The Krotons: Episode Three

Jamie is held captive by one of The Krotons, while the other goes outside of The Dinotrope in search of the escaped Doctor and Zoe.

It has gone a little off the boil at this point, at that's largely due to the design of The Krotons themselves, they are quite ridiculous looking, and pretty stupid, why on Earth did anyone think they'd be a believable design, they've spent the whole episode shouting their plans out, and have overlooked Jamie, who's been firing weapons at them. They sound good, but they are hilarious with their spinning heads.

The HADS is an interesting feature of the TARDIS, hostile action displacement system, The TARDIS evolved from a simple time machine to an incredibly concept force over the years.

Philip Madoc stands out, he puts in an excellent performance and does stand out among those around him, he cut a fine figure in those days. Hugely charismatic and evil.

Zoe's fantastic outfit looks amazing. Perhaps the highlight of the episode.

Slightly disappointing. 6/10

Review of all 4 episodes:

The first episode is, in my opinion, a lot better than this story's reputation would lead you to expect. It comes across as an intelligently scripted, interesting political allegory. The story features the humanoid Gonds being exploited by a strange alien race known as the Krotons. This is the first script from future Doctor Who writing legend Robert Holmes and his talent is already starting to show in episode 1. However his talent is less visible in episodes 2-4. Another great talent and Doctor Who legend involved is Philip Madoc as Eelek. His great acting skills are not fully utilised but, of course, he portrays his part perfectly.

After the very solid start the following three episodes turn into just a slightly bland, not massively interesting 'filler' between more meaty stories in the season. It also suffers from technical limitations of the age and budget. The Krotons themselves look and sound very unimpressive.

The final verdict has to be this is decently scripted and acted but unremarkable. It is a disappointment, taken as a whole, after a promising 1st part.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 8/10, Episode 2 to 4 - 6/10

Overall: 6.5/10