Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 526: The Armageddon Factor, Episode Six

Dear diary,

I worried - correctly, it seems - that the whole business with the shrinking ray (another thing from earlier Bob Baker and Dave Martin scripts to make a return!), was simply going to be used as padding for this final episode, until the story was ready to tie up the loose strands of the key to Time arc in the final scenes. The Doctor’s problem, if I’ve understood it correctly, is thus: He’s opened the door to the TARDIS, where the Key to Time is being held. He’s been  shrunk, so he can’t close the door! Oh no! The Shadow could, therefore, wander into   the TARDIS at any time he likes and simply pick up the Key (he later has a lackey do it).

My problem with this is that although they’re shrunk, the Doctor and Drax also possess the machine they need to make them large again! Not only that, they’re able to get hold of K9 if they need to. What I don’t understand is why they couldn’t simply dart out from the crack in the wall, make themselves larger again, use the confusion to knock out the guard, and then hotfoot it into the TARDIS? It’s painted as some big crisis for them, but there never actually seems to be any danger involved (beyond getting trodden on).

Oh, but that’s a minor quibble, and I’ve found myself enjoying everything else about this episode. I love all the moral dilemma around Astra being the Sixth Segment to the Key (and I love even more that it’s key to the resolution, too!), and I’m surprised but keen to find that she’s restored to human form at the end! I had no idea of that - I genuinely thought that becoming the segment killed her, and always thought that it was quite a dark way to end a season.

There’s plenty of spectacle on show in this one, too, with explosions, and more shrinking effects, K9 blasting his way through a wall (albeit somewhat clumsily), and the Key being dispersed back out through the universe… yes, I think this has probably been a fitting capstone to the whole Key to Time season, and even though the White Guardian doesn’t get to use the Key (or does he? The Doctor comments that the Black Guardian could use it while it’s assembled in the TARDIS, so has the White Guardian somehow managed to do that, too?), it doesn’t feel like a let down after 25 weeks of build up!

We say goodbye to Mary Tamm with this episode, although you’d not know it by watching the story. It’s a real shame that she was never invited back to film a regeneration sequence (Tamm even says in the special features to an earlier story in this set that she was waiting for the call!), and I’m actually going to miss having her around. Romana as a character has grown on me across the season, and I’ve really enjoyed watching her relationship with the Doctor develop, while still retaining a few key things that are uniquely ‘them’. Here’s hoping that I continue to enjoy the character as much in her second incarnation!

Another thing that we’re saying goodbye to today is the six-episode format of Doctor Who… well… sort of. The Armageddon Factor is the last Doctor Who story to be broadcast in six twenty-something minute chunks - a format that the show has been using to varying degrees since right back in Season One with The Keys of Marinus. Over the last couple of seasons, it feels as though they’ve settled into a nice format for five 4-part stories topped off with a single 6-parter to round out the season. It’s certainly worked better for me than those middle Pertwee seasons, when we had 6-part tale after 6-part tale!

I say ‘sort of’, because it’s not strictly the case. I’ll be watching the animated version of the never-broadcast Shada when I reach the end of Season Seventeen in about a month’s time, and that was made (and has been completed) in six parts. Then you’ve got The Two Doctors coming up in the mid-1980’s, where there’s only three episodes… but they’re almost twice as long! There’s also David Tennant’s swan-song, The End of Time, way out there in my future, and that clocks in somewhere around the length of a 6-parter, too.

Officially, though, this is the end of the road for stories like this. I can’t really claim to be sorry at their departure - I’ve often found six-parters to be something of a struggle, both when watching through, and when trying to write about them! Unless the story continues to give you lots of new things to talk about (this story has been a great example - spending broadly two episodes apiece on Atrios, Zios, and the Third Planet), you very quickly find yourself running out of things to say! It feels like another evolution for the programme to be dropping them from its style, and I always love a bit of evolution in the series. Now… what will Season Seventeen bring? 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 525: The Armageddon Factor, Episode Five

Dear diary,

This episode has been something of a string of surprises, coming thick and fast for twenty-five minutes! For a start, I’d completely forgotten the existence of Drax, and his sudden appearance left me baffled for a moment before I remembered. I can safely say now that I’ve never watched this far before - so on my initial viewing of the Key to Time season, by this point I’d switched off either the DVD or my brain! K9 says it best, I think: Drax is, frankly, silly. But that’s not a bad thing! In a story which has been fairly bleak so far (when you start off with a nuclear war, and things get worse from there, you know you’re in trouble!), it’s quite nice to have a new character turning up who provides some much welcome comic relief.

It’s nice to see that he’s actually a bit more than just a bit of comedy in the story, though. He’s there to try and tempt the Doctor off the rightful path, but of course our hero spots that right away. I can’t tell, in the closing moments, whether he’s shot his old school friend because he’s still planning to work alongside the shadow or because he’s just a bit of a bumbling fool. It’s nice to see the angle that this spins on the Doctor, too. He’s often been portrayed as the renegade, who runs away from Gallifrey and gets himself caught up in all manner of trouble. Here, though, he’s painted as a real grown up for the first time in ages - almost looking wearily down on Drax, who’s only going to get in the way of whatever plan the Doctor is forming for getting through all of this as unscathed as he possibly can.

No discussion of this episode would be complete without mentioning it - the Doctor has finally been named. It’s only taken them 15 years to do! It’s long been established that ‘Theta Sigma’ is simply the Doctor’s nickname from school, but I’m not entirely sure that it’s the intention of the scene! Certainly, when Drax first addresses him as ‘Thete’, that’s him using a nickname, but it then seems to go on for him to clarify the Doctor’s actual name. And, realistically, it does fit in with the world of Time Lord society! We’ve had Omega before now - another Time Lord figure named after a letter of the Greek Alphabet. I should clarify that I don’t really think that his name is Theta Sigma (though, I do believe that it’s perhaps his given name on Gallifrey?), but it’s interesting to see someone finally attempt to answer that ‘first’ question: Doctor who?

It’s also fitting that it should come in this story - the final one to be penned by the writing team of Bob Baker and Dave Martin. It seems somehow right that they should be bowing out of the series before the 1970s are out - I’ve come to associate them very much which this era of the programme. They’ve been responsible for quite a few additions to the Doctor Who mythos over the last eight years, and several of them make reappearances here, including the aforementioned Greek naming convention for Time Lords (it was Baker and Martin who created Omega, after all). Bob Baker will be back on his own next series, but we’re saying goodbye to Martin here, who aside from a few books throughout the 1980s, doesn’t make any more contributions to the world of Doctor Who. Still ,it’s not too bad going to be one of the men who created k( (told you I’d be back to loving the metal mutt today!)

Over the years, the Bristol Boys have fared quite well in my ratings. Taking into account my average ratings for each story, their lowest effort was The Sontaran Experiment, which scored just 5/10, followed then by The Mutants and Underworld which both averaged 6/10 from me. The Hand of Fear fared a little better at 6.5, with The Invisible Enemy scraping a little ahead with 6.75. The Three Doctors comes in with a solid 7/10, but it’s The Claws of Axos which has been my favourite Baker and Martin offering - it achieved an average score of 7.5/10! For those of you keeping track, The Armageddon Factor is currently sitting at 7/10, but there’s everything to play for in the final episode… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 524: The Armageddon Factor, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I really can’t make up my mind about K9 in this story. On the one hand, he’s being absolutely indispensable to the Doctor, seemingly making up for his lack of involvement during The Power of Kroll by helping the Doctor escape from danger, holding off enemies, scanning for radiation and other signals, being the conduit through which out heroes can communicate with alien battle computers and more…

…While on the other hand, he’s really, really, stupid. He’s always been resolutely logical - that’s where a lot of the humour comes from - but when he’s trying to identify the alien signal which is used to lure him into the teleport, he’s just being plain ignorant. Relying on the ‘logic’ that he must receive an answer from the device, instead of simply giving up and going to find the Doctor, which might well be a more sensible solution. On the plus side, it looks lil we’re going to be getting a bit of ‘evil K9’ action in the next episode, so I’m sure that will swing me firmly back into the ‘I love K9’ camp once again.

Today is also our first proper look at Lalla Ward. She’s appeared in the other three episodes to greater or lesser extents, but today feels like the first time she’s actually been able to get out there and show us some acting, instead of simply being where the story demands her to be for whatever plot reason. She’s certainly making a good impression so far, and while it’s hard to watch it without the knowledge that she’ll be around for the next season-and-two-thirds, I can see why the production team were impressed with her - she’s doing a good job so far!

I’m also really glad to see that the Key to Time has become an integral part of the story, with the Doctor and Romana needing to use it in order to save themselves from certain death in this episode. I’d started to worry that the Key would simply come into play during the final few scenes of the serial, to tie up the entire season, and then that would be it. I rather fear that the full 26 episodes may have felt like something of a write off had that been the case, so it’s great to see that this story really does focus on the object.

It’s also interesting to watch the Doctor work out where - and what - the sixth segment is. I’ve no doubt that he already knows it’s Astra herself (it very much fits the way he’s been characterised this season to be one step ahead of the game: I’d not be surprised if he’s known since the moment he first laid eyes on her up on the screen in Episode Two), so it’s interesting to see him pussyfooting around her, trying to see how much she knows about it all. I’m less keen on the idea that he can simply knock up a makeshift sixth segment when the story requires him to do so, though. Lots is made about the fact that it’s far from perfect, and that it only works because they have the other 5/6 segments of the device, but it almost feels as though it somehow cheapens the immense power of the Key. If it’s supposed to be this mighty object which can give people the power of Gods across the entire universe, I’m not sure I like the idea that the Doctor can knock up spare parts in the back room of the TARDIS between scenes!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 523: The Armageddon Factor, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I realised that Zios was being controlled by some kind of battle computer at - I think - exactly the moment you’re supposed to, when K9 first approaches the door to gain entry to the commander’s quarters. Before then, all his talk about him speaking to his own ‘kind’ had me wondering if K9 had been taken over by the Shadow’s forces, and ‘brainwashed’ in some way. As soon as it was revealed that I was right, and that everything was being controlled by that one central device, I loved it. A Cyber Planner in all but name, and a rather natty design, to boot!

That’s true for a lot of this serial, really. The design work is some of the best we’ve had since Ribos. There’s something very typically ‘late 1970s BBC science fiction’ about it (indeed, when Shapp first steps out of the transmit and draws his gun, I had an overwhelming sense that this, costumes, sets, props, and all, is exactly what I imagine Blake’s 7 to look like), but it all really works, and despite it occupying the end of season slot, it feels like some real budget has gone into this. We get the first model shots of ships in the story (and I’m surprised that they didn’t use the same model earlier in the story), and it’s an example of the programme doing a good job with them. Then you’ve got the set of that ship’s cockpit, and it might just be the best that we’ve ever been given. Shot from behind and in front, it looks great, and feels very ‘real’. I look forward to its inevitable destruction at some point in the future!

I think I’m also enjoying the fact that there’s a couple of stories going on at once in here, and they each feel like they’re being given equal weight. The first two episodes were very much focussed on the war between the two planets, and the Doctor getting caught up in it. As we move into this episode, we’re introduced to the Shadow, and there’s a great scene between him and the Doctor (more on which in a moment). It’s not long before they fade back into the shadows (me so funny!) again, and we’re back to the story of the war once again. I have no doubt that they’ll be tied together some more before the story is out, but I’m enjoying that they’re running separately for now. It feels as though the Doctor is off having his own side adventure all alone, while everyone else continues on with the main story, and I like that.

In yesterday’s episode, I praised the fact that Tom Baker seemed to be getting really into this story and giving it his all. I think, in hindsight, I may have played that card a little too early, because I want to say exactly the same for this episode, but perhaps even more so! It was during Planet of Evil that I first really saw that Tom Baker had ‘the Doctor’ in him, and it surfaces again here. I love his confrontation with the Shadow, flitting so perfectly between light and dark: it really is the best performance that Baker has given since at least The Talons of Weng-Chiang. I’m absolutely captivated by it, and that’s no bad thing!

We’ve hit the end of Baker’s fifth season with this story, and after this he officially enters into ‘longest serving Doctor’ territory. I’ve felt of late (especially throughout this Key to Time season) as though I’m tiring of the programme, and of the style it’s currently in. Stories like The Pirate Planet and The Power of Kroll are simply leaving me cold, and it feels like I’m running out of any interesting observations to make. A lot of the time, I’ve thought that Baker has been showing much of the same strain, so it’s really heartening to see him so back on form again here. I’m hoping that he carries this energy and enthusiasm with him into the next season, too, because it’s just the thing I need to reinvigorate my love for Who right now!

It's no secret that we at DWO are big fans of Apple - after all, practically 90% of all the technology we use to run the site is made up of Apple products. So imagine our surprise when we were trawling through Apple's new developer code (Swift), and much to our surprise, we saw a blatant reference to Doctor Who hidden in the code!

A quick navigation to Page 347 of 'The Swift Programming Language' - which is FREE to download in the iBooks store - will reveal that "Lots of planets have a north" - a direct reference to Christopher Eccleston's Doctor in the Series One episode; 'Rose'.

See the reference for yourself by clicking on the image to the right of this article.

Why not check out DWO's Apps on the App Store:

Doctor Who: iWho
by DWO Media - £1.99 (iOS & Android)

Why not kick off with our signature Doctor Who app, providing you with all the latest Doctor Who news, as well as in-app streaming of the latest DWO WhoCast Podcast episodes, Videos, Tweets, Polls, Locations Guide and R2 DVD Guide and more!

+ Download for iOS. + Download for Android.

Doctor Who: WhoGuide
by DWO Media / £2.99

WhoGuide, provides in-depth guides to every televised episode of Doctor Who, complete with guides to all the Doctors, Missing Episodes, Locations, DVDs and more!

+ Download for iOS. + Download for Android. 

[Sources: DWO; Apple]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 522: The Armageddon Factor, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Tom Baker is really on form in this story, isn’t he? It feels as though he knows the end of the season is coming up, so he’s just going for broke and enjoying himself in the story. The dramatic bits, the comedy bits… he’s really sinking his teeth into everything (including, in fairness, the scenery in one or two places!) and I’m really enjoying simply watching him be the Doctor here. I’ve given him a lot of stick over the last couple of seasons, so I’m always glad to see that he can still pull it out of the bag when he needs to.

Elsewhere, I’m simply enjoying the story here. In many ways it’s fairly standard stuff, and nothing much too taxing, but it’s all of a fairly good quality, and I can sit back and just watch it. I think I’m also impressed by the way my attention is being held so effectively with a small cast and very few sets (much of today’s episode takes place in three or four rooms, and some characters - like Astra - only appear in a single scene), whereas other stories recently with a lot more going on have completely failed to grip me.

I’m also very keen on the way that we watch the battle between these two worlds. Model effects in Doctor Who can vary from the extremely good to the… well… not good. I’d be weary of seeing them attempt any kind of large scale battle between various space ships, so it’s perhaps for the best that we see it all on the radar screen here instead. But you know what? It’s actually ten times more effective seeing it presented in this way than if we were to watch some big special effects scene. It really hits home to you just how fruitless this entire war effort is when it’s reduced down to watching six dots on a screen being reduced down to three. I don’t know if we might still get some kind of large scale battle before the story is out (the best of both worlds!), but if not then I’m glad that they decided to go with doing it this way.

As for the story itself… I don’t really know what to think. I did have a brief moment of wondering if it could feature the return of the Fendahl (when Romana peers behind the looking glass to find a creepy skull on a pedestal with knowledge of the Time Lords, it did lead me to think - could it be that I’d failed to realise the Fendahl ever made a reappearance, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure I’m wrong!). There’s a lot of bog-standard plotting going on here at the moment - the Doctor mustn’t die… yet! - but I’m enjoying all the performances, so they’re keeping me entertained so far.

My biggest worry is that things will all go toppling over the edge at some stage. I couldn’t help myself, and had to peek at the Doctor Who Magazine ranking for this story in their recent poll results, and I’ve found that it places relatively low - within the bottom fifth - and not much above The Power of Kroll. Suddenly, I worry that things might not be keeping me this interested for long! Still, I’ve been known to enjoy stories that others don’t before now, so The Armageddon Factor could yet turn out to be something of a gem for me! 

FTS Media have announced that their fan-funded documentary, ‘Doctor Who: Celebrating 50 Years of Fandom’, is available now on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as Video On Demand! This celebratory film explores what makes Doctor Who fans so special, and how not only has the show influenced them, but how they have influenced the show in return!

Featuring interviews with actress Louise Jameson, and members of the production team like Robert Shearman and prop builder Nick Robatto, this documentary is sure to “strike a chord with any Doctor Who Fan” (Who-News.com). They also take a trip across the globe to meet Michelle Osorio, a filmmaker from California who just so happens to have a Dalek named Gary in her garage! Most importantly though they speak to the fans, as without them, Doctor Who wouldn’t have been back on our screens for a 50th anniversary episode and this film would never have been made! “A thought-provoking and affectionate look at how fandom has evolved in 50 years” (The Gallifrey Times), this is one documentary you really can’t afford to miss!

With a string of 5 star reviews under their belt, ‘Doctor Who: Celebrating 50 Years of Fandom’ really is a must for any fan! Joe Lidster, writer for Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and a string of Big Finish stories called it a “fantastic and insightful documentary that shows the fun fandom can bring!”, while Lisa Bowerman (Karra in ‘Survival’ and Bernice Summerfield for Big Finish) commented that 50 Years of fandom “reflects absolutely, and with huge affection the impact Doctor Who has had on peoples' lives. It plots the progress of fandom in all its diversity - talks to the people who know, and treats its subject with great respect. Brilliant.” 

‘Doctor Who: Celebrating 50 Years of Fandom’ is available to purchase from their official website at www.ftsmedia.co.uk, priced at £9.99 for the DVD (here) or £13.99 for the Blu-ray (here) 

There’s also a whopping 70 minutes of Special Features on the Blu-ray version of the film, including full-length interviews with Louise Jameson & Robert Shearman, and an EXCLUSIVE 10 Questions with Louise, where she answers YOUR questions. Want to know if she’s worn her Leela costume since leaving the show? Then you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray to find out!

+  Celebrating 50 Years Of Fandom is Out Now, priced £9.99 (DVD) / £13.99 (Blu-ray).

[Source: FTS Media]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 521: The Armageddon Factor, Episode One

Dear diary,

When I started out on the Key to Time season about three weeks ago, I explained that I’d sat and watched all the six stories before in quite quick succession. I think that my attention must have wained rather a lot as the season progressed, because with each passing story I’ve found that I can remember less and less about it. Today’s story - coming as the big finale to the entire season - is the one I can recall the least about. To put it bluntly, I can’t remember anything that happens. All I know is the identity to the segment of the Key here… and that’s sort of it.

I’m glad, though, because it means that I get to watch all the various Key to Time threads draw together as though it were a brand new story. It certainly feels like they’ve upped the stakes for the finale, too, with the Doctor and Romana arriving in the middle of a nuclear war, and with missing planets, near missile hits, kidnap, espionage, a lost TARDIS, and even two Romana’s (well, sort of…). Coming after a story which didn’t really grab me, it feels as though this one is pulling out all the stops to get me interested once again.

It helps that the story all looks rather pretty, too. There’s some lovely big sets, and a feels to all of this that simply smacks of it being the middle of a war. Many of the sets are really rather unappealing visually (lots of grey corridors), but that all works in the story’s favour, because it really fits the feel of the world we’re supposed to be in. I’m looking forward to having all of this unravel before me over the next few days, and getting to watch both versions of Romana around on screen together, almost like a transition period. Truth be told, I’d completely forgotten that Lalla Ward was in this one, until about three seconds before she made her first appearance on screen!

So far, Ward is off to a decent start, and I’m quite liking her. Mary Tamm is also giving her all even at this late stage in the game, and I have a feeling that as the story progresses, I’m going to be left wishing more and more that they could have done a proper regeneration scene between the two. I think I’m right in saying that Tamm officially decided that, yes, she was off during the recording of this serial, and that the decision to cast Lalla Ward came from a joking suggestion made by Tamm at the time of her departure! Emma vaguely joined me for this episode, too (she was in and out of the room getting on with something, but was sort of paying attention), and she quickly decided that she enjoyed the relationship between the Doctor and the current Romana. This left me thinking that actually, I’m really going to miss the way that Tamm and Baker bounce off each other - I’m hoping that the next few episodes will be a great showcase for Romana before her departure… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 520: The Power of Kroll, Episode Four

Dear diary,

There’s a single shot in this episode of Kroll on the horizon which really fails to work. It’s a split-screen job done wrong, and it really lets down the effect. I’ve known about it for years - everyone mentions the poor split-screen work on the effects shots in this story. And yet, I’m pretty sure that it’s the only dodgy one in the entrée serial. We’ve only had three or four appearances from the great and mighty Kroll over the last few episodes, but the others have all looked, I think, really quite good. Certainly worthy of kinder words that they currently receive. I’m even almost enjoying the shots of Kroll attacking the station here, too, even if I still think the model shots of that platform don’t look quite right.

As is often the case, it’s the sequences shot on film that have really impressed me in this episode. All the bits done out on location at the marshes continue to look fantastic, and they’re the real highlight of this story. I think I’ve taken my eye off that a little bit over the last few days, while finding The Power of Kroll a struggle, but they’re certainly the bits of this story that I’ll remember a year on from now. Today, though, we also get a sequence of the Doctor outside on the platform, doing battle with the giant squid. It’s a really rather nicely directed few minutes, and the fact that the Doctor has removed his scarf before heading outside simply serves to make it all the more striking. Tom Baker wears his scarf far less often than I always assumed he did (by which I mean he removes it more often than I expected), but not usually for such an extended period.

While I’m on that subject… I don’t know if it’s just me, but there’s been something about Tom Baker’s costume in this story that just looks right to me. It’s hard to explain what I mean, exactly, which is why I’ve been putting it off even though I made a note of it back during Episode One. It wasn’t until today’s episode that I realised - this is the very first time we actually see this version of the Doctor’s outfit! I’d sort of forgotten that we’d not had one quite like this before, but that he’d been wearing a different light coat way back when (we’ve not seen it for weeks now - he’s been in shades of brown since the start of the Key to Time season.

It’s the look that I’ve always thought of as being ‘The Graham Williams Era’, with this coat, and the various badges that adorn it. Today we’ve got the flying ducks, which are perhaps the most famous of his badges, even though they only appear in this one story. He’ll go on to wear the new coat introduced here in the next four stories as well, meaning that I’m familiar with it from lots of publicity photographs larking about in Paris, or felling from the Daleks. Maybe it feels as though the Graham Williams era has actually arrived suddenly? Even after all this time, I’m constantly surprised by just how much the Tom Baker ‘eras’ all bleed into one.

The other thing that’s been prominent throughout this story, but which really takes more of a central focus in this final episode is the idea of the Swampies having their faith in Kroll shaken. I wonder if I may have enjoyed the story more if this had been less of a sub-theme running through the story, and more central? It’s been really rather interesting to watch today, with the Swampies questioning why their ‘God’ would attack them. Of course, the priest claims that it was punishment for allowing the ‘dry foots’ to escape. When it’s pointed out that they only escaped because Kroll was attacking them, it’s declared to be a ‘test’ of their faith.

I’ve always been somewhat weary of religion, and the power that it can hold, and I think there’s a nice parable about that very idea in this one scene alone. It continues to be more and more prominent as this episode goes on, and I really wish that it could have been more the point of the whole story, especially in a season during which the Doctor is effectively on a quest for ‘God’…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 519: The Power of Kroll, Episode Three

Dear diary,

It’s only really in the last few minutes of this episode that I actually started enjoying it. For the most part, this episode has simply felt like going through the motions, but during those closing minutes of the story, with the Doctor, Romana, and Rohm-Dutt making their escape and Kroll looming large on the horizon, I suddenly found myself interested again. My biggest issue is that this should have been the first big reveal of Kroll in all his glory. There’s a lot of tension to these scenes, as tentacles grab people, and Swampies are pulled underwater, and it’s a shame that the climax to this - the reveal of Kroll himself - is undermined by the brief appearance he made in the last episode.

The biggest shame about that is that Norman Stewart’s direction in the rest of the story is, on the whole, a better example than most of talent in the series. He’s got a real flair for choosing some interesting shots, such as the camera movements to give scale to the torture chamber in which our heroes spend lots of this episode, and he’s actually doing a good job of filling the story with tension on occasion. He’s managed to make the location work look fairly decent, too, and it’s certainly a better showcase for his skills than Underworld was last season!

Certainly, I think that the direction is one of the things saving this story from being completely tedious. It feels as though everyone is simply putting the effort in to get the story on the screen and nothing more. Everyone involved, from the writer to the actors, seems to realise that this is never going to be fondly remembered as some kind of stand out, and thus they’re not really trying. I think it’s fair to say that over the years, The Power of Kroll has rarely been regarded as a bad story, but simply as one of those mediocre tales, that everyone sort of overlooks (that said, the results of the recent Doctor Who Magazine poll place it story number 212 of 241, meaning that it had dropped 38 places since ratings were collected in 2009, although it’s score had moved up slightly over 2% since that time, too).

It’s a shame, really, because it should be really grabbing me. Lovely location, a great big monster with an effect which continues to work far better than I was expecting it to, and it’s quite a pivotal story behind the scenes, because it’s the first tale, in a manner of speaking, to be ‘produced’ by John Nathan Turner, who’ll soon become very important to the programme. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the final episode will be able to swing round my mood on this one, so I’m eagerly awaiting The Armageddon Factor and the big season finale to turn things around for me… 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 518: The Power of Kroll, Episode Two
 

Dear diary,

I don’t have a favourite movie. Truth be told, I don’t even really like films - I much prefer television as a format, for the way that it tells story, the intimacy that it brings, and the fact that I can stick on a series of something and just enjoy it episode after episode (I’m currently working my way through the first season of The Dick Van Dyke Show as well as re-watching the fourth series of Big Brother for the first time since broadcast, one episode a night). But the way that the world works, you’re expected to have a ‘favourite’ film. I simply don’t. There’s a lot of films that I like, sure. Frankenstein, the Boris Karloff version. Singing in the Rain. A Man With a Movie Camera. The Harry Potter films, or The Lord of the Rings. I like all of these, but I’d not class any as my favourite.

It’s not easy to explain that every time you’re asked the question, though, so I tend to simply plump for a film to answer with, and I always choose one that no one ever questions, they just nod and agree: Jaws. I can distinctly pin-point the first time I saw Jaws. Because I’ve never been a big fan of films, I didn’t really watch many as a kid, so it wasn’t unusual that I didn’t see this one until I was 14, and at school. For the record, I haven’t seen other Spielberg classics like E.T. or Jurassic Park even to this day. It’s almost quite a fun game, when Emma talks about a film and I simply point out that I haven’t seen it.

Anyway. Jaws. It was a film studies lesson at school, and we were watching Jaws so that we could learn about suspense and build up in directing a film. It’s a brilliant example of that. You get plenty of Point Of View shots. There’s the odd glimpse of a fin, or the ripple of the water. You even see the shark on several occasions, but the real reveal, the big ‘It’s The End Of Episode One And Oh Look It’s A Dalek’ moment comes towards the end of the film, with the three men out on a boat, shovelling bait into the water, when Quin turns back… and the shark lurches at him! Despite the bits of him you’ve seen before, that’s the pay off, and it’s brilliant.

So, you might ask, what does this have to do with The Power of Kroll? Well, not a lot, admittedly. But also, everything. I mused yesterday that a giant squid might be the production team over-reaching themselves somewhat, but I was still keen to see what they’d do with it. It’s the perfect opportunity for them to tease us with the appearance of the monster - just like in Jaws - before revealing it, probably at the end of Episode Three. And you know what? They’re doing a good job!

We hear tell of this giant squid that the locals all worship, but then we discover that no one has actually seen the creature in living memory. And, actually, the ‘monster’ menacing Romana at the end of the last episode is a man in a costume. You almost start to relax… but then the scanners are picking up strange movements, miles and miles across, the entire bed of the marsh shifting. The cliffhanger features a tentacle attacking which is actually - I’ll admit it - rather effective! You could really build up the suspense here, and while the squid may not quite live up to it, at least you could enjoy the ride…

But then, about two-thirds of the way through the episode, the squid just pops up - literally - in the middle of the marsh. You almost want to over-dub it with him saying “hellooo!” to everyone, and asking what he’s missed during his nap. I’m only banging on about this so much because it came as such a massive let down. The effect of the squid actually looks alright, I think, but I’m not paying all that much attention because I’m too busy being annoyed that they’ve wasted any sense of suspense and drama by bringing him in so suddenly and with no fanfare or excitement.

Really, I’m just bitter today, I think. I’m also annoyed by the whole “Doctor, I dropped the Tracer out there in the Marsh and we may never find it again…” / “oh, don’t worry, I picked it up” exchange, because I thought that was going to provide us with some interesting drama over the next few episodes, as they tried desperately to find it while a war broke out around them, and a giant quid lingered on the horizon. As it is, I’m not really sure what they’re planning to do for the next two episodes, besides paint themselves green and run around a bit. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 517: The Power of Kroll, Episode One

Dear diary,

Ah, The Power of Kroll. Along with The Space Pirates, this one is sort of the Robert Holmes child that people try to overlook when discussing the man’s career. As I’ve said before, my memory of these last few Key to Time stories is hazy at best, so the most I can tell you about this one is that there’s a giant squid in it. I’m not sure if the squid is the reason for fans’ dislike of the story, but I’d wager that ti could well be a factor - the phrase ‘giant quid’ seems to go hand-in-hand with ‘Doctor Who production team over stretching themselves’…

As for this first episode, though, there’s plenty to enjoy. I love the look of the swamp, and after my moaning the other day about the season needing a bit more variety in its locations, I think they’ve satisfied it rather nicely. Especially wonderful is the moment when the TARDIS arrives, and we only see the very top of the prop poking out, and follow the thrashing around in the plants to see where our heroes are. It creates a very different look for this adventure, and that’s never a bad thing. We’ve also got more night shooting - something that’s becoming increasingly common in the programme of late, considering that it used to be such a rarity! All the shots of the Doctor out in his boat at night look lovely, and I’m hoping we’ll be treated to some more night scenes as the story continues.

It’s a shame, with such a nice location, that I’m so disappointed in the model of the refinery. It’s often pointed out that you have to be careful with explosions in model shots, because if you shoot them at the regular speed, they look like real flames on a scale model. The same seems to be true of water here - it looks like they’ve made a model of a refinery and plonked it down in the director’s bath tub! All the waves just look too large, and it spoils the effect for me. My other complaint about this comes as a counterpoint to my praise for the night-time scenes, and it’s the lack of lights on the model! We get the flashing code when the Swampie communicates with his own people, but it’s a shame not too see a few more lights to indicate windows and the like. As it is, it simply feels like they weren’t expecting night shots, so forgot to fit the model with electronics.

That’s only a small issue, though, and it hardly ruins the episode because of a few dodgy shots. There’s a lot of other things to commend this one. It might not be Holmes’ finest script (and the issue of slavery isn’t being weaved into the story with a great deal of tact, it has to be said), but he’s certainly got a nice handle on the Doctor, and it’s plain to see throughout. I love the way he sits and makes himself a flute, and simply slips away when people aren’t looking. There’s plenty of nice lines written in for the Doctor, too, and Baker seems to be genuinely enjoying himself still - something that’s been present for a few stories now.

I’ve yet to really make much mention of the Swampies, and I don’t really plan to until I’ve seen a bit more of them in action, but I will say that they’re almost effective here, simply because of the number of them they’ve got, painted head to toe in green and jumping around preparing to sacrifice Romana. Had they simply got three slightly uncomfortable supporting artistes to stand around looking cold then it wouldn’t have been as effective as it is here, and that’s saying something, perhaps!