Synopsis:
As Officia pumps more and more gas into the old mineshaft, Jamie is trapped between two Macra...
The Doctor and Polly are in the gas pumping control room where he rapidly tries to work out the complex layout of pipelines. He tricks Officia into revealing the correct sequence which will allow him to reverse the process - flooding the old shaft with oxygen instead of the toxic gas. He locks the doors so that the guards cannot enter.
In the old mine workings, the Macra have seized Jamie but begin to move sluggishly as the oxygen does its work.
Ola succeeds in breaking into the control centre but the Doctor and Polly escape through a side door into a corridor, which they lock behind them.
They see pipes running along the wall and decide to follow them.
Jamie finds an ancient door and forces it open. It leads to a lift shaft, and he can hear sounds of music and voices drifting down from above. It must lead up into the Colony.
A cheerleader squad is rehearsing, in preparation for a dance competition. Jamie emerges from the lift shaft and finds himself amongst them. He is mistaken for one of the competitors and demonstrates the Highland Fling - telling them that it gets its name as you fling yourself out of the nearest door at the conclusion.
He reels out the door - only to fall into the hands of Ola. Ben is with him, and identifies him as one of the runaway strangers. However, the young sailor is having doubts about his actions and tries to apologise to his friend.
The Doctor and Polly, meanwhile, find a sealed off control area at the end of the corridor in which one of the Macra is issuing orders. This is the voice behind Control.
They decide that they must get the Pilot here to see this for himself.
In his office, the Pilot is questioning Jamie in the presence of Ola and Ben when the Doctor and Polly walk in. Ola tries to arrest them, but the Doctor points out that they have given themselves up.
Ola and the Pilot begin arguing, with the security chief questioning the recent running of the Colony.
The Pilot agrees to see what the Doctor and Polly have found, and Ben slips out after them.
Ola and Officia decide that the Pilot is no longer to be trusted as he has gone with the strangers into a forbidden area.
The Pilot has now seen the Macra and can no longer deny their existence - and he agrees that they must be fought.
He tries and fails to convince Ola, who has assumed command and is now taking orders directly from Control, which seeks to destroy all those who fail to obey its instructions. Officia begins pumping the gas into the corridor where the Doctor and his friends are gathered.
Ben is in the control room but is unable to unlock the door to free them. Instead, the Doctor gives him a set of instructions on how to alter the pumping systems.
There is a rapid build up of pressure in the sealed-off area and an explosion results - destroying the Macra.
A short while later, the Doctor is enjoying the hospitality of the Colony at a celebration in their honour. When he learns from Ben that the colonists plan to make him their new Pilot, he decides that it is time for them to slip away back to the TARDIS...
Next time: The Faceless Ones
Written by Ian Stuart Black
Recorded: Saturday 25th March, 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 1st April 1967
Ratings: 8.4 million / AI 49
Designer: Kenneth Sharp
Director: John Davies
Additional cast: Karol Keyes (Chicki)
The final episode of The Macra Terror treads a fine line between jeopardy and humour. The Doctor once again bamboozles figures of authority - running rings round both Ola and Officia by using their own rules against them ("You can't arrest us now we've given ourselves up. That's against the rules"), or tricking them into doing exactly what he wants. The Doctor also asks Ola and the Pilot to apologise to each other at one point.
Jamie, meanwhile, gets his Highland Fling routine, which ends on a joke ("Why do you call it the Highland Fling?". "Because we finish the dance by flinging ourselves out the door...").
At the same time we have the Macra menacing the young Scot in the mines, and the travellers and their new friend, the Pilot, threatened by Ola as well as the titular monsters.
We can see elements of the original scripts, in which the Macra were supposed to be insects or spiders. Indeed, there's some sort of confusion as the Pilot asks if they are bacteria or insects after seeing Control.
The sequences in the old shaft at the beginning of the episode had been pre-recorded, partly to minimise the amount of dry ice in studio but primarily because the solitary Macra prop was to get a coat of white paint to feature in this episode, as Control.
There was also a change made to the cast list, as Sandra Bryant was no longer available to play Chicki. She had been offered another job and had asked to be released following the recording of the opening instalment. Replacing her was Karol Keyes. The character had appeared only briefly so it's unlikely many viewers would have noticed this replacement casting.
Recording took place on Patrick Troughton's 47th birthday, between 8:30 - 10pm.
What dry ice was used in studio, for scenes of Jamie fleeing to the lift shaft, were rapidly dispersed with a wind machine.
There were no recording breaks planned - only brief pauses in recording to allow cast members to move between sets or to move the Macra prop.
The main hall of the Colony was seen once again, with its back projection screen showing the still image of the Controller.
For the climax, the explosion was achieved through sound and camera effects only. The image was defocussed and a white-out employed - the camera being over-exposed.
The story ended as it had begun, with the closing credits rolling over the majorettes. Just before the "Next Week" caption, a 60 second trailer was shown for The Faceless Ones, comprising footage from the location filming for that story.
The story ends on a troubling note, as we haven't heard a great deal about the origins of the Macra. They are undoubtedly acting against the welfare of the colonists - enslaving them both physically and mentally, and we heard from Medok that those in the Danger Gang often perish. However, the Doctor does appear to potentially be committing genocide here. (We'll find out that he isn't, but not for another 40 years). Was this their homeworld, has invaded by colonists? Were they forced underground, perhaps by terraforming which destroyed their natural habitat? We simply aren't told anything about them, so they are presented as evil monsters that have to be defeated. It's implied, however, that they are all destroyed, not just beaten at the conclusion. This would have been handled differently in another era, where the Doctor would have sought to make peace between the races so that they could help each other on a more equal footing. Or, with Control destroyed, the Macra might have been rendered safe, as we saw with the Gravis and Tractators in Frontios. One is reminded here of the Troughton comic strip panel in which he blasts a giant spider with a ray-gun crying "Die, hideous creature! Die!".
We already know that this incarnation is a manipulative one, but here we are seeing the darkness in his character.
This would be Ian Stuart Black's final contribution to the series. It is noticeable that once Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis moved on from the series, he wasn't invited back - but then he had known them before writing for the series so there was probably some sort of personal aspect to his commissions. He would go on to author all three novelisations of his television stories for the Target book range.
The BBC had destroyed the original 405-line videotapes by 1977.
Six countries are known to have taken The Macra Terror - Australia, Uganda, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Zambia. This doesn't necessarily mean that there were six sets of prints in existence, as copies were often forwarded on to another country once a broadcaster thought they were of no further interest. The prints sent to NZ are known to have been destroyed in 1974 - the same year in which the BBC informed the Australian broadcaster that they could do the same. The zealousness of that country's censor has resulted in us having what few clips we do possess today, and the same territory provided some off-air 8mm footage from Episode 3 - including the opening titles.
- The ratings end on a reasonably healthy note. Both viewing figures and appreciation index have remained fairly stable across the four episodes.
- An audience research report from TAM found that Doctor Who had been the third most popular children's programme for Marc, behind Disney Time and Pinky & Perky.
- This was the longest of the four episodes, at 24' 41", thanks to that trailer. Even without it, it's still the longest instalment.
- This proved to be John Davies' only work on Doctor Who. He would go on to direct the BBC's highly acclaimed 1972 adaptation of War and Peace, starring Anthony Hopkins.
- The story was animated for releases on DVD / Blu-ray in 2019. With only a handful of clips remaining from the series, the animators took the opportunity to visually reimagine the story. Character likenesses remain faithful from the broadcast version, but the Macra are now seen in greater numbers (and different sizes) and the sets can be expanded. The Refreshing Department scene was omitted - necessitating a change of costumes for the regulars (only Ben gets a uniform), and a new TARDIS-set opening fails to match up with the existing sequence from the end of The Moonbase (4) which still exists (Polly starts the animated story with hair already short). Look out for a reuse of Romana II from the animated Shada in a crowd scene.
- The Macra made a surprise return in Series 3's Gridlock. Russell T Davies wanted an aquatic monster to feature in this 2007 story, reasoning that the sea would have broken into the lowermost level of the New New York motorway. The area would also be heavily polluted with toxic gases. Instead of creating a new monster, he realised he had a ready-made one within the series history. It is explained that the Macra have devolved this far into the future, and are now simply savage carnivorous beasts.
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