By Jessica Holmes

Another new year rolls around, and we have a new writer to welcome to Doctor Who: Robert Holmes. Before you ask, no relation. At least I don't think so. Regardless, whenever he writes something I like, I will be claiming him as part of the family.

So, am I claiming him as kin today? Let’s find out, and join the Doctor as he shows the youths that their school is just a brainwashing tool to keep them in line, and introduces them to the wonders of acid. Here are my thoughts on "The Krotons".

On a planet with two suns, sunburn is a real killer.

In Case You Missed It

The TARDIS arrives on a blighted world lit by twin suns, wastelands as far as the eye can see and a strong whiff of sulfur in the air. Despite the harsh conditions, this world is inhabited by a race of people called the Gonds.

In their society, the two brightest youths of each generation are chosen to be companions of their rulers, the mysterious Krotons. What they don’t realise, and what the Doctor very quickly discovers, is that this great ‘honour’ ends with ejection from the city, and a swift and grim death by disintegration on the back doorstep.

The Doctor and his friends attempt to warn the Gonds against sending any more candidates, but their sudden and unexpected appearance only makes the Gonds suspicious. Despite their efforts, a girl called Vana (Madeleine Mills) enters the Krotons' machine, the Dynatrope. The gang rush off to try and rescue her, with her boyfriend Thara (Gilbert Wynne) following, defying the law of his people to venture out into the wasteland. They’re successful in saving her from disintegration, but whatever the Krotons did to her has left her catatonic.

Cut him some slack, the man's not a medical Doctor. Though I could have sworn he once said he was.

Thara takes Vana to the home of his father, Selris (James Copeland). While the Doctor attempts to bring Vana out of her catatonic state, Selris explains that the Krotons have ruled over the Gonds for all of recorded history. Shortly after they arrived, they rained poison from the sky, making the land uninhabitable and wiping out much of the native Gond population. The Gonds have been under their ‘benevolent’ rule ever since.

It’s not all been bad for the Gonds, or so Selris claims. Sure, they can’t leave the city, and sure, they have to hand over a couple of their people every so often, and sure, they have to obey everything the Krotons say… But at least they get a robust education. Courtesy of the Krotons’ advanced teaching machines, no less!

Well, they get a robust education when it comes to how great the Krotons are and how marvellous it is to be ruled by them. Less so when it comes to things like chemistry and the concept of electricity. It’s not education, it’s brainwashing.

The Doctor and Zoe leave with Selris to investigate the Learning Hall further. While the Doctor explores the Underhall with Selris, Zoe tries out one of the teaching machines, earning herself a very high score, and an invitation from the Krotons to be their companion.

Aghast, the Doctor takes the test himself, so that she won’t have to go into the Dynatrope alone. He's so terribly upset when he realises she's doomed herself. It's really quite sweet.

Jamie arrives to tell them that Vana has woken up, but he’s too late to stop them. As he hammers on the door from the outside, the Doctor and Zoe are at the mercy of a mysterious machine. It knocks them out, but they survive the ordeal, with Zoe deducing that the Krotons have found a way to convert brain power into energy. That’s why they’ve been educating the Gonds, and why they’ve been taking their best and brightest.

But what’s it all for? The pair spot a vat nearby, filled with a kind of slurry of crystals in suspension. Like a primeval soup. And what might one find in a soup? Croutons. Sorry, Krotons.

The Krotons take on solid form and emerge from the soup as the Doctor and Zoe make their escape. Outside of the tanks, they’re hulking crystalline beings, reliant on a feed line to maintain their form. Or something. It’s not entirely clear.

Jamie finally succeeds in breaking into the Dynatrope , but the Krotons capture him immediately. Despite his inferior mind (rude) the Krotons decide to spare Jamie, reasoning that he could give them intelligence on the Doctor and Zoe.

Outside, the Gonds don’t just have the Krotons to contend with, but power struggles within their own ranks. Eelek (Philip Madoc), previously very pro-Kroton, realises that the current crisis is the prime opportunity to seize control of the governing council away from Selris, its current leader. He goes on the warpath, trying to recruit his people into all out war against the Krotons—never mind that the Krotons have chemical weapons while the Gonds are fighting with axes and clubs. It won’t be a revolution, but a slaughter.

Having lost the Doctor, the Krotons decide to destroy his means of escape, disintegrating the TARDIS with a blast of the gas gun. All is lost…for all of about ten seconds, until the TARDIS re-materialises a short distance away.

Meanwhile, Selris has a plan to defeat the Krotons that is a little less doomed-to-failure. If the Gonds can destroy the supports at the base of the Dynatrope, they could bring down the whole machine! Unfortunately, he can’t get Eelek on board with this idea, so decides he’s going to go ahead without him.

The Doctor and Zoe return to the city, having discovered that the Krotons are composed of Tellurium, which happens to be soluble in sulfuric acid. As it happens, there’s absolutely oodles of pure sulfur all over the wasteland.

Jamie manages to sneak away from the Krotons as the Doctor and Zoe lend the Gonds’ chief scientist, Beta (James Cairncross), a hand with his very first chemistry lesson. They’re making acid, and their laboratory safety practices are absolutely atrocious. On learning that Jamie hasn’t been seen for some time, they go to look for him.

They arrive at the Learning Hall to discover that Selris’ scheme is well underway, the ceiling of the Underhall is caving in, and worst of all, Jamie is inside the Dynatrope. Following a narrow escape from falling debris, they rush off to the Dynatrope’s exit to try and save Jamie. Eelek arrives on scene shortly afterwards, furious at Selris for disobeying his orders. He has him arrested, and with his power secure, Eelek makes a deal with the Krotons: if they agree to leave the Gonds alone, he will hand over the Doctor and Zoe.

Blissfully unaware that they’ve just been thrown under the bus, the Doctor and Zoe meet Jamie at the exit of the Dynatrope, saving him from the disintegration gas. They tell him to go and find Beta and get him to make as much acid as he can, then run off, straight into the waiting arms of Eelek and his loyalists.

Beep boop.

Eelek shoves the Doctor and Zoe into the Dynatrope, with Selris diving in after them, bringing with him a bottle of the acid solution smuggled from Beta. It’s a brave act, and his last, as the Krotons kill him on sight.

However, it does save the Doctor and Zoe, who pour the solution into the soup, and the Krotons unknowingly pump it into their bodies. It takes them a little while to notice that something is wrong, and by the time they do, it’s too late to stop it. They dissolve from the inside out. It would be quite grisly if they were more fleshy.

As the Krotons dissolve, Jamie and Beta pour barrel upon barrel of acid onto the outside of the Dynatrope. The Doctor and Zoe flee the rapidly disintegrating Dynatrope, and the Gonds celebrate their new-found freedom. Thara deposes Eelek’s short lived dictatorship, taking on his father’s hereditary role as leader of the council. He has a mind to ask the Doctor for his advice, but our spacefaring friend has already slipped out the back and made a beeline for the TARDIS. I guess the Gonds will work out democracy at their own pace. Their future is theirs to decide now, after all.

A Few Thoughts

The dynamic between Zoe and the Doctor is so much fun in this serial. They snipe back and forth over which of them is the cleverest (and it’s very funny), but I don’t doubt they’d each walk into traffic if the other asked them to.

Holmes’ dialogue is snappy and witty, and Troughton and Padbury are definitely having fun with it. Unfortunately Jamie gets a bit sidelined in this serial, though he does have his moments. When the group initially encounters the Gonds, some of them get a bit aggressive, and Jamie steps forward, unarmed, to defend the Doctor. Later, he manages to keep the Krotons talking long enough to delay his own execution, and steal one of their gas canisters into the bargain. I’ve long said that he might not be a maths whizz or a super-genius from the future (or wherever), but he’s not dim.

As for the Krotons, well. I don’t think they’re going to become iconic like the Daleks or the Cybermen. There was an attempt to hint at a wider Kroton threat, with some mention of a wider Kroton battle fleet, but see… I just can’t take them seriously. They’re so clunky and awkward. I kept expecting them to go ‘beep boop’ in true B-Movie fashion. I know, I know, they’re not robots, but they look like them and act like them. And that’s a bit of a shame because a life form composed of living crystal is a marvellous idea. It’s so wonderfully alien.

And another thing. Remember how the Daleks have pretty iconic voices? All that modulated shouting they do, easily mimicked by shouting into a desk fan? And the Cybermen, with their uncanny computerised tones? Well, I think there was an attempt to give the Krotons a distinct, signature voice. Something to really sell the idea that they’re from a distant galaxy, a truly exotic life-form. The distant, far-away galaxy… of Birmingham. That’s what they sound like. Brummie aliens. Brummie aliens whose heads spin around. I don't think Krotonmania is on the horizon.

Let's not put gloves on before we pour enormous vats of corrosive fluid! Yay, safety!

I don’t know enough about Robert Holmes yet to guess if this was on purpose, but there’s a definite counter-cultural undercurrent running through this serial. You’ve got the youth rejecting the propaganda of the state, the education system revealed as a brainwashing tool, and of course the answer to it all is dropping acid. In a very literal sense. All we’re missing is some tie-dye and a little grass. Groovy.

I couldn't find anywhere appropriate to insert this image, but it's funny and I thought you should see it. Behold the Krotons' cruellest weapon: the wide-angle lens.

And Finally…

The plot’s nothing mind-blowing and the alien enemies are so-so, but "The Krotons" is a solid story. It’s tightly-paced and fun to watch, with likable characters to root for…and also Eelek. Stuff Eelek.

Robert Holmes has had an encouraging debut, and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing more from him.

That’s about it for the first serial of 1969! Who can say what the year ahead has in store for us all, but as far as Doctor Who is concerned, I’d say the future is looking pretty bright.

3.5 stars out of 5 for The Krotons.

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