April 26: "The Krotons" Episodes Three & Four

Jamie encounters the Krotons. (The Krotons Episode Three) ©BBC

We're barely a minute into episode three and we get our best ever look of the Krotons.  And I have to say, they really are a triumph of design from the waist up.  I love all the lines and angles, and the crystal-shaped "head" is fantastic.  It's too bad that that rubber skirt lets them down (allegedly, this is because a significant miscommunication led to the costumes being made too small; the skirt was the best effort to hide the performers' legs).  I also really like the way those heads spin around when the Dynotrope is under attack; it makes them seem quite alien and less like a man in a bulky suit, in addition to just looking cool.

And in terms of direction, I utterly adore the first person shots of the Kroton wandering the wasteland in search of the Doctor and Zoe.  Obviously there's no way they could know this at the time, but its resemblance to a video game (or, perhaps more pertinently, the first-person shots of the movie Doom, which actually are based on a video game) brings a smile to my face.

This is also the episode where Philip Madoc as Eelek comes to the fore, and he's so wonderfully silky in his delivery that you can't help but be entertained, even in a role like this.  It's a fairly standard "duplicitous power-hungry politician" role, but Madoc makes it that bit more special.  The same can't be said for Richard Ireson as Axus though, who seems so smug all the time that you just want to punch him in the face.  Of course, he's supposed to be an antagonist in this, so I guess that's all right.

Scripting-wise this episode is a bit uneven, though, as Eelek's motivations seem to shift from one scene to the next, and it's never quite clear why the characters are behaving as they are.  Actually, this is probably meant to be intentional, demonstrating Eelek's slipperiness, but it comes across as confused.  And of course, there's the infamous moment where Beta is under the Hall of Learning after having just been left performing chemistry in his lab, but that's a casting issue rather than a scripting one (reassigning a line to someone they're already paying without realizing the issue it would create).

Episode four is little better in this department; Eelek's motivations are much clearer this time (hand over the "high brains" and the Krotons will leave), but everything feels rather perfunctory.  Once the Doctor and Zoe are captured, they're handed over to the Krotons, and then they pour sulfuric acid into the Krotons' life-sustaining slurry tank (along with Jamie and Beta pouring acid on the machine from the outside), destroying the Krotons and saving the Gonds.  And that's about it.  I wish there was more to talk about, but it's a very straightforward episode, other than some clowning from the Doctor as he buys time in the Dynatrope for the acid to take effect.

In many ways this sums up The Krotons as a whole -- it's straightforward.  There aren't any real twists in the tale; the drama comes from getting inside their ship and then working out how to defeat them.  There's little time spent on the Krotons' motivations, and the Gonds are there to either help or hinder the Doctor's progress.  Still, it's competently written and directed, and some of the performances here are quite good -- even a relatively minor part like Beta becomes that little bit more in the hands of James Cairncross.  It's unlikely to be anyone's favorite story, as it's one of those pleasantly average stories that Doctor Who occasionally makes: nothing too striking but nothing too terrible either (and at four episodes it also doesn't outstay its welcome ).  While I'd like to say that Robert Holmes's talent is clear from the outset, the fact is that this is a very workman-like script, with little of the sparkle, charm, or imagination that set his later contributions apart.  The Krotons simply sets out to entertain the audience for four weeks, and at this it succeeds.  It just doesn't have much ambition beyond that.