70: The Time Warrior

Before Watching

Since Dennis Spooner’s “The Time Meddler” we’ve had precious few pseudo-historicals like this, that is stories set in the Earth’s past, yet with a definite science fiction element other than the Doctor and companions arriving via time machine. In fact, the only one that comes to mind is “The Evil of the Daleks” and that didn’t do a great deal with Victorian Britain, which was after all only one of the locations of the story.

I’m not entirely sure why. After all, one of the essential problems with the pukka Historicals was that either they became pure adventure stories where the past is merely used as a kind of wallpaper, like the late Historicals, “The Smugglers” and “The Highlanders”, or you had the Doctor and companions being essentially bystanders and observers, the audience to History, but not participants within it. In a pseudo Historical you avoid this problem, since it’s pretty clear that the Doctor must act in order to prevent the course of History being diverted. Classic Who, though, continued to steer clear of this kind of story for a long time after “The Time Meddler”. In that story you may recall the Meddling Monk’s plan was to use 20^th century weapons technology to defeat Harald Hardrada before the battle of Stamford Bridge, sparing Harold Godwinsson the effort, and ensuring him victory at Hastings. Well, Hastings was a real, pivotal, Historical event. The next time that the Doctor would actually be trying to prevent a real Historical event from being wiped out of History wouldn’t be until season 20’s final story, “The King’s Demons” where the Master plans to prevent the signing of Magna Carta.

Look, I can’t lie to you. I watched this one again last year on the Horror Channel. I’m sorry, but I can’t be expected to sit there idly twiddling my thumbs while they’re showing a classic, Robert Holmes – Jon Pertwee story. I know what happens, I know what it’s like – I know the goodies that are within – the debut of both the Sontarans and my favourite classic companion, Sarah Jane Smith. Actually, I’ll be interested to see over the next couple of series whether Sarah Jane manages to stay in that enviable position  - Jacqueline Hill’s Barbara is a serious contender for the crown too.

After Watching

The first thing that struck me about the new title sequence was how unhappy and old Jon Pertwee appears on it, compared with the smiley, short haired Pertwee whose ginning phizzog has welcomed us to every episode previously. Maybe it’s a good job that this is a Robert Holmes story, and a four parter to boot, to get him back into the swing of things.

The story opens in the late12th/ early 13th century. The earliest action is centred on the castle of Irongron. Irongron is a bandit, who is a bit like Robin Hood, in as much as he robs the rich, although he hasn’t got around to giving it to the poor yet. Irongron is played by David Daker, a very well known face on TV in the 70s and 80s. He was the baddy in Richard O’Sullivan’s rather lacklustre “Dick Turpin”, and is possibly best remembered as Harry Crawford in “Boon”. With his lived in face David Daker was never going to be cast as shrinking violetty, sensitive types, and I doubt that his Hamlet would ever have been much to write home about. Cast him as a thug like Irongron, though, and he’d always do a throroughly good job for you. And in this Robert Holmes script he has quite a bit of good stuff to work with.

Supplies are running low, when Irongron and his wingman Bloodaxe see what looks like a shooting star. They ride out to where it came to Earth, and find a small space capsule which contains a warrior in a metal helmet. The Time Warrior, after claiming Earth for the Sontaran empire, enlists Irongron’s help, promising to give him new fangled weapons which will help him overcome any of his enemies. And all this in the first 6 minutes or so.

Using this time to set up the situation with Irongron and Linx, the Sontaran, means that when we do cut straight to UNIT we don’t need a long exposition scene telling us about disappearing scientists – we work out what is happening, and put two and two together to link it with Linx. It also gives a little more time to introduce Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah Jane, played by the late beautiful and talented Elisabeth Sladen, is a journalist, who is posing as her Aunt Lavinia, a famous scientist, to investigate exactly what is going on. When another Scientist, one Professor Rubeish, a scientist who is a prime example of the ‘dotty old fool’ variety thereof, disappears, the Doctor uses a doohickey to get a fix on where he has gone. Sarah goes rooting about in the TARDIS, just before the Doctor decides that it’s a case of tally-ho, the game’s afoot, and sets off after him. Amazingly the TARDIS makes a near perfect landing.

At the end of episode 1 Linx raises his helmet and we get our first sight of the head of a Sontaran. The Sontarans, although not always used to the best advantage, would reappear another 3 times in classic Doctor Who, in “The Sontaran Experiment”, “The Invasion of Time” and “The Two Doctors”. One interesting fact is that their appearance changed, slightly but noticeably each time they appeared – which doesn’t really matter than much apart from the fact that they are supposed to be a cloned species that are absolutely identical to each other. The Sontarans, although the last of the great recurring monsters to appear in classic Doctor Who (by which I mean the Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Sontarans) they would actually appear in the post 2005 series before the Ice Warriors were exhumed.

The action, then, remains in the medieval milieu. Irongron wants ‘modern’ firearms so that he can attack and defeat his near neighbour Edward of Wessex. Sarah Jane, after escaping from Irongron’s clutches with the help of the Xeron leader from “The Space Museum”, Jeremy Bullock, who plays Hal the Archer. It’s quite forgiving of him since Sarah Jane distracts him when he is about to shoot Irongron, and thus ensures that he is captured and his life is in danger. Thus when they reach the castle of Edward, we find that in fact on the side of the goodies we have Lord Beardy of Weirdy, Lady Dot of Cotton and Sir Boba of Fett. June Brown is a terrific actress who has rightfully received plaudits for her long lasting role in “Eastenders”, and while Lady Eleanor isn’t the meatiest role she’ll ever have played she imbues her with a certain steeliness which mirrors Sarah’s own , for it’s Sarah who persuades Edward to stage an attack on Irongron.

Episode two sees the meeting between Linx and the Doctor which reveals his plan. His capsule has some elementary time technology, which enables him to seize scientists from the 20^th century – that-s the furthest range that the power source of his capsule will allow. The scientists are then fitted with mind control devices, and used either to carry out the necessary repairs on Linx’s capsule, or to fashion the firearms that Linx has promised Irongron. The Doctor reveals, for the first time, that he is actually from Gallifrey, prompting Linx’s famous observation that the Time Lords have great power, but lack ‘the morale to withstand a determined assault’. And from that throwaway line will come one of the less successful Tom Baker stories in the shape of “The Invasion of Time”. That’s in all of our futures for now, though. It’s been a while since we’ve come back to the issue of whether you can change history or not. The only previous time in Jon Pertwee’s tenure was in “Day of the Daleks”. The third Doctor’s reaction to Linx is completely consistent with his reaction to the Monk in “The Time Meddler” – his meddling with Earth history would be disastrous, and he will not allow it to happen.

In fact, the more I think about it the more the comparison to “The Time Meddler” seems an apt one. There’s the obvious connection with the setting – alright, there’s more than 100 years between 1066, and the dawn of the 14^th century which is when this one is set, but that’s really not a great difference in terms of the culture and society of the times, certainly not as far as Hollywood or TV drama is concerned anyway. Then rather more subtly, there’s the tone. Yes, there are some nasty things that happen in this, or that nearly happen, I should say, but overall the tone of both is of a historically based romp, with a vein of comedy and fun running through it. Not that Linx is a comic character as the Monk is. But in “The Time Warrior” the funny lines are spread out between several of the characters, thus we get Irongron’s memorable description of the Doctor as ‘a long-shanked rascal with a mighty nose’, and then when The Doctor tells professor Rubeish that he is looking for Sarah, ‘I’m looking for a girl’, Rubeish muses ‘I would have thought he was a bit old for all that.’

Now, a short digression, which will, hopefully, make sense in the fullness of time. Superman, the archetypal superhero was created in the early 30s by schoolboys Jerome Seigel and Joe Shuster, and eventually sold to DC comics where he made his first appearance in Action Comics no. 1 in 1938. When he first appeared, Superman didn’t fly, and once of the claims made about him was ‘nothing short of a bursting (artillery) shell could pierce his skin’. Soon his super leaps became flights, and the claim had been changed to ‘not even a bursting shell could pierce his skin’. Superman soon became so super that it was totally unbelievable that anyone could ever so much as inconvenience him, let alone defeat him. Which is why the writers of the time came up with the concept of kryptonite. For those unfamiliar with it, basically Superman was sent to earth from his home planet of Krypton by his parents when he was a tiny baby, because Krypton was about to explode. Kryptonite is pieces of the core of the exploded planet. At first there was just kryptonite – which came to be known as green kryptonite, a short exposure to which robbed Superman of his powers, and a long exposure to which would kill him. In time this would be joined with other colours of kryptonite which would have different effects.

Now, what this has to do with Doctor Who is that the more powerful a monster, the more there needs to be a kryptonite, a weakness which can be exploited to defeat them. With the cybermen, to pick one example, their ‘kryptonite’ has been, at different times, radiation, gravity, acetone, gold and so on. Now, in “The Time Warrior” Sontaran kryptonite comes in the form of the probic vent. Remember, the Sontarans are a genetically engineered species, and instead of the inefficient refuelling means we humans use, that is, eating and drinking, they refuel through an orifice which is called the probic vent. Now, the probic vent is really and truly the only part of a Sontaran that is vulnerable- extremely vulnerable as it happens. So, bearing in mind that they are a genetically engineered species, their designer must have been having a really bad day when he decided to put the probic vent on the back of their necks, where they can neither reach it, nor see any danger approaching it. It’s the only real criticism that I have  of the Sontarans, that their kryptonite is so obvious. Linx isn’t defeated because he is outthought, or out-technologied by the Doctor. He is defeated because Hal the Archer gets one lucky shot at the probic vent. And it’s a shame, since the Sontarans otherwise have a hell of a lot going for them. In most ways they are more interesting and far more adaptable than, by way of comparison, the Cybermen. Could you ever see a cyberman being used in the same way as the revived series has used Dan Starkey’s Strax for comic effect as a member of the Paternoster Gang? I rest my case.

All in all then, if we’re prepared to lavish praise on Robert Homes – and I am – we must also apply criticism where it is due. So this isn’t quite an all-time Holmes classic for me. But it is what it is, a very enjoyable slice of late-Pertweeana, and there’s much to enjoy here.

What have we learned?

Practically everything important we’ll need to know about the Sontarans

Sarah-Jane Smith is as gutsy and brave as Jo Grant, but more feisty too. She’s a keeper. 

66: Carnival of Monsters

Before Watching

So, the Doctor is free! He can now go where and when he pleases, not having to go as the Time Lord’s favourite errand boy, and not having to look over his shoulder in case they catch him. So surely the first story we’re going to get now is going to be a huge, wide ranging space epic? Well, as it happens that is on the way, but not yet.

“Carnival of Monsters” is a quirky, at times almost whimsical Robert Holmes piece, and the thing about quirky, at times almost whimsical stories is when they work, they can be extremely memorable and enjoyable. This was the story chosen to represent the Jon Pertwee era in the “Five Faces of Doctor Who” series of repeats in late 1981/early 1982. On the surface it’s a rather odd choice, since there are far more representative stories from either the pre Three Doctors , UNIT –era, or from the post Three Doctors era. Yet it’s an inspired choice really, and one which maybe shows the influence that fandom had over the Producer of the series at this time, John Nathan-Turner.

After Watching

You know, sometimes you can forget just how good Doctor Who can be, and just how good an individual story this one is. I’m pretty sure that I really do have nothing new to say about “Carnival of Monsters”, but what the hell, let’s go for it any way.

There’s many clever things about this story. The only expectation you have at the start is that the Doctor won’t be on contemporary Earth, and that much is fulfilled right from the start. We quickly learn that the TARDIS has materialised on board HMS Berenice, a cargo ship which is also carrying passengers to India, somewhere in the Indian Ocean. The passengers and crew are notably suspicious of them. Oh and there’s a sea monster menacing the ship, which appears to be a plesiosaur. Now, so far we seem to be in recognisable Doctor Who territory. So things need to start getting very strange indeed. And they do.

I don’t remember a Doctor Who story prior to this where there are two seemingly unconnected storylines which run parallel for so long. The action switches to the planet of Inter Minor where the humanoid showman Vorg is trying to prove to some grey skinned and white haired bureaucrats that he should be allowed in, with his assistant Shirna, and his miniscope. The miniscope, you see is the key. It is an entertainment device, in which creatures caught within its miniaturisation field are placed, together with a sample environment, and forced to act out the same actions over and over again for the benefit of the viewers. This machine had been banned by the Time Lords – it turns out that the Doctor had been instrumental in getting them banned – and the great irony is that his TARDIS has materialised inside one.

This isn’t actually the most promising of material, but it works brilliantly. Why?

It works brilliantly because Vorg isn’t evil. Vorg is a rogue, one of a type in which Robert Holmes came increasingly to specialise in, and more than that, he is a funny rogue, and a lovable rogue. He’s one of the ways in which Robert Holmes plays with our concept of what a Doctor Who story actually is, and what we expect from it. We know that a lot of the time there will be monsters. And indeed, there are monsters in this story. But they’re not the problem nor the point of the story. Yes, they provide the necessary scary bits, and the necessary danger, but this is obviously not what the Doctor is here to sort out. We also know that most of the time there will be a villain. Hence in a story like “The Mutants”, which follows a lot of the conventions of Doctor Who in the early 70s, you don’t need more than a few seconds to identify the Marshal as a villain, and you know exactly how he is going to act for the whole of the story, and be fair, he never lets you down. Say what you like about Vorg, but even though he has caused the situation that the Doctor has to deal with, he isn’t a villain. And one of the reasons why this story works so brilliantly is that it trusts its viewers a) to be able understand the difference, and b) to be able to cope with this difference from what they would have expected.

So, Vorg not being a villain means he can be developed as a comic turn, and his comic turn then provides the counterpoint to what goes on in the miniscope, which becomes increasingly serious and frightening. Which brings me to the Drashigs.

“Carnival of Monsters” works brilliantly because the Drashigs are one of the best realised pure monsters of the Pertwee era. You don’t have to be a crossword nut to work out that Robert Holmes used an anagram of the word ‘dishrag’ for this story’s stand out monsters, but there’s nothing wet or limp about these. A combination of puppetry, model work, CSO and good sound effects meant that Producer Barry Letts, wearing his director’s hat for this story, made the Drashigs one of the more convincing and frightening monsters of the whole of Pertwee’s tenure. I kind of think that the Drashigs work because they are no more than they have to be, which is ravening, unstoppable monsters. Because there is so much else going on with the script, it doesn’t need to be making points through the monsters. They are there to provide the danger, which they do perfectly.

“Carnival of Monsters” works brilliantly because every named character is more than just a repository for lines of the script. On the S.S. Bernice, you’ve got the kindly old buffer, Major Daly, who is played by the fine welsh actor Tenniel Evans. Worthy of note also is the late Ian Marter, who plays Lt. Andrews. It’s not a huge part, but he must have made an impression, for in just over a year’s time he would return as Season 12 companion Lt. Harry Sullivan. Shirna’s world weary cynicism makes her a perfect foil to Vorg, and she’s played by Cheryl Hall. I haven’t seen her on television for quite a while, but in the 70s and 80s she appeared in many shows, in particular the first three series of popular sitcom “Citizen Smith”, which showcased her talents as a comedienne. Then there’s the Inter Minorians. In less sure hands these three would just be boring cyphers. But Robert Holmes never wasted an opportunity to mock a bureaucrat. Kalik, Orum and Pletrac all stand out as individuals, although they are clearly of a sort, and that’s clever. Their plan to launch a coup d’etat is laughable, and that’s the point – it’s supposed to be. Oh, and Kalik is played by Davros-to-be Michael Wisher. What more could you want?

Here’s a thing worth noting. Vorg is a rogue, and he’s caused the trouble in the first place by using an illegal miniscope, and yet it’s Vorg’s actions which save the day. Once again, it’s playing with our expectations. At the risk of sounding pseudo-intellectual, there’s something quite Dickensian about salvation coming through the intervention of show people. Dickens loved the world of the theatre and the circus he even inveigled some of his literary friends into appearing in a comic melodrama “Not So Bad As We Seem” scripted by the now forgotten, yet then extremely popular Edward Bulwer-Lytton. In many of his novels the theatre and the circus, the world of the itinerant showman and woman represents salvation from the trials and tribulations of contemporary life that many of his heroes and heroines often find themselves having to endure.   

The last word, then, on “Carnival of Monsters”. It’s a terrifically watchable 4 parter. You can accuse seasons 8 and 9 of ‘playing it safe’  - that’s merely an opinion, and as always, feel free to disagree. You can say, well, even if that is the case, look at what they achieved. Both seasons were highly enjoyable on the whole, and when you consider that the biggest criticism you can make of stories like “Colony in Space” and “The Mutants” is that they’re a bit dull, then the show is in pretty decent fettle. But a story like “Carnival of Monsters” which plays with the conventions and discards or twists many of them, shows that the series is still capable of taking risks, and delivering something out of left field. And that’s a valuable thing indeed.

What have we learned?

Miniscopes are banned, and frankly nothing like as entertaining as a Nintendo. 

55: Terror of the Autons

Before Watching

There is a school of thought that says that it was a conscious decision on the part of Barry Letts and his team to ‘dumb down’ the show from the intelligent and mature level of the stories of the previous season, the seventh season. Now, I don’t know if that’s a particularly flattering way of putting it, but if it was their intention to make the 8^th season more appealing and accessible to the 7 and 8 year old section of the audience, then it must have worked for me. Before watching the 7^th season stories, with the exception of the first story “Spearhead from Space” I had precious few memories of watching any of these stories, although I definitely did. All of which suggests that they may well have been too complex for me to grasp properly at that time of my life. Maybe.

What I can say is that there are surely other reasons why “Terror of the Autons” made such an impression on me. The first and most obvious being Roger Delgado’s The Master. Wasn’t he just! We’re going to discuss his portrayal of the essential Moriarty to the Doctor’s Holmes as we watch the stories, but in my memory he was just brilliant- certainly the man I loved to hate. By all accounts the late Roger Delgado was a wonderful man, every bit as charming as his screen counterpart, but with none of the accompanying megalomaniac and psychopathic tendencies, and it was a tragedy that he was killed in a car crash just a few short years after his first appearance. It also introduced Miss Jo Grant. Jo, it is fair to say, most certainly was not a top scientist. But she was brave, utterly loyal to the Doctor, and posed in Playboy with a Dalek. Well, alright, it was Katy Manning the real life actress rather than the fictional character Jo Grant who did the posing.  Not that this mattered. It is fair to say that Katy appearing in Playboy wasn’t of the slightest concern to me at the time. Be fair, I was only about 10 when she left.

Yes, I’ve watched this one again within the last couple of years, but even before that there were elements of this story which had stuck in my memory for over 40 years. I was certain that the Doctor was warned about the Master by a Time Lord floating in thin air, dressed with a bowler hat and a rolled up brolly like a city gent out for a stroll, and I was right. Then there was the cliffhanger which probably affected me more than any other at any time, when the Doctor was strangled by the phone flex. Ooh, it makes me start to tingle just thinking about it. Let’s go and start watching.

After Watching

This was the story where I finally ‘got’ the Third Doctor era, or more accurately, the 2^nd Third Doctor Era. Was I scared when that telephone cord wrapped itself round his neck as the episode 2 cliffhanger? You bet I was. I knew he’d get out of it, well, I hoped he would, but I didn’t know how. Did I understand the nature of the threat to the world? Yeah, of course I did. It’s the ugly old Nestenes again using plastic to kill humans and take over the world. Got it. Did I ‘get’ the Master? Not ‘alf. At that age if you’d tried to explain his purpose using the names Holmes and Moriarty I wouldn’t have had a clue what you were on about, but that didn’t matter. Here we had a villain as smart as the Doctor, at times as charming as the Doctor, and at times as evil as the Doctor is good, a Time Lord with his own TARDIS. An arch enemy in fact. Yeah, I got that alright, and I loved it. This didn’t make me a Doctor Who fan – I was already a fan – but this story cemented the relationship. If Barry Letts’ purpose in the change of direction he brought to the show was to make it more accessible to the youngest members of the audience, in my case, at least, he succeeded.

Right, that was just so you know where I’m coming from when I write about this story. Because … it’s not as good as I remembered it to be. If I’m totally dispassionate, and don’t allow the 7 year old me to get a word in, then I can make these criticisms. If you’ve never watched it since it was first broadcast, watch it again now, and see if you’re not surprised when you find yourself noticing these things: -

The Doctor is absolutely horrible to Jo Grant. His attitude towards her is foul, recalling the very worst of Hartnell from his earliest stories. He is at his most unlikeable in the first episode.

As well as what seems to be a heretofore unseen streak of misogyny, the Doctor here exhibits also his most blatantly Establishment credentials, threatening a ministry pen pusher to have words with his superior, ‘Tubby’ Rowlands next time they are in their gentlemen’s cub together. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d lay odds it’s the Carlton Club he’s referring to.

I’m afraid that the evidence is that nothing has happened to enlighten the show in its attitude to race since Sonny Caldinez played the mute strongman Kemel in “Evil of the Daleks”. In its careless use of actor Roy Stewart as the mute circus strongman it again plunges the depths of institutionalized racism of “Tomb of the Cybermen” and “Evil of the Daleks”. In fact, Roy Stewart actually was Toberman in the former. I can’t even excuse the show by saying that this was typical of the time when it was made, because it was wrong then, and it is still wrong now.

Barry Letts was first of all a director on Doctor Who – he directed The Enemy of the World – and he had a clause in his contract as Producer allowing him to direct one story every year, and this is the one he directed. The thing about our Barry is that he did love his Chromakey, the CSO box of tricks used throughout the colour eras of classic Who. Now, there were very good reasons for a lot of the use of Chromakey in the show, since it enabled us to see things which just couldn’t have been shown otherwise. But Barry goes way above and beyond what’s necessary in this story. He uses chromakey for a domestic kitchen, for heaven’s sake. The thing about Chromakey was that although it did allow you to do things which couldn’t otherwise be done, it did often leave a fringing around objects and people, and was best not being done when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. A little went a long way.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, in “Spearhead from Space” the Doctor is told that the Nestenes do not have their own physical form. Yet in the denouement of “Terror – “ we are told that the Master is using the radio telescope to allow them to manifest on Earth in their own physical form. Huh? While we’re at it as well, the Master really doesn’t need a great deal of persuading to abandon his Auton allies either, and work with the Doctor to repel the Nestene. This is the first time he turns coat and works together with the Doctor – I promise you it won’t be the last.

The ending worked great for me when I was 7, with the Doctor seemingly glad that the master has escaped, since it means that they’ll be able to lock horns again in the future. It doesn’t sit quite so well now, considering all the death and destruction that the Master has been responsible for, in fact if anything it appears rather heartless.

Thankfully, that’s the negatives over with for now. Now we can talk about why I still like “Terror of the Autons”. You see, what it is, and what we can celebrate, is a succession of great ideas and great set pieces, riding on the back of Holmes’ earlier, and more complex “Spearhead from Space”. In terms of plot, it’s a bit like the Readers’ Digest version of the earlier story. It’s Auton Lite, if you wish, but it works. Maybe not as well as the earlier story, but if you accept its limitations there’s quite a lot to still enjoy about it.

There’s the visit by the Time Lord to warn the Doctor of the Master’s imminent arrival. He’s played by Solicitor Gray from the Highlanders, actor David Garth, and it’s a typically Holmesian touch that this is rather played for laughs to some extent. Yes, the first Time Lord the Doctor met, the Meddling Monk, was a comic turn, but that was years before the name or concept of the Time Lords had ever been formulated. In “The War Games” the Time Lords were solemn, almost monk-like beings of deeply serious mien, and incredible powers. In this, David Garth’s unnamed Time Lord is incongruously dressed as a city gent, and materializes in mid-air by mistake. The Time Lords of the War Games could easily have dealt with the Master, probably without lifting a finger, but this one makes it clear to the Doctor that he’s on his own.

Ah, the Master. While I might at times criticize the Master’s actions, or the concept of the character, you’ll not find one word of criticism here for the late, great Roger Delgado. An evil villain can be good. A charming evil villain can be incredible. I loved his Master. Oh, I hated him too, and was scared of him, but then that was the point. Watch any scene that he’s in during “Terror of the Autons” and I can pretty much guarantee you won’t be able to take your eyes off him. That’s just when he’s playing off good old pros like Harry Towb, last seen in The Seeds of Death. The scenes between him and the Doctor fairly sparkle and crackle with energy.

Let me point out the sheer variety of different ways that the Auton threat was portrayed. There was the killer sofa which ‘ate’ McGregor, played by the afore mentioned Harry Towb. The Autons with huge clownlike heads. The phone flex. The deadly daffodils. The devil doll. The Auton policemen. Actually the team got a strongly worded complaint from the police, asking them not to show the police (even bogus ones) in this light again, since it meant that people at an impressionable age might become scared of the police force.

If we look at “Terror of the Autons” as the first true story of the Barry Letts era, can we notice any huge differences to what went before in season 7? Certainly. There’s the hint that relationships – between the Doctor and Jo, the Doctor and UNIT, the Doctor and the Master – are going to become key elements of the era. More creative energy is applied in this story to ways that the Doctor and those important to him are put under threat than to the rationale of why it is all happening. In season 7 the ‘why’ was as important as the ‘how’. Now the how is everything. However, on the positive side, this story really motors, although it was bound to contrast with the three 7 parters which preceded it. The acid test will be how fast the 6 parter which comes next seems to move.

What have we learned?

The Nestene actually does have a physical form now

Every renegade Time Lord seems to have a more modern TARDIS than the Doctor

In Jo Grant’s case, it’s certainly not what you know

51: Spearhead from Space

Before Watching

I’m going to watch the story anyway, but I think I know what I’m going to say. After all, this story made a huge impression on me when I first watched it when it was first made, and then when I watched it on cable a couple of years ago it did pretty much the same all over again. And that’s not to mention that I grew up in Ealing. The Doctor Who cognoscenti will know what that means, but for ordinary mortals I will explain. One of the iconic scenes in this stories shows shop mannequins coming to life and bursting out of a plate glass shop window. So iconic that it was recreated for one of the set pieces in “Rose”, the first new Who story in 2005. This was filmed in the window of John Saunders in Ealing Broadway. Incidentally, I’m reliably informed that the shop is still there, although it’s now a branch of Marks and Spencer. Now, come on! This was a scene from Doctor Who, in colour, in a place which I recognised, which I knew well. Not only that, but it was an extremely scary scene as well! This may be one of the reasons why I remember this story so much better than any of the other stories from season 7. Then again, maybe the fact that it’s the only 4 parter had something to do with it as well – each of the other 3 stories in this season had a mammoth 7 parts.

While we’re setting the scene, this was written by my hero Robert Holmes, and this, the 3^rd story he wrote for the show, shows him really starting to flex his script writing muscles.

After Watching         

The first thing that I think we need to say is that this story actually looks amazing. Now, okay, this is partly because for the last few months we’ve had a never-ending diet of grainy black and white images – while the Vid fired episodes look pretty good, it’s still a million miles from colour, and that’s just the way that it is. Actually, now I come to think of it, I never saw this story in colour until a couple of years ago. My first Doctor that I watched in colour would have been Tom Baker, probably from about “The Terror of the Zygons” onwards. My parents’ first colour telly, which was second hand of course, was actually the first telly we owned. Up until then we had a succession of rented black and whites from Ketts Rentals in West Ealing. These tended to break down so often I came to look on the repair man as another uncle, but that too is another story. So the only time I ever got to see Jon Pertwee in full colour was when I was round a mate’s house. Actually, I remember being surprised by one of the episodes of “The Monster of Peladon” watching it round my mate Naqeeb’s house, being as the colours were just so bright – garish we would call it nowadays.

But it’s not just that. After I watch each story I do tend to check my details in a couple of reference books, and see if there’s any corroboration for anything I might have noticed, and so I now know that the whole story was filmed on film as if the whole thing was done on location. This means that while we lack the sharper edges you get on videotaped interiors, the whole production has a real filmic, big screen feel about it which works extremely well. Apparently this was done in order to work around some industrial action going on at the BBC at the time. Pity they couldn’t have done the same for “Shada” the best part of a decade later. We’ll come to that one in time.

So to Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. Now, Patrick Troughton’s second Doctor really wasn’t himself for much of “The Power of the Daleks”. This time the Doctor emerges from the TARDIS and collapses, and then, just as he’s coming to himself again, he is abducted from the hospital on a wheelchair, escapes, is making his way back to the TARDIS and is shot by a UNIT soldier! All in one episode. When he recovers, during the third episode, it is clear that he has no intention of acting erratically any more, and he is very much the third Doctor that I remember – a figure of authority, some might say a tiny touch arrogant, at times grumpy and tetchy, but at the same time a figure of immense charm.

As for the story, well, this was the story where my hero, Robert Holmes, really started to find his feet. There’s a huge contrast between this story, and everything that has gone before in “Doctor Who”, with the exception of “The Invasion”. At the risk of waxing philosophical, I would say that it’s to be found in the contrast between the 60s and the 70s. In the 60s, anything was supposed to be possible. In the 70s, well, the paranoia set in. Yes, things were as bright and colourful as ever, if not more so. But under the glittering exterior some very ugly things were going on – the 3 day week, industrial unrest on a massive scale, Edward Heath’s teeth, the list goes on. So whereas before we were maybe being invited to look up with wonder, in the seventh series we are now being warned to look down with horror. Sorry – I did warn you that I was going to be waxing philosophical. But it is a valid point, I think. By way of comparison, elsewhere on TV we had “Adam Adamant” in the 60s. In the 70s we had “Doomwatch”. Signs of the times, certainly.

Doctor changeover time is the only time really when we are again invited to identify with the companions as the familiar figures to guide us as painlessly as possible through the transition. Which wasn’t easy in this story since the Doctor has no continuing companions at the start of the story. This is why good old Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier has to ease us in. The Brig is already a bit of an old hand due to his appearences in season 6’s “The Invasion” and season 5’s “The Web of Fear”. Ooh, and here’s a point I was unable to find any references to when I looked it up. In his opening scene where he is recruiting Liz Shaw’s help to deal with the strange meteorites, he says the famous line “We’ve drawn attention to ourselves, Miss Shaw”, and then goes on to explain that UNIT has already dealt with two alien menaces, and both times they were helped out by a strange scientist type called the Doctor. Hang on a minute! Nobody mentioned UNIT in “The Web of Fear”, and the soldiers who appeared in that story were regular army. So was the then Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. Ah – then maybe it is one of the later Doctors, appearing at some time between “The Web of Fear” and “The Invasion”, or “The Invasion” or “Spearhead from Space”. Au contraire. In this story the Brigadier has difficulty believing that the Doctor has changed his appearance. That is why he cannot already have met any of the Doctors other than the second. More likely it was just an error, or a bit of retro-plotting which nobody thought would be picked up on, being such a minor thing. Going back to what we were discussing at the start of the paragraph, the Brigadier is certainly a welcome fixed point of reference with so much that is new going on around us.

This is a well-crafted and very well paced story. It’s very Robert Holmes that he just dropped into the script the fact that the Doctor has two hearts (living in just one mind?) and alien blood, but for the fans it does pose the question, why has nobody ever noticed this about the Doctor before? A prize winning letter in a recent Doctor Who Magazine made the point that when a doctor tries to listen to your heartbeat, they automatically go to the left side, and would have no reason to check the right side as well. They don’t find the second heart because they are not actually looking for it. Hey, that works for me.

Although the Doctor’s trials and tribulations are the focus for much of the first two episodes, the Auton part of the story is nicely developed throughout all 4 episodes. In episode one we are introduced to the sinister beeping meteorites, but given few clues to go on as to their significance. Then in the end of episode two we have the wonderful cliffhanger where an Auton mannequin steps off its podium in the office of the plastics factory and attacks the hapless victim. The fingers hinging down upon the Auton hands to reveal the concealed gun is such a simple idea, but it works so well – and that’s a brilliant little piece of design.

It is worth noting that the idea behind the Autons themselves isn’t actually totally original. After all, the Autons are lifeless, being made of plastic, but they are activated by the Nestene Consciousness. This isn’t a million miles from the Great Intelligence controlling the Yeti. Not that you have to look too hard for the differences. The Yeti are robots, the originals being constructed by Padmasambhava under the control of the Great Intelligence. The Autons aren’t robots. The Nestene have the power to animate plastic or at least certain types of plastic. The Nestene itself is a group mind, a gestalt being if you like, and it has no physical form of its own. The octopoid, tentacled being revealed in the plastics factory at the end of the story is a form which the Nestene has merely chosen as being particularly suited to the conquest of Earth. Really? Well, in terms of available budget for a monster, yes, really.

I mentioned in my earlier comments about the mannequins bursting out of John Saunders’ window. All of which just goes to show how the memory can play tricks on you, by filling in the gaps that were there when you watched it in the first place. Had you asked me prior to watching the story a couple of years ago, I would have told you in no uncertain terms that we actually see the mannequins bursting out of the plate glass windows. Yet we don’t. We see the mannequins jerking into life, and walking towards the window,  then we hear glass smashing, and next we see they are out and walking down the Broadway opposite Bentalls. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I’m pretty sure that we do actually see the Autons smashing their way out the shop windows in “Rose”, the first story of the new Doctor Who Series 1. Here’s a funny coincidence too. I’m pretty familiar with the St. David’s Centre in Cardiff where they filmed this sequence in “Rose”, since I moved to South Wales in 1986. Mind you, I’ve decided that it probably doesn’t help if you’re familiar with the area where a particular sequence is filmed. All that really came to mind as three mannequins advanced ominously along the South Ealing Road, passing Lamertons (a fabulous art supplies shop) was that they were going the wrong way as they were heading towards John Saunders, rather than away from it. And I shouldn’t be preoccupied with that sort of thing since it’s actually a terrific, in fact iconic scene, with the finger guns poking out from the flipped down hands indiscriminately mowing down pedestrians. In particular what I can only presume was one of the Havoc stunt team took a terrific headlong tumble. Would this scene have been even more effective had it been filmed among the well-known landmarks just a few miles to the East? I don’t know that I’m the best person to answer this, since I wouldn’t have been so excited myself, but then not everybody is as familiar with Ealing Broadway as I was.

The denouement? Well, it was perfectly acceptable, with the Doctor constructing a machine which uses ultrasound – well, something like that or other – to destroy the Autons, after he wraps the Nestene’s tentacles around his throat in order to give himself some serious gurning practice. He always did love a good gurn, did our Jon. I think we probably need to underline just what has been achieved by the end of just these four episodes though. The basic set up with UNIT, which will remain pretty much in place for all 5 Jon Pertwee seasons, has been established. He’s forged a working relationship with Liz Shaw, and she has shown herself to be much more than just a scream and another good pair of legs (although if I may say so they are a particularly fine example of the genre). More than that though, we’ve come through another regeneration unscathed. Jon Pertwee, when being interviewed, or appearing in conventions, had a habit of throwing his cape back and spreading his arms wide while intoning, “I AM the Doctor!” Well, by the end of “Spearhead from Space he was dead right. He was.

What Have We Learned?

According to the Brig, UNIT had been formed before the events of “The Web of Fear”, and were involved. It must have been covertly if they were, since there is not one reference to UNIT in the whole story.

The Nestenes have no physical form

Robert Holmes IS a great writer

49: The Space Pirates

Before Watching

Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to embark upon a momentous occasion. We have reached the last missing story. Yes, episodes 1, 3.4.5 and 6 are the last 5 recon episodes we will ever have to endure during the whole of this marathon watch. I will allow you a minute to make a silent prayer of thanks.

So, what do we already know about “The Space Pirates”? It’s another Robert Holmes story – fine – and like his slightly earlier “The Krotons” it was a late replacement for a story which didn’t work out. Either I’ve read this somewhere, or seen it in an extras DVD, but the team of Derrick Sherwin and Peter Bryant did have a reputation for taking stories quite a long way in development before deciding that they wouldn’t work for whatever reason. Terrance Dicks had been shadowing Script Editor Sherwin, and by this stage was sharing duties with him. So when a story was dropped at a late stage, they were forced to look around at whatever stories they had in reserve from earlier, and this is how Dicks came to bring “The Krotons” to Peter Bryant’s attention. I believe that it was a similar story with “The Space Pirates”.

It’s fair t say that this story’s reputation is none too sweet. At 195 it is the lowest placed Troughton story in the Mighty 200 – 1 position below The Underwater Menace. By the 2014 Poll it came in 235^th out of 241. However let us be fair. Unfamiliarity with the story can explain the lowly place to some extent, as can received wisdom, it being the sort of story where people who have never seen it will confidently tell you that it’s rubbish. As always, let’s find out for ourselves.

After Watching

Right, so far my yardstick of crap is Season 3’s opener, “Galaxy Four”. This is nowhere near as bad as that. This is an attempt at a straightforward space opera, one might almost say in the genre of a lot of Star Trek. In fact this is probably the first attempt to do a straight space story without aliens or monsters. The plot is fairly sound, and has its roots maybe in the western genre. See what you think: -

The eponymous pirates are after a substance called Argonite. They get it by docking with space beacons, which are made of the stuff, blowing them into component modules, taking them back to their base, melting them down and selling the aragonite. The Earth Space Corps try their best to catch these pesky varmints, but their large ship is too small to catch the fast ships used by the pirates, while their small ship, called Minnows, are fast enough but don’t seem to have the range.

The TARDIS materializes on board a beacon, which is shortly attacked by pirates. The travelers are in a module which is separated from a module containing the TARDIS, and only survive oxygen starvation when they are rescued by an old fashioned space miner called Milo Clancy – more about him after. The Space Corps have Clancy down as possibly the leader of the pirates. Clancy takes them to the nearest planet, Ta. Ta is owned and run by the Issigri Mining corporation, which was founded by Clancy’s old partner, Dom Issigri. They split up, and the Space Corps believe Clancy was implicated in Issigri’s death. It turns out that the pirates actually have their base on Ta, and Madeleine Issigri, Dom’s daughter, is in league with them. When she threatens to break with them, Caven, their leader, he reveals that her father is not dead, but in their captivity. After a lot of toing and froing the Doctor, Milo and the Space Crops foil Caven, who is shot down when a Minnow finally catches up with him, and Madeleine shows repentance and is taken away for trial.

Now ok, you might say that this does not exactly sound riveting, but then if you boil down the plots of a lot of stories to their bare essentials, then they don’t sound all that. The fact is, if you consider that this was written by the late, great Robert Holmes, then this does share certain plot elements with his ever popular “Caves of Androzani” – fights over valuable minerals – corruption in high places being two which spring immediately to mind. The Science Fiction concepts in it are fairly sound, and I never really found myself saying – why is so and so doing that – as can often happen.

Which is not to say that it’s great Doctor Who, because it isn’t. When there’s a monster/alien in the story then you’re interested at least for a while in learning what there is to learn about the monster. Without that, then I think there’s a greater burden on characterization, and if you don’t have any rounded, well fleshed out, or interesting characters, then your story is going to suffer. Milo Clancy, the roguish individual at odds with the conformity and regimentation around him,(a type Holmes was particularly fond of, judging by the number of times they appear in his stories) has his moments, but I find myself continually distracted by the accent Gordon Gostelow adopts throughout the story. If you’re of a similar vintage to me the name might not mean a lot to you, but you’d surely recognize him from a string of character parts on TV in the 60s, 70s and 80s. As I recall he’d often play parts which required a Northern accent (nothing wrong with that before anyone writes in). Now, paying homage to the story’s wild west antecedents, Gordon plays Milo Clancy with a wild west accent. Only . . . he can’t make it stick. His Northern vowels and inflections are consistently breaking through. It’s a little bit like watching a John Wayne film when the Iron Duke suddenly puts an ‘ecky thump, well I’ll go to t’foot of our stairs’ in the middle of a speech.

I rather liked Lisa Daniely’s Madeleine Issigri as wwell. Although I originally felt that she was likely to be the mastermind (or is that mistressmind?) of the pirates, but she was well written and three dimensional enough that I did start to doubt myself until her relationship with the pirates was made explicit. Down among the wines and spirits, I’m not sure exactly whether we were meant to draw the conclusion that General Hermack, played by Jack May, is rather besotted with Madeleine Issigri, which blinds him to the obvious clues that she is at the very least sheltering the pirates – or whether he is just thick. Oh, and before I forget I have to make the observation that Major Ian Warne, played by Donald Gee, is a dead ringer for Jay from The Inbetweeners. The two pirates we actually get to know at all, Caven, the leader, and his second in command Dervish aren’t a typical Holmesian double act, but there is a nice contrast between the frankly evil Caven, and the somewhat more weasley Dervish. Just out of interest, in the Ryk Mayall sitcom “The New Statesman”, his character, Alan B’Stard shares an office in the Palace of Westminster with one Peers Fletcher-Dervish, played by Michael Troughton, Patrick’s son! George Layton gets an early screen credit playing Penn, who is a button pusher on the Earth Space Corps ship. He doesn’t get a great deal to do or say, but hey, his career was going to blossom in the Doctor sitcoms in the 70s.

A word for the model work in this story. The only live action episode we have to judge by is episode 2, but judging by this, and also by the photographs in the recons the work in this story was up to the standard being produced by the same time as Gerry Anderson, and that’s praise indeed. I quite like the look of the Minnow spaceships, but just wish that they didn’t have such a long pointed nose, with a droop at the end, which just looks a little silly. 

Well, I think we’ve been more than fair to the story so far. Now let’s go a little more negative. Most six parters we’ve seen so far are too long and suffer from padding. To my mind this definitely seems prolonged beyond its natural span, and I think that the problem is in the first 3 or 4 episodes. It just takes far too long to get going. You could boil down the best bits from episodes 1 – 3 into one good, lean and mean episode. Unusually for Robert Holmes, a lot of the dialogue could be pruned as well. AS I mentioned when I reviewed “The Krotons” I have read a very interesting biography of the great man, and by the time that he took over script editing duties, Holmes had formulated a very particular approach to a six parter, one which he encouraged all of his writers for Doctor Who to adopt – namely, to write a six parter as two linked stories, one of 4 parts and one of two parts. I’m not entirely sure how he would have done this with “The Space Pirates” if he had adopted this approach, but I do think that it would have been worth at least trying.

For all that it is 6 parts too long, and over padded, there isn’t a lot for The Doctor to do in the story, and it seems that there’s even less for Jamie and Zoe. After this one ended they only had one more story – albeit a 10 week story, and can you imagine what an anti-climax it would have been if this had actually been their last story together? I only hope that “The War Games” lives up to its reputation. (I’m sure that it does. I can still remember watching it first time round when I was five years old.) They deserve a good send off.

At this point, I am breathing more than just a sigh of relief that we’ve just seen the last of the recons. I thought it might be appropriate to say a word about them. It’s very easy to mock, and make nasty comments about them, and I for one will be delighted if the day ever comes when the missing episodes have all been animated. But let’s give credit to the people who have put them together to make them as watchable experience as possible for those people who want to get as close as possible to the experience of watching the original shows. Let’s spend a moment giving thanks to the memory of John Cura for taking the tele snaps that form the basis of so many of the recons. I haven’t tried watching a recon with vision off and only the sound on, but I can’t imagine for one moment that the experience is as enjoyable as watching a recon.

Having said all of that, I do hope that the BBC continues animating missing episodes. “The Reign of Terror”, “The Moonbase”, “The Ice Warriors” and “The Invasion” all benefit hugely from their animated episodes. “The Web of Fear” springs to mind as one story begging to have its recon replaced by an animated episode.

Coming back to “The Space Pirates”, it has its flaws, but it wasn’t terrible. Miles better than “Galaxy Four” and in fact probably about on a par with “The Dominators”, although for different reasons.

What Have We Learned?

Well, this story reinforced the point which was raised by Season Three’s “The Gunfighters”,that if it is not essential to ask a British actor to do an American accent, then don’t.

47: The Krotons

Before Watching

If you’re of a certain age you maybe remember the “Five Faces of Doctor Who” series of repeats. There was a particularly long gap between Tom Baker’s last series, and Peter Davison’s first, and not only that, the series was being moved from its hallowed Saturday teatime slot to a twice weekly evening slot. In order to give the new series the best chance of success, the BBC sanctioned what I believe may well have been the first ever repeats of stories starring previous Doctors. The stories selected were “An Unearthly Child/100000BC”, “The Carnival of Monsters”, “The Three Doctors”, “Logopolis” and “The Krotons”. Now, choosing the first ever story to represent the Hartnell era was an obvious choice to make, albeit that, after the first episode it really isn’t a very good story. Likewise, “The Three Doctors” had to be chosen, as did “Logopolis”, being Tom Baker’s last, and the story in which we were given a few seconds’ look at Davison. But “The Krotons”? It was a story about which I knew nothing at the time, and it’s probably fair to say that it didn’t have much of a reputation among the fans. I think that a lot of us were disappointed with it, especially bearing in mind that this was the first story written by Robert Holmes. I’ll make a small digression about him in a moment. To be fair, John Nathan Turner wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice for a representative Troughton story. One of the requirements for The Five Faces series was that each story had to be a 4 parter. At that time in 1981, “The Krotons” was the only complete four parter in the Archives.

I cannot in all honesty remember much about watching “The Krotons” in 1981. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I probably lost interest in the story as I can just about remember watching the first episode, but not any of the others. So you might well be thinking that I’m currently expecting the worst. Yet there are a couple of reasons for hope. For one thing there’s the presence of Philip Madoc among the cast. As I’ve mentioned before, he was a terrific actor, and actually tailor made for guest appearences in Doctor Who. He almost invariably made any story he appeared in better for his presence. Then there is the fact that it was written by Robert Holmes.

Robert Holmes

I make no apologies for making a digression about the late, great Robert Holmes. I don’t necessarily expect everyone to agree with me – by all means feel free to disagree – but Robert Holmes was my favourite Doctor Who writer, and in my opinion the greatest of all the classic Doctor Who scriptwriters and script editors. (although Terrance Dicks must be discussed in the script editor category as well). He made his debut in Doctor Who with this story, and would script the next but one story, The Space Pirates. Neither of these is generally reckoned to be his best work. But look at the stories he scripted for Jon Pertwee : -

Spearhead from Space

Terror of the Autons

Carnival of Monsters

The Time Warrior

By the time The Time Warrior was broadcast, Robert Holmes had taken over as script editor, and when Philip Hinchcliffe took over as Producer, and Tom Baker as Doctor, they went on to make what many people think were the most consistently successful and excellent seasons in the classic series’ History. During this time Robert Holmes either wrote, or rewrote pretty much from scratch

The Ark in Space (in my list of all-time favourites)

Pyramids of Mars (one of my all-time top 10)

Brain of Morbius (another long term favourite)

The Deadly Assassin ( my honest – to  - God – all – time – favourite – classic  - Doctor – Who – story – of – all – time)

The Talons of Weng Chiang (in my all-time top 10)

Whichever way you look at it, this is an incredible output of quality. He wasn’t finished when he gave up being script editor either, and went on to write

The Sunmakers (a satire which has stood the test of time)

The Ribos Operation (consistently enjoyable opener to the Key to Time)

The Power of Kroll (rather lacklustre segment of the Key to Time)

After John Nathan Turner took over as Producer he implemented a deliberate policy of turning to new writers and ignoring the old guard, and so Robert Holmes, although originally approached to write the script for “The Five Doctors” 20^th anniversary special, didn’t write for the series again until Peter Davison’s final story. Mind you, this was

The Caves of Androzani (voted the number 1 on the Mighty 200 poll)

Having read a fine biography of Robert Holmes I got the impression that although he would be asked to write for the sixth Doctor, it was an uneasy working relationship with John Nathan Turner, and this, and illness probably explains why his last work for the show, “The Two Doctors” and “The Mysterious Planet” weren’t representative of his best work.

Well, all of those stories lay in our future. For the present, though, let’s see if we can draw anything at all positive from “The Krotons”.

After Watching

Well, I’m very sorry, but that wasn’t bad at all. Maybe not a classic – well, definitely not a classic – but a perfectly watchable slice of late-Troughton classic Who. And yes – I did watch all 4 episodes in one sitting, and not to get the whole thing over with, either. I’m not just saying this because it was written by my boy Holmes – the fact is that I was rather enjoying it, and wanted to see more.

Watching the show, I couldn’t help drawing some similarities between this story, and two earlier stories, “The Savages” from the 3^rd season, and “The Dominators” from the start of this 6^th season. I’ll explain the similarities as we go along.

The TARDIS lands on an unnamed planet, inhabited by a humanoid species called the Gonds. Hmm – is it just me, or do you see the word Gond and immediately start adding an –a – before the last letter? Oh, it is just me. Ok then, moving swiftly on. The planet looks very similar to Dulcis, but then on a BBC budget, in a black and white show I’m afraid that it is always going to look like that.

The Gonds, then, live in a city of rather primitive stone dwellings – although thankfully their costumes are nowhere near as ridiculous as the Dulcians’. In the middle of this city they all seem to be gathered round a futuristic looking polygonal metal door. Their two most promising students have been selected to go through the magic doors, to become companions of the Krotons. The Krotons are an alien race of crystalline form who crash landed on the planet many hundreds of years earlier. Still in the first episode, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe watch as the male Gond student is ejected from the back doors, and then liquidated, or ‘dispersed’ in Kroton – speak by a pair of guns which are similar to those used by the War Machines.  It transpires that the Krotons have developed the ability to convert mental energy into pure energy, and they extract this from the brightest Gonds, before kicking them out of the ship, and killing them before they go running back to the rest to tell them what is happening.

At the start of the story, the Gonds look on the Krotons as their benefactors, since the Krotons have been steadily doling out carefully chosen Scientific knowledge to them, and accelerating their development. The Krotons, being crystalline entities mostly made of tellurium, are in a state of being slurry in tanks. They need a lot of mental energy to reconstitute them.

Phew – okay, now I said that this reminded me a little of “The Savages”, and the way that the Gonds are drained of their mental energy is another take on vampirism essentially, in the same way that the Savages’ vitality is drained  off to be used by the city dwellers. Now, the fact is that the combined intellects of both Zoe and the Doctor, in episode 2, proves enough to reconstitute two of the Gonds. I did say that “The Krotons” also reminded me of “The Dominators”. The Dominators need radiation to provide energy to enable their spacecraft to take off – while the Krotons need mental energy to enable their spacecraft to take off. The Dominators assess their Dulcian slaves, discarding those who lack the intelligence to be useful to them – ditto the Krotons. There is a conflict of philosophies between the pacifists and those who want to resist the oppressors, although it is made slightly more interesting in “The Krotons” with Philip Madoc’s character who starts as a loyal servant of the Krotons, becomes a hard and fast resistance leader who uses this hardline stance to take over as the leader of the Gonds, and then, when the Krotons say that they will leave the planet if the Gonds hand over the High Brains – Zoe and the Doctor – then he becomes a de facto collaborator. It would not be believable in many other actors – to Philip Madoc it’s a piece of cake.

Well, so far so good – and judged on the aspects of the story we’ve looked at so far the story was fine by me. Now let’s get to the Krotons themselves. There’s two aspects to the Krotons we need to discuss – their appearance and their voices. Starting with their appearance, the Krotons are supposed to be crystalline entities. To be fair, their ‘heads’ do resemble giant crystals. It is possible that the design of their bodies was inspired by the appearance of a snowflake under a microscope, or another type of crustal. The trouble is the rubber skirt at the bottom of the costume which is there to hide their legs. The director takes care to try to show this as little as possible, but whenever it is visible your eye is just drawn to it, and you can’t help thinking about its pure wrongness. On the whole the design looks a bit like the designers were approached with the brief – look lads, here’s a fiver, that’s all we can afford, do the best that you can -. As for their voices, well, they are a little bit of a Roy Skelton Off-the-Peg selection, but do have the advantage over the distinctive voices of the Quarks that you can, at least understand what they say.

One final connection with “The Dominators” is that the Doctor has no compunctions about blowing them to kingdom come with their own bomb. In the same way he has no qualms about dispersing the two Krotons using sulphuric acid. The idea of it is rather horrific, although the execution is less so.

I rather think that “The Krotons” is seen to best advantage when looked at as one component in a developing season. This relatively undemanding 4 parter comes immediately after “The Invasion”, and is as different from that story, as “The Invasion” was from “The Mind Robber”. So, as I said, no, it’s not a classic, but it’s perfectly watchable and quite enjoyable – even if I didn’t in 1981.

What Have We Learned?

“The Krotons” doesn’t deserve the opprobrium heaped upon it after “The Five Faces of Doctor Who”. It is certainly watchable, even if it isn’t Robert Holmes’ best work.

Zoe is clearly better at intelligence tests than the Doctor