which Eldrad claims he was wrongly exiled.  But there is a lot more to his story than he's telling anyone.

So what did you think of the story that gave us the departure for Sarah Jane Smith?  Full round of applause, or clumsy left hand attempt?

It has been a long time since I've watched this story, but my abiding memory is one of cleverness over the reveal of who Eldrad was, but an awfully slow pace in the presentation until you got there.

3/5 from me.

I basically agree. It was, and remains, one of the most emotional send offs for a companion - Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow Wow - but it's not a brilliant story.

It was an emotional send off for Sarah Jane, but it felt like everything up to that moment was merely tacked on. "Hand Of Fear" is not one of my personal favorites, actually.

Mine neither.