Two years down the line and the autons are back with location filming, a CGI budget and a slightly better production. This time it's not a simple run around and shoot things story and there's no strawberry jam menacing people.
Somehow Winslet (from the previous release) has set himself up as the Vicar on Sentinel Island (I couldn't help but think of the Master in "The Daemons") and has a very devoted congregation. Any that weren't devoted were simply killed. Well, it keeps the numbers constant I suppose. The nestene needs Lockwood and newcomer Natasha Alexander (a psychic from UNIT) in order to re-awaken the creature beneath the church (and also the audience). There's more gunplay in this one (the budget definitely stretched to cover scenes that could almost be described as action based) and there's a church to damage at the end. It's still not particularly challenging on the plot front but there's more atmosphere to it this time. There's undertones of homo-eroticism in there, some almost respectable CGI work at the end and a set of extras that actually makes it feel like it had a lot of people throwing their effort into it. In spite of all this, it still falls slightly flat. My mind struggled to focus on it fully, things didn't move fast enough to keep me occupied and the ending is clearly setting up the third one. But it's still a massive improvement on the original (not overly challenging I know) and this time it felt as though it wasn't quite being made up as it went along. And it's much prettier to look at.
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