The Randomiser: The Krotons

[purplecat]

The Krotons must have been the first Troughton story I ever saw. It was shown as part of the BBC's "Five Faces of Doctor Who" repeats as part of the show's 20th anniversary. I didn't, to be honest, remember a lot about it beyond the two Gonds stumbling out of the machine (the first to be disintegrated and the second to be rescued) in part 1, and the Doctor and Zoe being zapped for mental energy in part 2.

The "classic" Patrick Troughton story is often held up to be the "base under siege", preferably from one of the shows iconic, or at least recurring, monsters. The Krotons is from Troughton's final season and, off the top of my head, none of the stories that season fit the base under siege template (though one could maybe make a case for The Seeds of Death), with the others stretching to at least attempt the depiction of world-wide threats and responses, or alien civilisations. The two alien worlds depicted that year are in The Krotons and The Dominators and there are many similarities between the two stories: both are set on planet's that look like quarries (admittedly hardly unusual for Doctor Who), where a largely useless native population is being threatened by a pair of fairly stupid aggressors who are trying to refuel their spaceship and who spend much of the story under-estimating the Doctor and his companions.

One suspects that The Krotons was picked for a repeat showing from among the rather small selection of complete Troughton stories available to the BBC back in 1983 almost entirely because it had 4 episodes. It is competent in a cheap 1960s sci-fi kind of a way, but the Krotons, themselves suffer from looking great from the knees up, but pretty silly in full length shots. And the whole plot feels rather hackneyed and by-the-numbers.



There are definitely better Troughton stories, and I'd argue better ones available complete in 1983 but none of the 100 minute running time (give or take) that was then considered standard for the show. It would probably also seem stronger if it were not quite so similar to The Dominators in concept and execution.

The Tardis team of Patrick Troughton's Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are probably the strongest thing here. They are among the stronger and more entertaining regular casts and that makes the story watchable enough, but it isn't and never was a classic.

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

Slightly ungracious of me to start with a point of information, but The Five Faces was two years before the twentieth anniversary, in November 1981 - but yes, it was chosen because it was the only four-parter available at the time, where now it would only be one of two... I agree with your assessment. There's little to get hold of, the Krotons are rather limited for such a brilliant species, and the politics of the Gonds is run-of-the-mill, despite the presence of Philip Madoc.

[jesuswasbatman]

The only interesting thing about "The Krotons" for me is the degree to which it critiques the traditional "Quisling versus Churchill" cliche of occupation stories: Selris initially genuinely believes that the Krotons are benevolent, and after he finds out otherwise his reluctance to attack them is depicted not as cowardice or naivity but as an entirely rational understanding of how outclassed his people are. Meanwhile Eelek who would usually be the glorified rebel leader is quite clearly a power-hungry maniac.

[sir_guinglain]

I need to give this story another look!

[purplecat]

Ooh! That's an interesting take on it. I was focused on how these character traits essentially rendered the Gonds largely useless as allies, but of course, if you twist it around it an interestingly different dynamic.

And, of course, the introduction of the Gond scientist and all the stuff about Sulphur is a throwback to some of Doctor Who's more educational roots.

[jesuswasbatman]

It's especially a contrast to the pure "to hell with those traitorous cowardly backstabbing hippies" in "The Dominators" at the beginning of the season.

[purplecat]

The Dominators weirdly conflates pacifism with lack of curiosity as well. It's coming from a distinctly odd standpoint.

[purplecat]

Slightly ungracious of me to start with a point of information, but The Five Faces was two years before the twentieth anniversary, in November 1981

Was it? I did have a slight doubt, particularly about how it would have fitted around The Five Doctors. What persuaded the BBC to try the experiment in 1981? Was it just JNT getting lucky at some level, or was there some other reasoning behind it.

I more easily recognised Philip Madoc from his appearance in the second Dalek movie, than I did Eileen Way, when I watched An Unearthly Child. It is an interesting piece of trivia that the two Black and White serials selected for the Five Faces season both feature actors from Dalek Invasion of Earth - 2150 but it doesn't seem to go anywhere beyond the obvious fact that the British acting pool both then and now is smaller than one might think.

[sir_guinglain]

BBC management was stillmore positive towards Doctor Who in 1981 than it later became - and John Nathan-Turner's argument was that the audience needed reminding or educating that other actors had played the Doctor before Tom Baker. The 5.40pm slot was a new one for BBC2 and The Five Faces.... was a way of experimenting with it, and with the then-new limited number of out-of-time repeats of programmes allowed by the unions.

[purplecat]

Ah, so it was the Tom Baker -> Peter Davison hand-off moment. That makes sense. I don't think they'd do anything like it now, for a whole wealth of reasons. The TV landscape has changed a lot.

[jesuswasbatman]

"The Seeds of Death" is an interesting inversion of "base under siege", as the Ice Warriors conquer the base very early on and the rest of the story is dealing with that.

[sir_guinglain]

That's a great point. The Bryant-Sherwin era consciously reacted against base under siege but didn't have one format to put in its place, which has good and bad consequences.

[purplecat]

Mostly good, I think, although the base-under-siege stories had been hugely successful, I think an attempt to repeat them would have rapidly fallen into diminishing returns. They had to do something else, and trying not to have too rigid a formula was probably wise.

[purplecat]

As sir_guinglain says, thats an excellent point. The focus isn't really on the people inside the base looking out, but on the people outside the base, looking in.