Look out, Ben, it's the impending end of our contract!! |
Season Four, Story 7 (production code JJ)
Starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
With Anneke Wills (Polly), Peter Craze (Ben) and Frazer Hines (Jamie)
- Written by Ian Stuart Black
- Directed by John Davies
- Produced by Innes Lloyd
- Script Editor: Gerry Davis
Broadcast Dates, Viewership, Appreciation
- Episode 1 - 11 Mar 1967 (8.0m, 50%) **MISSING**
- Episode 2 - 18 Mar 1967 (7.9m, 48%) **MISSING**
- Episode 3 - 25 Mar 1967 (8.5m, 52%) **MISSING**
- Episode 4 - 1 Apr 1967 (8.4m, 49%) **MISSING**
How To Watch
- The Doctor Who Classic channel on YouTube, which is a legitimate broadcast channel created by BBC Studios, has the animated version of the story available here. Please support official BBC releases.
- Loose Cannon reconstructions of all four episodes, utilizing surviving audio plus John Cura's telesnaps, Australian censor clips, and some 8mm off-air film) are available here featuring narration by Colin Baker.
- All four episodes were animated for DVD/Blu Ray release in 2019 and 2020. They omit the scene in the refreshing department, presumably because of the difficulty animating that scene
- Extant video material included on the 2004 Lost In Time DVD release (compiled here).
Synopsis
The TARDIS lands on an Earth colony on an unnamed planet. The colony's society is structured like a holiday camp, with songs and dancing and an intensely cheerful demeanor, dedicated to obedience to their leader (the Controller, who only appears on video) and a strong work ethic. Despite this, they meet a disturbed dissident named Medok who claims he's seen crab-like creatures at night, and he is arrested by the police chief Ola and the senior executive, the Pilot. While the Doctor and companions are treated as welcome guests, they are strongly cautioned to avoid Medok and to not go out after dark. The Doctor is suspicious, and frees Medok to explore the outskirts of the colony after dark where they do indeed see giant crab creatures. The colony leaders are vehement in their denial that the creatures exist, and Medok is assigned for 'treatment' while they attempt to condition our heroes' minds in their sleep. When the Doctor discovers the conditioning, he sabotages the system, but Ben's conditioning has taken hold and he turns him in. Even after he and Polly encounter the crab creatures, narrowly avoiding being killed, he denies their existence.
The Doctor, Polly and Jamie are sentenced to work in the Pit as part of the "Danger Gang," and discover the truth: the colony is actually being controlled by the crab creatures, known as the Macra, and the colonists are mind-controlled to harvest the toxic gas below the planet's surface to provide them with nourishment. Ben finally shakes off his conditioning and helps the Doctor and friends to sabotage the gas supply and destroy the Macra.
Analysis and Stuff
This is an effective and tight four-episode tale (despite that annoyingly persistent NEEEEEE sting whenever the Macra appears). The aggressive cheeriness of the colonists and the empty slogans of the milquetoast Pilot, contrasted with the ominous opening, are instantly unsettling. The Doctor and friends in the Refreshment Department reminds me, at least, of the salon treatment Dorothy and friends received in Oz. The nastiness of Ola and the treatment of the disturbed dissident Medok let us know quickly that there is a dark undercurrent.
This is Ben's last gasp as a companion, as he and Polly disappear pretty quickly in the following story. And like that story, we see our friends in spooky alternative light. Here, Ben has been conditioned to serve the colony to the point where he rats out his friends, and struggles mightily between his duty to his friends and the brainwashing where he denies the existence of the monster he just saved Polly from. Michael Craze is quite impressive, and it's quite a relief when he finally decides what side he's on.
"I never thought the Macra would eat MY face..." |
Maybe it's current events, but I'm regarding this story in a different light.
This is a parasitic dystopia, to be sure. But as parasitic dystopias go, it's more or less functional. People are employed, apparently well-fed and fulfilled. Only the 'troublemakers' are sent to work in the Danger Gang (though gosh, there seem to be a lot of them)... so long as everyone else is on board and distracted by all the group activities and parades and stuff, and they never know the truth about the creatures who are actually in charge, it all sort-of works, right?
Right?
One question ought to be asked: are the colonists better or worse off after the Doctor's departure?
Make the Colony Great Again |
Now that the Doctor and friends have blown up the Macra, what's next? What happens to the ruthless security chief Ola? Do the surviving members of the Danger Gang receive any state pardon and reparations? What happens to the colony's morale now that they are confronting the reality that they were working for nasty alien creatures and not for themselves, and all these parades and festivals that they threw themselves into were distractions? Now that they aren't mining gas for the Macra anymore... what do they do? There are numerous symbiotic/parasitic relationships to be found in nature, and they're not all intrinsically evil. I'm not 100% convinced that the colonists' future is on its face any more secure than it was before. There's an existential crisis ahead of them, and the person that caused it just buggered off in his little blue box. Underneath the celebration at the end, it must be acknowledged that even in this 'happy' ending, they're leaving a mess behind. At least we helped rebuild Japan and Europe after WW2. What responsibility/accountability does the Doctor have for the repercussions of his actions?
I mean, yes, the Doctor also buggered off at the end of "Power of the Daleks," but at least there was an underpinning of ethics at the core of his rather ruthless actions. I don't see it here.
Nonetheless, I'd love for this story to be found.
Notes & Tidbits
The writing was on the wall for Anneke Wills and Peter Craze; their contracts were due to expire midway through "Evil of the Daleks" and the production staff intended to write them out (but alas, then they'd be written out earlier) – and as such, the script was conceived with Jamie in it and they give him more to do; he even gets his own cliffhanger at the end of episode three.
This was the first story to feature the Troughton era opening titles, although the revised theme music would not be introduced until the following story.
It's a little obvious that there is only one Macra prop.
Sandra Bryant (Chicki) was offered a comparatively high-profile role midway through production, and Innes Lloyd agreed to release her from her contract, casting Karol Keyes in her place for the final episode. This is, as far as I know, the only time in the show's history that a role is re-cast midway through the story (Time Lords excepted). There are instances where an actor was not able to finish filming (e.g. Tony Adams as Elgin in "Green Death"), and a new character was created and a new actor cast in his place.
Haven't I Seen You Somewhere In The Future?
- Peter Jeffrey (Pilot) also appeared as the devious Count Grendel in "Androids of Tara"
- Terence Lodge (Medok) also appeared as Orum in "Carnival of Monsters" and Moss in "Planet of the Spiders"
- Gertan Klauber (Ola) also appeared as the galleymaster in "The Romans"
- Ian Fairbairn (Questa) also appeared as Mark Gregory in "The Invasion," Bromley in "Inferno," and Dr Chester in "Seeds of Doom"
- Sandra Bryant (Chicki ep1) also appeared as Kitty in "War Machines"
- Karol Keyes (Chicki ep 4) also appeared as Sheila in "Frontier in Space" (under her real name Luan Peters)
- Graham Lehman (Controller) also appeared as Price in "Fury from the Deep", the Grand Marshall in "Seeds of Death", and a Time Lord (presumably the same one) in "Colony in Space" and "Three Doctors"
- Richard Beale (Broadcast Voice) also appeared as the Refusian voice in "The Ark," Bat Masterson in "The Gunfighters" and the Minister of Ecology in "Green Death"
- John Harvey (Officia) also appeared as Professor Brett in "War Machines"
Does the BIPOC Character Survive – n/a
Sausage Factor: 85% (3 females out of 20 credited characters) Please note that I'm counting Chicki one time even though she was played by two actresses.
Rating: 3 out of 4 Rough-and-Tumble Machines
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John Geoffrion is a semi-retired semi-professional thespian, a professional data guy, and a Dad. He usually falls asleep to the Classic Doctor Who channel on Pluto.tv
I too wish we had the actual story instead of the animations, but since the animations let us watch the story, it works out.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with the connection between current world events, and especially here in the US and this story. It's downright disturbing to be sure.
The Doctor does just take off and let those behind sort things doesn't he? He rarely pays for it, beyond stories like 'Face of Evil', but here, as you say, I worry about those colonists.
I felt the Macra's return in the new series wasn't great, as 'Gridlock' was not very good, but they have potential. What do other Macra do once they hear of the loss of these in this story? Are they widespread or not? More could be done with these crustaceans!