Day 117 — April 27th 2021
The Krotons Episodes Three and Four
The Krotons — Episode Three
Let’s talk about Doctor Who’s ratings, because we’ve not done that in a while. The first episode of The Krotons was broadcast on December 28th 1968 — the last episode of Doctor Who for that year — and it holds the record for the highest-rated episode from Patrick Troughton’s run. There’s a cruel sort of irony that such a bland episode should be seem by more people that any episode of something like The Invasion.
It was watched by 9 million viewers, taking the top spot from the second episode of The Moonbase, which had been seen by 8.9. They’re not bad figures, but you can already see where interest in the programme had waned from the Hartnell era. Season One (1963–1964) averaged 8.8 million, while Season Two was the peak of popularity with 10.46m. Season Three saw a drop to 7.65m, with Season Four dipping to 7.10m before Season Five saw a slight uptick to 7.25m.
Overall, Season Six averages 6.38m, considerably below its peers.
While holding the top spot for the current era, The Dominators also marks a curious turning point for the series. It’s one of the few Doctor Who stories for which each episode rated lower than the last (culminating with 7.1 million for Episode Four), and as we move into 1969 the series takes a massive tumble in the ratings. They’re erratic and a little all over the place, but they’ll be on a broadly downward trend right through until the end of the run in June.
Indeed The War Games Episode Eight holds the distinction of being the lowest-rated episode of the 1960s (with just 3.5 million viewers) and that record wasn’t beaten for over twenty years, until Battlefield Part One aired to 3.1 million.
It always surprises me to look at the ratings for this period, especially given that the Troughton years are considered by so many to be a ‘golden age’ for the series. What we can appreciate in those three seasons now had clearly stopped working for audiences at the time, and it’s something that often gets forgotten when talking about the ratings tail-off in the 1980s. Perhaps it’s no wonder that they felt a change was needed for the series when it came back in 1970?
Now I’m not saying that nine million people having to sit through the first episode of The Krotons was directly responsible for the ratings falling over the next six months… I’m just saying it can’t have helped.
Anyway, this episode is… fine? I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it, but I can’t say that I have enjoyed it. It’s just sort of there.
I said I’d always try to pick out a positive for these episodes, so let’s say that I think the HADS is pretty cool, and I wish it had been used more often. Zoe’s terror at seeing it leave without them is brilliant, it’s just a shame that no one — writer or director — seems to have realised what an impact that should have had.
I’ve not really got anything else to say for this one, so I’ll give it a 3/10 and move swiftly on…
The Krotons — Episode Four
I’ve made it all the way to Episode Four of this one without talking about the big ‘first’ of The Krotons; it’s the first Doctor Who story written by Robert Holmes. He’ll go on to do plenty more — including a fairly quick return with The Space Pirates in a few days’ time — and I’ll be watching Holmes episodes right up until December, which perhaps gives some indication of how important he’ll be.
And it’s not the greatest start to an illustrious career. This isn’t a bad story by any means, but it’s just not very interesting. I’d say it’s boring but I’m not even sure it’s that — it just sort of is. There’s things happening — our heroes are under threat, there’s a fight back against the monsters — I’m just not overly invested in any of them. I’m not sure the script is, either. There’s a couple of points where questions are asked and then glossed over, as though Holmes isn’t all that invested in answering them.
I’ve been reading the Complete History entry for The Krotons today, which includes a breakdown of this story’s original form when originally submitted to the Doctor Who production team in 1965. I won’t repeat it all here, but here’s the opening episode;
‘Doctor Who, Ian, Barbara and Vicki arrive on an uninhabited planet and find a giant spacecraft overgrown by vegetation. Their presence reactivates the systems and, in a control room, a “robot-figure” watches them on TV screens. A clammy mist suddenly surrounds the group, then vanishes; the travellers seem to suffer no ill effects, but soon it is apparent that it is an amnesia gas. With their memory cells anaesthetised, they forget their most recently acquired skills and knowledge, and then their identities.’
Dare I say that sounds more interesting than what we ended up getting? The later episodes come closer to the basic plot of The Krotons — down to members of the crew needing to be replaced by suitably intelligent substitutes for which the aliens have waited centuries — but there’s a bit more to it. The robots in that version are merely tools of the more humanoid owners of the spaceship, operating the controls while their masters are in suspended animation.
It feels different enough, if inspired by the same thought process, that I’d quite like to see it adapted by Big Finish — heck, if the early draft of Revenge of the Cybermen is considered different enough to be made then this surely must fit the brief?
The other thing I’ve not really talked about yet is the design of the Krotons themselves, and I’m afraid I’m not going to be much more positive there either.
It’s not a total failure — the design of the crystal ‘head’ is quite nice, and looks fab when it’s spinning around, but everything else… I’ve seen it said before that they resemble the kind of Doctor Who monster that Blue Peter might build out of egg cartons, and I can’t claim to disagree. I think they’d probably work better if they were the same sort of hight as the Quarks — without the rubbery skirt at the bottom, which is where they’re really let down. I think the rest of the design would hold up considerably better without it.
One last thing to mention today; Doctor Who has definitely had a falling out with Jamie. When Zoe brings the boy up here Doctor Who admits that he’d completely forgotten about him, and it’s taken him two episodes to find out that Jamie followed them into the Kroton ship. He’s not bothered to ask at all! As if that weren’t enough, having rescued the highlander, Doctor Who sends him off to be as far away as possible so he can continue having a laugh with Zoe on his own.
Oh, and he tells Jamie he’s getting fat. They’ve definitely had a row in the TARDIS. I wonder what it was about?
I’m sticking to a 3/10 for this one. There’s just not enough here that I like to drag the score up any higher. I said last week that I often thought of Season Six as being quite poor, but it’s actually been more of a rollercoaster so far. This time around I thought The Dominators was pretty good, and The Invasion was excellent, but The Mind Robber was rubbish and The Krotons hasn’t fared much better. If that pattern holds up, then fingers crossed that The Seeds of Death will turn out to be a favourite…
