047 – The Krotons

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If you were growing a little weary of the repeated base-under-siege stories of the Troughton era, then The Krotons might have brought welcome relief by presenting us with a tremendously gullible race who believed without question and without evidence that it was dangerous outside just because they’d always been told so, until the Doctor and co arrived to disabuse them. It’s a real pity that this refreshing motif was never repeated in Doctor Who.

What The Krotons needs most from the viewer is patience: the patience to tolerate the race of people we see on this planet. It requires the tightest of photo-finishes to separate the Gonds from the Dulcians (The Dominators) when awarding the title of the dullest and blandest race in the Doctor Who universe. The Gonds’ struggle to overcome the domination of their Kroton overlords is nothing compared to the viewer’s struggle to care what happens to these people. I’ve dictated administrative memos with more histrionic verve than the Gond actors show in delivering their lines. Only two stand out from the crowd. Beta the scientist is at least given things to do. Head and shoulders above the rest is Philip (for it is he) Madoc and he isn’t even breaking a sweat. The mere stillness of his performance gives his character presence.

Possibly the sole interesting thing about the Gonds is that, if you reel off their names fast enough (selrisbetatharaeelekaxusabuvana), you get the same rhythm and number of syllables as when you say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” which I suspect is no coincidence. Their names have been given as little thought as their characters.

However, if you apply the patience I’ve recommended, there’s much about The Krotons to enjoy. Everything brightens up as soon as the TARDIS crew arrive. Surely this is by far the most interesting  TARDIS crew of the Troughton era. There’s a simple way to ensure that female companions aren’t written as helpless idiots. Just give them a decent job right from the start (Barbara was a teacher, Liz was a scientist, Sarah was a freelance journalist, Zoe is a technological genius) and you create a glass floor of intelligence and competence below which it becomes very hard to write them. Alternatively, write Polly as a model and Jo as someone who only got into UNIT on nepotism after failing her exams and you’re asking for them to be written as useless screamers. By the time of The Krotons, Zoe has also had four stories in which to get rid of her rather irritating intellectual condescension towards Jamie. Now they’re starting to work well as a pairing, even taking alternate sentences during an explanation of something complicated.

Jamie almost takes on the stereotyped role of the female companion here, in that the Doctor assigns him the non-job of giving Vana her pills when she wakes up in order to keep him occupied while the competent members of the TARDIS crew go off to do something clever and exciting in tackling the teaching machines. Far from Zoe being the companion who needs to be picked up by a man when she sprains her ankle while running, here it’s the Doctor and Zoe who need to keep remembering that Jamie needs rescuing from danger. This makes for a great relationship between the trio as the writers are forced to give Zoe interesting things to do and say while Jamie’s appeal has always lain in his slightly naïve gung-ho (that’s English for creag-an-tuire) character which can almost write itself.

“The quality of the acting has always been what lifts Doctor Who above the sometimes dodgy effects so it can’t have been that difficult to get hold of some decent voice actors.”

It’s easy to dismiss the Krotons themselves as another unwieldy monster but some thought has been given to making them new and interesting beyond their costumes. If we ignore the directorial decision to shoot that one shot of them below what we assume is their waist, necessitating a silly skirt to cover the actor’s legs, then the realisation of the Krotons isn’t that bad. They are crystalline, after all. It’s a nice idea that the Krotons haven’t actually been around for the thousand-plus years that the Gonds have been dominated by them but have been dormant in their chemical tanks. Their presumed need to return to those tanks when they “exhaust” adds credibility to their urgency in capturing the Doctor and Zoe. Converting mental power into mechanical energy is another unusual idea which works well. The writer is even brave enough to make a virtue of the Krotons’ immobility by their requiring detailed directions when one of them leaves the Dynatrope. As repetitive as all the “radius 179 vector 5” and “direction point” can be, this also gives Jamie the chance to escape from the machine while one Kroton is busy guiding the other.

Their voices, however, cannot be excused. When the machine first addresses the Gonds (“this is a warning”), the booming voice is very effective and it’s disappointing when we discover it was the voice of the machine and that the Krotons themselves are Brummies. The quality of the acting has always been what lifts Doctor Who above the sometimes dodgy effects so it can’t have been that difficult to get hold of some decent voice actors.

Surprisingly for a Robert Holmes story, as a piece of drama, The Krotons isn’t up to much. Fundamentally dull characterisations, plot and script are enlivened by interesting ideas and by character moments from the TARDIS trio. The byplay between the Doctor and Zoe when he gets confused at the teaching machine and when they’re playing for time inside the Dynatrope is as good as any comedy in the Troughton era.

The Krotons isn’t as dire a story as its reputation would have you believe. It’s just that, when you contemplate the wealth of the Troughton era which has been lost to us, whoever decided that these four episodes merited keeping over, say, another two of The Invasion or even one of Power of the Daleks deserves an appointment with a Thuggee scarf.

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