There's Astrid's wallpaper for a start...
They say nothing dates more than the future, when it comes to Sci-Fi, and this story - set in 2017 - is so far from the reality of that year that it hurts. It's not just certain aspects that don't match, it's everything.
Salamander is world famous, and incredibly popular. He could easily obtain a position of power, giving him everything he might want, without having to resort to all that blackmail and murder he indulges in. He could be a perfectly legitimate world leader.
Salamander must clearly be paranoid - possibly with good reason, if people have tried to kill him. He employs a food tester to check for poisons, and has files on everyone in case he needs to undermine or blackmail them - so he definitely doesn't believe he can get them on his side by himself. Why then does he accept Jamie so quickly - placing him within his own household, arming him with a gun, and installing his "girlfriend" in the place where all his food is prepared?
His illegal actions actually risk bringing unwanted attention upon him, as people are surely suspicious of all the bad things that happen to those who oppose him.
The only person who seems not to be suspicious is the Doctor. He spends five episodes insisting on evidence, despite everything Kent, Astrid and then Jamie and Victoria tell him. This hesitancy to act, and insistence on evidence, has never been part of the Doctor's personality - especially in this most anarchic incarnation - a Doctor who wrecks a colony's power supply then runs away before he has to deal with consequences, and who helps mad logicians resurrect ancient evil, just to see what happens next.
The Doctor becomes suspicious of the hovercraft very quickly. As it happens, he has cause to be concerned, but there's nothing on screen to explain his behaviour - the hovercraft being so far away from him. Is he just naturally suspicious about hovercraft.
The driver of the hovercraft (real life) looks nothing like the driver of the hovercraft (actor playing the part). You see him clearly through the windscreen.
At story's end, we discover that the TARDIS must have landed just a stone's throw away from the Kenowa research station, as first Jamie and Victoria, and then the Doctor and Salamander get there very quickly. A massive coincidence that Salamander just happens to stumble across the TARDIS, in the dark.
Not only does the TARDIS land very near to Salamander's base, but Astrid happens to have a house in the vicinity, and the hovercraft crew just happen to be hanging out in the same area. A lot going on for a remote beach area.
Even with the return of the missing episodes, Part Three is still very weak, with people being held prisoner in corridors.
The back projection in the previous episode isn't terribly effective.
Adam Verney, who plays Colin, gives a terribly mannered, theatrical performance.
People who hate nepotism will be very annoyed here, as Troughton's son and the director's nephew are both given roles. (Letts will employ his nephew, Andrew Staines, in three further stories. Did anyone else ever give him a job?).
According to her helicopter's cockpit info, Astrid lives in the "Australasion" Zone.
The "Pull to Open" panel on the TARDIS is affixed to the wrong door.
How exactly does Salamander manage to engineer earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Central Europe from a bunker in Australia - on an entirely different tectonic plate.
There's a vague suggestion initially that it might be something to do with the Suncatcher - that this is going to be significant. We expect something like Blofeld's satellite in Diamonds Are Forever. This proves not to be the case and the means by which the bunker dwellers trigger these events is left unexplained.
One of the biggest issues with this story is the fact that the Doctor, in his second incarnation, has visited this general time zone after the events depicted here, and yet no-one has gone "Here! Aren't you that Salamander bloke? The one that disappeared?".
Astrid's wallpaper...
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