During Barty's Party

Wow. This one was, as had been suggested by the reading I'd done, a really good episode. A masterpiece of sound design being used to create an upsetting tone that builds to a crescendo.

Having woken from a disturbing dream, Angie Truscott (Elizabeth Sellars) is perturbed by scratching coming from within the walls and under the floorboards. Her husband Roger (Anthony Bate) arrives home and offers a rational explanation for the noises. With the radio on to hide they noise, they hear Barty's Party, an early evening drivetime type show which starts to take reports about large numbers of rats on the move.

This is essentially a two hander theatre piece, although with a few voices added such as the radio presenters and a telephone call, so it's vital that the two actors get it right and indeed they do. Elizabeth Sellars is particularly good, as you might imagine given her pedigree and she carries more of the piece than Bate. It's nice though, after the male leads in "Baby" and "Special Offer" being such nasty pieces of work, that despite occasionally looking like Roger would join them, he usually prefers to comfort his wife rather than dismiss her.

As I said in the opening paragraph it's the sound design that really does the best job of the episode. From individual scratching, building across the run time to sound like a hoard of scratching screeching creatures, it really helps your brain fill out what you can't see happening.

It's a great episode of television in any era.

Fantastic. Such a subtle build up after the initial (less subtle) screams at the car...the alcohol, the neurotic and lonely lady, the dog that sensed danger. It then builds up wonderfully. You know you are engaged in the drama when you "will" the characters to take a course of action, and feel frustration when they do not. Elizabeth Sellars is excellent. Anthony Bate plays Anthony Bate again, but it is a good foil to Sellars.

I saved this for last as I was told I'd enjoy it, oh what beautiful eyes you have had previously been my favourite, somewhat of a step up on most, but this one without a doubt is the best on the series. Forty five minutes of intense, intelligent, quality horror. The pace increases as the episode progresses, the tension and fear increase rapidly. No visible threat, so no plastic masks or rubber suits, the terror is cleverly crafted with sound effects, to great effect. I'm a massive fan of Anthony Bate, an actor of true quality, but it's Elizabeth Sellars that impressed me most.

Very professional, full of scares, an episode of real quality 9/10

Slow-starting but eventually intense two-hander (including an ageing Elizabeth Sellars) about a country-house being infested by a multitude of rats (which are never actually seen – kudos, then, to the realistic and genuinely scary sound effects, lending the whole an appropriate apocalyptic feel).

The title refers to a goofy radio program which first alerts citizens to the 'plague'; at first, only one or two rats are heard scratching at the floor-boards (they're trying to get in to shelter from the cold) – so that Sellars' husband ignores her appeals of the impending danger (already evident from the mysterious presence of an abandoned car outside the couple's home, which is actually the very opening shot of the episode!) and attempts to chase them away by merely stamping his foot, or beating a club, on the ground!!

However, the situation soon deteriorates – especially since it's apparent that the rodents are impervious to all forms of poison: they have somehow evolved and, in fact, the radio presenter starts referring to them as "super-rats"! In desperation, Sellars contacts Barty to ask for help…but he's not familiar with the area in which the house is situated and, furthermore, gets the surname wrong! All of a sudden, though, the relentless (and deafening) scratching and screeching stops – the distraught couple open a window in relief, only to 'see' an arriving partying neighbor and his guests fall foul of the deadly mass of rats