Doctor Who: The Krotons

Well, this is good, standard Doctor Who, and make no mistake.

Alien planet, locals enslaved by aliens pretending to be gods, lots of to-ing and fro-ing, 4 episodes, film-sequences, oh yes, and arguments. In fact, I don’t think anything much gets decided without one. A lesson in characterisation and drama-writing there. But hey – if you have Philip Madoc on the cast, then of course you’re going to get disagreement. Don’t tell ‘em your name, Doctor Who.

On a slightly more serious note, credit must go here to the special effects team. Today if you want an alien’s head to dissolve, it immediately gets farmed out to a CGI company. Back then, someone had to actually have the scientific savy to know what chemical would dissolve what solid well on camera, and then build the alien head accordingly. As a result, the destruction of the Krotons at the end of this one looks impressively real, especially when you think of how glossily spectacular a computer would probably have made the same effect look today.

Despite the terrible Kroton designs (they really need to stop giving all the alien robots two arms now) this is pretty well what I signed-up for.


Thanks again to http://www.shillpages.com/dw for these screencaps.