In an effort to find something quick that can be written as part of Daily Doctor Who, we are continuing with Say Something Nice, where I look back at each of the Doctor Who stories and pull out one or two cool things about it.
Read the previous entry here. Today, we continue with the fourth story of the show’s sixth season…
The Krotons
The story stars Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon, and Wendy Padbury as Zoe Herriot.
The serial is written by Robert Holmes, and directed by David Maloney.
Say Something Nice…
(Named for Missy–aka the Master–and her catchphrase from her first full appearance in Dark Water).
The basic concepts of The Krotons is interesting, with these mysterious alien presences basically “farming” the most intelligent people of the world in order to further their ends. When the Krotons themselves are kept off-screen for the first couple of episodes, they make for a creepy and legitimately alien-feeling presence. There is a lot of good interplay between the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe here.
But because we’re equal-opportunity fans here, we’re not going to only be sycophantically complimentary.
You craven-hearted spineless poltroon!
(Another cry from the Master, but not exactly a catch-phrase, this time from The Deadly Assassin)
When the Krotons are revealed, they aren’t very interesting. Even worse are many of the humanoid Gonds, whose personalities are never strong and whose general internal struggles are pretty tedious. All this makes for a very uneven offering.
Catch you next time!
Blue Towel Productions 