The Doctor and his companions have insisted on seeing the Controller for themselves, instead of his static picture. They are shown an older man, in a dishevelled uniform, who is being forced to speak to them by someone - or something - off-screen. This is confirmed when a huge crab-like claw reaches into view and drags the man away. Polly screams that the Macra are in control of the Colony...
The Pilot orders the strangers be sent away to the mines. Ben is told to spy on them and report any issues.
After they have been hurried away, the voice of Control reassures the Pilot that they must be put to work mining fresh gas reserves, and he is urged to forget what he had just seen.
Ola brings the Doctor and his companions to the mine control room, which is presided over by a man named Officia. He explains how the gases are generated by natural salts and are very valuable. Ola orders that the strangers need not know what they are mining - only that they should work. Initially it is decided that Polly should remain in the control room, but she insists that the Doctor should take on this role due to his advanced years. Whilst he disagrees with this, he realises that he might be able to exploit his role in this area. Polly and Jamie will go to the mines, and find and that they are to join Medok on the "Danger Gang". He explains that none of the hospital treatments had worked on him, so this was the only place left for him.
The Doctor sees Ben, and begins to quietly undermine the voices which he knows to be controlling his thoughts.
In the mines, Polly and Jamie discover that the gas they are expected to mine is highly toxic to humans.
The Doctor makes some calculations, based on the readings on the various gauges - chalking them on the wall. The Pilot arrives and is shocked to see these, since the Colony computers took years to come up with the same figures. He orders him to destroy the equations.
Officia makes a mess of tapping a new gas strike and is rendered unconscious temporarily - long enough for Jamie to steal his keys. Ben had been watching, and they are unsure if he saw the theft. As he helps Officia back to the control room, Jamie slips away and finds a large wooden door in the tunnel he had spotted earlier. The key fits this and he slips through, but an alarm sounds.
The recovered Officia alerts the Pilot. Control states that someone has broken into the old shaft, but refuses to allow Ola's guards to enter that area.
Medok attempts to follow Jamie, but a huge claw seizes him by the throat.
The Doctor discovers that Ben had seen Jamie steal the keys, but had not reported this - confirming that his mental conditioning is breaking down. Confused, the young man goes off to seek advice from the Pilot whilst the Doctor seeks a means of helping Jamie by studying the nature of the gas.
He, meanwhile, has discovered that Macra roam the old mine shaft and are hunting him down.
Control once again insists that no colonist be allowed to enter the old shaft. Instead, it orders that guards be placed at the entrances whilst it gives new orders to Officia. He is to flood the old shaft with the toxic gas.
Forced deeper into the tunnels by the thickening cloud of gas, within lurks a Macra, Jamie finds himself trapped between it and another of the monsters...
Written by Ian Stuart Black
Recorded: Saturday 18th March 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 25th March 1967
Ratings: 8.5 million / AI 52
Designer: Kenneth Sharp
Director: John Davies
Additional cast: John Harvey (Officia)
Critique:
The original draft of this episode, when the story was still being called "Dr Who and the Spidermen", referred to the Pilot as the Colony's "Prime Minister". The script gives hints that the Macra was supposed to be realised by a man in costume. There's a description of an insect man with a "great plumped up back". Jamie shouts at it: "You horrible beastie. Did the devil send you? You're an insect from the pit of Satan!".
Some of Polly's dialogue was originally given to a female miner.
Monday 13th March should have been a day off before the start of rehearsals for this episode, but the regular cast had to go to Gatwick Airport to film exteriors scenes for the next story. They were then taken out of rehearsals on Friday 17th for the same reason.
On the same day Innes Lloyd contacted BBC Visual Effects due to problems which were being experienced with Shawcraft Models. Director Gerry Mill had encountered issues during the pre-filming for The Faceless Ones, whilst the producer had been very unhappy at the cost of the Macra prop. He asked if someone from the department could visit the studio during the making of this or the final episode to assess the prop and confirm that it had really cost the £500 he had been charged.
Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie had declined to work on Doctor Who right from the outset, unless they were given additional staff and workshop space. As this couldn't be offered, responsibility for VFX had always fallen to the individual story's designer in conjunction with external contractors like the Uxbridge-based company. Lloyd was asking if he could get better value for money by using other contractors. In the end, the BBC VFX department would finally take on responsibility for the programme in-house from the next story to go into production, which would be The Evil of the Daleks.
Episode 3 of The Macra Terror saw the very first appearance of the opening title details being superimposed over the new title sequence. In the past, the writer and episode title / number had appeared after the title sequence had faded out, being superimposed over the opening shot of the new episode.
In this instance, the opening scene was a restaging of the cliffhanger sequence from Episode 2.
The main new set was the mine control room which was covered in pipelines. This included a built-in back projection screen. There were two sections of mine tunnel set up, with T-junctions to allow for variety of shots. The new shaft where the Danger Gang operated saw metal panels running along the walls, and the tunnels had arches with angled tops. It looked more like a futuristic corridor than a mine tunnel. The old shaft was dressed differently, with rounded arches and sprayed with latex cobweb material. Dry ice was used to represent the poisonous gas. This and low lighting helped hide the deficiencies of the Macra prop.
As there was only one, relatively immobile, Macra, the final sequence had to be recorded out of sequence. Basically, all of the shots of the Macra moving right to left had to be shot first and then, after a break to reposition it, recorded again moving left to right. Davies edited these sequences as he went along, sitting in a mobile editing suite in the car park outside the studio. The material had to be transferred to 35mm film so that it could be used for the cliffhanger reprise in Episode 4. Not only would it be too time consuming to restage this action, but it was intended that the Macra prop would be repainted for the following episode. It should be recalled that there was only a single week between recording and broadcasting at this time.
Frazer Hines found the situation ridiculous as it showed up the impracticalities of the Macra.
Much of it relatively dark in tone, this episode does see a bit of comedy business with Troughton. After working out the way the mine control room operates from the various dials and gauges, he gives himself a score of 10 out of 10. When the Pilot confirms that his scribbled equations were correct, he gives himself a higher score (long before Spinal Tap) - then cracks a joke when water makes the chalked figures run into one another.
At one point he wishes he had been issued a mask like those going down the mine - one of the last times his hat fixation is referenced.
This humour is balanced by somewhat threatening dialogue from the Doctor, however. He appears to be content to set Jamie on his companion - pointing out that he wouldn't treat him as nicely as he might. There's definitely an explicit threat in his "... watch out Jamie doesn't catch you. He's not as tolerant as I am".
- The ratings see a significant improvement this week, both in terms of viewing figures and audience appreciation. More than half a million extra viewers, and four points up on the previous AI figure.
- John Harvey had previously appeared in an earlier story by Black, when he played Professor Brett in The War Machines. Usually called upon to play police or military officers, he featured in a number of Hammer Horrors - Phantom of the Opera, Kiss of the Vampire, The Satanic Rites of Dracula - and sci-fi films such as X The Unknown and They Came From Beyond Space.
- The Australian censor cut the scenes with the claw from the reprise from Episode 2. Interestingly, the cliffhanger wasn't badly cut - probably because the action is so dark and gas-shrouded that the audience wouldn't be able to see what was going on anyway.
- In his novelisation, Ian Stuart Black has Medok survive his encounter with the Macra.
No comments:
Post a Comment