The inhabitants of the planet Delta Magna worshipped a great squid-god named Kroll. Legend had it that Kroll devoured a High Priest, along with a sacred totem from his temple.
When the planet was colonised by people from Earth, the Delta Magnans were forcibly relocated to one of its moons - a wet, swamp world. A number of squid were moved with them to provide a food source. They continued to worship Kroll, and even offered human sacrifice to it - one of their number dressing like a giant squid.
The human colonisers then discovered that the moon was rich in methane from which a protein foodstuff could be made, and so they set up an experimental refinery, as a prelude to full exploitation.
The Doctor and Romana arrived on the moon in search of the fifth segment of the Key to Time. He was surprised at the amount of methane which the swamp could produce. It transpired that the Kroll legend was based on fact. The totem which the giant squid had swallowed had been the disguised Key segment, and it caused the creature to grow to fantastic size. It was sleeping on the bottom of the lake, but the activities of the rig woke it up.
The Delta Magnans found that it would kill and eat them just as easily as the humans. Its tentacles could detect even the slightest movement. To stop it attacking their village, the Doctor lured it away to the rig. There he used the Key locator device to retrieve the segment - Kroll being converted into millions of smaller squid.
Appearances: The Power of Kroll (1978).
- Robert Holmes stepped in with a second Key to Time story after another script collapsed. He was asked by Graham Williams, the producer, to include the biggest monster there had ever been in the series.
- Part of the story is inspired by the 1933 film King Kong, whilst a lot of the story was later reworked by Holmes to become The Caves of Androzani.
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