The Doctor tries to stop the Gonds from tampering with the foundations of the Dynatrope. They are attacking these with a pulley and chains, attempting to bring the whole structure down.
Their actions cause the roof of the under-hall to crack open - and the Doctor finds himself buried by falling rubble...
Thara and Vana arrive, bringing a bottle of sulphuric acid which the Doctor had Beta prepare. Selris is shocked to see them as he had ordered them to flee to the hills.
Thara helps Zoe locate the Doctor who, fortunately, is unharmed. However, another section of roof caves in and Thara's leg is injured.
Within the Dynatrope, the Krotons have been alarmed at the violent rocking of their vessel and realise that they have been attacked. They see the Doctor and Zoe on their scanner, helping Thara.
Kroton 2 is sent to fetch them.
As the Doctor helps bind up Thara's leg, he notices that the Dynatrope appears to have been damaged in the attack.
He and Zoe then learn that Jamie had followed them into the machine some time ago.
He, meanwhile, has managed to get to the exit hatch out into the wasteland, but struggles to open it.
The Doctor and Zoe rush off to find him.
Eelek and Axus arrive and accuse Selris of putting lives at risk. A number of Gonds have been killed or injured, and he no longer had the authority of the council to take such action. Eelek states that he has prepared his own attack, using slings and fireballs.
Selris points out that his role is hereditary, and only Thara can replace him - but Eelek dismisses this.
Selris goes on to claim that his aim had been to draw the Krotons out of the machine, and in this he has been successful - for they a Kroton emerge into the Hall of Learning.
It demands that the two "high brains" be handed over to them. Selris explains to Eelek that this refers to the Doctor and Zoe. The Gonds are given fifteen minutes to produce them or face destruction, but Eelek learns from them that the Krotons will depart from this world if the strangers are handed over.
After it withdraws, Eelek tells Selris that he intends to do as the Kroton demands. They can rid themselves of the aliens without having to fight. Selris argues that the strangers are their friends and have tried to help them, but Eelek is adamant that they must be handed over to the Krotons.
The Doctor and Zoe arrive at the exit hatch just in time to see Jamie struggle under the door. They pull him to safety before the dispersal units can destroy him.
The Doctor then sends him to Beta to help manufacture as much sulphuric acid as he can, then he and Zoe return to the Hall.
Jamie assists Beta with his experiments, whilst Selris and Vana discuss how they can warn the Doctor and Zoe about Eelek's intentions. She tries to slip away but is caught by Axus. She drops the bottle of acid, and Selris picks it up.
Inside the Dynatrope, the Krotons confirm that they only have less than half an hour before they exhaust and revert to their basic elements. They observe Eelek capture the Doctor and Zoe as they return to the Hall.
As they are being forced into the Dynatrope, the Doctor urges Vana to pass him the bottle of acid.
Realising its importance, Selris leaps forward and enters the machine as the door closes behind him. He is able to get the bottle to the Doctor before being killed by the Krotons.
The Doctor begins questioning the aliens as to why they are needed, learning that four are required to operate the Dynatrope but only two Krotons survived the crash.
Ordered to take their places, they begin to waste time through various delaying tactics.
Jamie and Beta arrive in the Hall with a large quantity of the acid, to be told by Eelek that the Doctor and Zoe have gone into the machine, and that the entire settlement will be destroyed once it takes off as it is built around it. Everyone is to evacuate, but Vana resolves to stay with Thara, Beta and Jamie.
Beta leads Jamie to the under-hall, where they begin pouring the acid over the foundations.
The Krotons become increasingly frustrated with the antics of the Doctor and Zoe as they fail to co-operate - and the countdown to their exhaustion approaches.
Zoe then slips the contents of the bottle into the chemical tank to which the aliens remain attached.
The effects of the acid are almost instantaneous, as the Krotons begin to stumble around. The walls of the Dynatrope start to melt as the aliens collapse.
Jamie and Beta see the Doctor and Zoe rush out of the machine. The Doctor orders everyone out to avoid the toxic fumes as the entire Dynatrope dissolves.
He and his companions elect to slip quietly away as Beta, Vana and Thara celebrate the end of their servitude under the Krotons. Beta warns that there is still Eelek to contend with - but Thara vows to succeed his father and lead the council.
The TARDIS dematerialises.
Next time: The Seeds of Death
Data:
Written by Robert Holmes
Recorded: Friday 13th December 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.15pm, Saturday 18th January 1969
Ratings: 7.1 million / AI 55
VFX: Bill King & Trading Post
Designer: Raymond London
Director: David Maloney
The Doctor survives having rubble falling on top of him, yet Thara gets his leg broken. Robert Holmes wrote that the Doctor was able to avoid injury by ending up in a small cavity under the fallen ceiling, but this isn't evident on screen.
Holmes also had Selris fail to pass the bottle of acid to the Doctor. It fell on the floor as he was killed, but the Doctor caught the rolling bottle with his foot then managed to pick it up without the Krotons noticing. The broadcast version makes the Gond leader out to be a more heroic figure, sacrificing himself for the two strangers as much as for his people, after he had been a prevaricating figure up to this point. On screen, we don't get to see how Thara learns of his father's sacrifice, as a scene where the Doctor informs him of this was cut during rehearsals.
In the original story outline it was Jamie who poured the acid into the vat. The Doctor then arranged for the Kroton vessel to launch into space, to explode harmlessly above the planet.
Other than a reused sequence from Episode One (see below), the only filming for this instalment was done at Ealing on Thursday 14th and Friday 15th November. On the first day the destruction of the Krotons was filmed. One of the aliens was seen to fall on its back, with its dispersal unit firing up into the air. A polystyrene head was made which had acetone poured over it, to show the Kroton dissolving.
Friday was the model work day. The Dynatrope model was also made from polystyrene, with the same technique used to show it melting.
Studio recording on Friday 13th December was not done in story order. The opening shot with Thara and Zoe was recorded at the end of the session, to be edited in later. By this point in the evening Wendy Padbury's PVC-paper dress was beginning to show obvious signs of wear and tear, and Gilbert Wynne shielded Padbury in such a way as to conceal a tear in the shoulder. Later in the evening, Troughton had to do the same. Padbury had hoped to keep the black and red outfit after production. Repairs were made so that Zoe could be seen wearing it at the start of the next story.
Maloney had a smoke effect superimposed over the picture to indicate the collapse of the under-hall.
When Zoe asks to borrow his braces, it was originally intended that the Doctor would instead produce a length of rope from his pocket to secure the splint for Thara's injured leg. This was changed to him using his handkerchief.
James Cairncross is initially seen to wear a face mask over his mouth only, with his nose uncovered - but in the next scene he has both nose and mouth covered.
The departure of the TARDIS was simply the footage of its arrival in Episode One played back in reverse. (Which creates a continuity issue, as the TARDIS had relocated to a ledge halfway up the mountain in the previous episode).
Following broadcast of this episode, the BBC ran a short trailer for the next story featuring clips with narration.
16mm film copies of The Krotons were still being sold to overseas buyers as late as 1974. The first episode had been made using 35mm film and so a copy was kept by the BBC Film and Videotape Library, which also held the 16mm prints of the second and third episodes. The BFI held 16mm copies of all four episodes, and provided the BBC with a copy of the final instalment to complete the story in the Library.
The original videotapes of episodes two to four had been cleared for wiping in July 1969.
A highlight of this story has been the interplay between the Doctor and Zoe. We saw it in the second episode, which focuses mainly on the pair, and it's on show again here as they attempt to delay the Krotons long enough for them to either exhaust or for the acid to work:
The Doctor: "Now then, where do you want us to stand?"
Kroton: "Unimportant"
The Doctor: "Oh. Well I'll stand over there then"
Zoe: "Oh. Oh Doctor, I wanted to stand there"
The Doctor: "Oh my dear. Oh well, you stand there, and I'll stand here. Better still. A much better idea - I'll stand here and you stand over there"
The Doctor then struggles to put on his headset, wearing it sideways at first and then having it spring off his head.
Frazer Hines has frequently stated how much he disliked this story, citing low production values and its rushed quality, but I suspect it is also due to the fact that Jamie has so little to do at times, especially in this final instalment where he simply helps Beta mix up some chemicals.
So that was The Krotons. Does it really deserve its lowly place in fan opinion? I think not. It's unfair to damn a story just because of the bottom half of the monster, and some low budget production values. It was designed to be a cheap show, to offset more expensive stories around it, but actually sports some imaginative sets. The Gond costumes might look like romper suits, but we've seen far worse - and just in this season alone (Dulcians, I'm looking at you...).
Rubber skirts aside, the Krotons are impressive in form and size, with their distinctive booming voices.
The use of a granite quarry for the filming works very well, making it stand out from lots of the other quarry-as-alien-planet locations we see in the programme, especially when we go into colour and every sandpit begins to look the same.
Above all else, we have a good, solid, storyline from Holmes. The Kroton plan might lack logic, but Holmes' script doesn't.
It's never going to be hailed a classic but, on the whole, it stands up really well as a product of its time.
- The ratings end almost 2 million down on the opening episode indicating, I suspect, more the unique viewing patterns of the festive period, rather than any growing dissatisfaction with the story itself.
- Wednesday 22nd January 1969 saw Junior Points of View broadcast reactions of young fans to the news that Patrick Troughton would be leaving the programme. Viewers urged him to stay. Opinions on the new monsters were divided.
- The Krotons was selected for a repeat screening as part of The Five Faces of Doctor Who season in the second week of November, 1981. It was chosen as it was the only complete four part Troughton story in the archives at the time. As well as plugging a longer than usual gap between seasons, Producer JNT also wanted to remind viewers that there had been other Doctors before Tom Baker, and so help them to accept Peter Davison as his replacement.
- Screened on BBC 2 over four consecutive evenings, Monday to Thursday, the ratings for the repeat were pretty consistent - 4.4, 4.6, 4.6, 4.5 million viewers.
- A Kroton was to have featured in The War Games - seen on the video screen as part of the Doctor's defence. However, it was found that the costume was too badly damaged to be used.
- Philip Madoc features in the audio adventure The Return of the Krotons - but not as Eelek, as the story revolves around another Dynatrope on another planet.
- Krotons feature in the Eighth Doctor novel Alien Bodies, by Lawrence Miles. This gives their home planet the name Krosi-Aspai-Core. One of the creatures has a name - E-Kobalt. In this they are a formidable foe, with an expanding empire.
- As The Krotons went into production, Holmes had already been asked to submit other scripts for the series. Dicks liked how quickly he wrote, as well as his range of story ideas. One story he put forward was "Aliens in the Blood", which dealt with a community of super-evolved human beings on a remote Scottish island. He expected the title to be changed as he didn't think it had enough "zing" for Doctor Who. It eventually saw production in 1977, but not as a Doctor Who story. Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, and renamed Aliens in the Mind, it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Busy on other projects, Holmes allowed it to be adapted by its producer Rene Basilico.
- Elements of his first story for Doctor Who will find their way into Holmes' final completed one - Trial of a Time Lord (Parts 1-4) - aka The Mysterious Planet. We have a community of humanoids ruled over by a robotic villain, who lurks in a high-tech lair and is never seen - relaying its commands via a leading member of the community. It manipulates what the community are allowed to know, and has also taken two members of this community to live with it, mirroring the 'Companions of the Krotons'.
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