"A city!" cries Zoe, at possibly one of Doctor Who's least convincing model shots, as the three companions spy what appears to be a very small collection of swiss cheese wedges, seen at very close range. Still, she appears to be wearing a PVC miniskirt, so that's... something? Fortunately the model-makers redeem themselves later with a scary tentacle-thing coming from the Kroton ship towards the end of the episode...
When the guard offers Jamie a mace for the ritual combat, he responds that he'll no' be needing that, laddie. Because, yes, he *is* that good.
An early showing for Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks here, and we show the Doctor as the instigator of change in society by example as Thara cries "If they can go into the wasteland, I can!" and follows them into an area previously thought to bring nothng but certain death.
When the Krotons appear, they are obviously semi-organic, creating themselves out of thought-patterns by crystallising themselves from the solution in their ship - a wonderful and rather spooky idea which is never really given its due. What other shapes and forms could they create from their slurry given a chance?
I must confess to finding it a little tough to place the Krotons' accents when they first appeared, but they appear to come from South Africa for some reason.
Episode three sees the Krotons picking up guns from a rack by the door (exuded from solution at the same time as them, perhaps?) rather than creating themselves with built-in weaponry.
All-in-all it's a really interesting story, which feels like it's not been given its proper due. The Gonds are all played uptight, and often a bit upper-class, while the dialogue feels like it really needs to be delivered hammer and tongs. The Gond council scenes in particular feel like they could do with a bit more action.
It's filled with cracking ideas - crystalline monsters, intelligence honeytraps, a people enslaved for a thousand years and selected for intelligence, monsters awoken by the people trying to defeat them, but it's not served terribly well by the direction.
Rewatching this, it's a lot better than I remembered and really doesn't deserve its placement down in the low 200s in the DWM story poll.
Finally, according to a Kroton, their new machine "transfers the dynatrope back to our own cosmos", and they refer earlier to setting "the inter-galactic link." So I guess they're not from these parts...
"A city!" cries Zoe, at possibly one of Doctor Who's least convincing model shots, as the three companions spy what appears to be a very small collection of swiss cheese wedges, seen at very close range. Still, she appears to be wearing a PVC miniskirt, so that's... something? Fortunately the model-makers redeem themselves later with a scary tentacle-thing coming from the Kroton ship towards the end of the episode...
ReplyDeleteWhen the guard offers Jamie a mace for the ritual combat, he responds that he'll no' be needing that, laddie. Because, yes, he *is* that good.
An early showing for Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks here, and we show the Doctor as the instigator of change in society by example as Thara cries "If they can go into the wasteland, I can!" and follows them into an area previously thought to bring nothng but certain death.
When the Krotons appear, they are obviously semi-organic, creating themselves out of thought-patterns by crystallising themselves from the solution in their ship - a wonderful and rather spooky idea which is never really given its due. What other shapes and forms could they create from their slurry given a chance?
I must confess to finding it a little tough to place the Krotons' accents when they first appeared, but they appear to come from South Africa for some reason.
Episode three sees the Krotons picking up guns from a rack by the door (exuded from solution at the same time as them, perhaps?) rather than creating themselves with built-in weaponry.
All-in-all it's a really interesting story, which feels like it's not been given its proper due. The Gonds are all played uptight, and often a bit upper-class, while the dialogue feels like it really needs to be delivered hammer and tongs. The Gond council scenes in particular feel like they could do with a bit more action.
It's filled with cracking ideas - crystalline monsters, intelligence honeytraps, a people enslaved for a thousand years and selected for intelligence, monsters awoken by the people trying to defeat them, but it's not served terribly well by the direction.
Rewatching this, it's a lot better than I remembered and really doesn't deserve its placement down in the low 200s in the DWM story poll.
Finally, according to a Kroton, their new machine "transfers the dynatrope back to our own cosmos", and they refer earlier to setting "the inter-galactic link." So I guess they're not from these parts...
A pretty damn fine four episodes.