What's Wrong With... The Krotons

The very first image of this story is of a set prop failure. The opening credits play over a small hatch jamming.

If The Krotons has problems, they aren't a patch on what might have been shown in this slot. Season Six is characterised by script problems - with a number of stories being cancelled quite late in the day. One of these was titled "The Prison In Space" and was written by Dick Sharples. One of its jobs was to have written out Jamie, replacing him with a character called Nik. As it was Frazer Hines changed his mind and decided to stay on a bit longer so that he and Patrick Troughton could depart together.

"The Prison in Space" would have looked something like that Two Ronnies serial, The Worm That Turned. This depicted a UK where gender roles were reversed. Men wore dresses and frilly aprons and did the housework, whilst the women went out to work, dressed in collar and tie. Diana Dors was the leader of the country, and she employed a police force of women dressed in fetishistic leather uniforms. Sharples' story had a similar backdrop, of a female dominated world, and the prison guards would be similarly dressed (called Dolly Guards). Zoe would have been very taken with this society and would have joined them. At the conclusion, she would have been spanked by Jamie into seeing sense again.

Big Finish decided to release this story as part of a "lost stories" range, in the misguided belief that completism and making money were more important than challenging sexist, misogynist drivel.

Mercifully, Sharples' script collapsed and the story was cancelled (though shamefully not because of the sexist content).

With a gap to fill, Terrance Dicks turned to a script from Robert Holmes, which had been kicking about for a while - "The Trap", later "The Space Trap". Holmes had originally submitted it to the BBC as a non-Doctor Who idea. It was turned down, but it was suggested that he try the Doctor Who production office due to its Sci-Fi content. Holmes rewrote it to include the First Doctor and companions. It was rejected again, this time by Donald Tosh. Holmes submitted it one final time after finding it in his house a few years later. He included a note that it should just be torn up if rejected again, as he needed a good clear out at home. Terrance Dicks saw some merit in it, and decided to work with Holmes on tidying it up as a sort of pet project.

The director for this slot - David Maloney - hated "The Prison in Space". When shown this as the alternative, he preferred it - though with reservations - and asked to do it instead.

The biggest problem with The Krotons is the logic behind the titular aliens' plan. The have crashed on a primitive planet, losing some of their crew. A minimum number are required - or rather their combined mental energies. The Krotons therefore have to use the locals - the Gonds - to replace the missing crew. They provide teaching machines which monitor their users' mental ability, and so select the top two students every year to enter their spaceship (the Dynatrope), where their minds are drained. The unfortunate young Gonds are then destroyed at the rear of the Dynatrope - in an area which the Krotons have declared a toxic death zone, to stop anyone from snooping. So far, so good. 

However, by killing the smartest young Gonds each year, the aliens fail to breed into the locals the very levels of intelligence they need. They also limit what the teaching machines provide, for fear of the Gonds learning of things which might be used against them. However, this selective teaching also acts against them developing the ultra-smart Gonds they require. No wonder the Dynatrope has been stuck here for generations.

There was a bit of a Spinal Tap moment when a mistake was made with the dimensions of the Kroton costumes. This resulted in them being too short, and so a rubber skirt had to be supplied to the bottom of each costume. Holmes had planned for them to be more humanoid, covered in crystals (perhaps a bit like The Hand of Fear's Eldrad). What we get looks more like a robot.

For many years a myth persisted that the Krotons had actually been a Blue Peter design-a-monster competition winner.

Another problem of scale is the model of the Dynatrope, whose size hasn't been properly established. As it gets destroyed in the final episode, it is hard to know how big it's supposed to be (and the geography is a little confusing as well).

The Gond scientist Beta is clearly seen in his laboratory in Part Four, at the same time that he is seen to be in the Hall of Learning. This continuity error was due to Beta actor James Cairncross being asked to pick up a line and save on employing another actor.

David Maloney branded this story "a disaster", but blamed his direction for its problems. Frazer Hines thought it "horrible". Terrance Dicks was happy with the actual story, but just didn't like the monsters.