Hello everyone, the Historian here, almost-late as usual with the wrap-up for our previous story. So, The Krotons. Not the most distinguished or best loved story of season six, by any means. Well, let’s dive in…
PRODUCTION NOTES: During the discussions, I talked a lot about the writer of this story, the late, great Robert Holmes. He’s probably one of the handful of “most important names” behind the scenes in Doctor Who history, and this was his first script for the program. Terrence Dicks has talked a bit about how much in disarray the production side of the show was–Philip Bryant waiting to leave and Derek Sherwin neglecting his script editing duties to take on production issues (leaving the editing to the neophyte Dicks), all the while thinking about how he might get away from Who as well. Dicks has also talked of this story and Holmes’ next (The Space Pirates–coming soon!) as being a learning experience in “How to write Who” for the writer. As I’ve said elsewhere, everyone admits that, charitably, this was not Robert Holmes’ best script for the series.
Everything was overshadowed by the announcement, made on 7 January (while this story was still running on television), that Patrick Troughton would be leaving the part of the Doctor by the summer of 1969. What wasn’t announced was that the BBC was considering ending the show entirely at that point…and Sherwin and Dicks (with Bryant) would have to work very hard to convince the powers that be to keep it going. Add to all of this (all of which developed as The Krotons was being written and produced) the fact that Frazer Hines first planned to leave at the end of this story, then changed his mind and decided to stay on until Troughton left, and you get more of an explanation of the turmoil behind the scenes…and more of an explanation of some of the rough spots in The Krotons. Some of them.
As always, for more production info, check out A Brief History of Time (and Space).
PROJECT NOTES: I think it’s fair to say that the Project’s reaction to this story was….complicated. There are a lot of compliments for specific aspects of it, and some very good comments during final thoughts, but…ultimately, I think we found it more than a bit on the boring side. Which is a shame, since (as I said several times) there are some fantastic ideas at the core of the story: the Gonds being bred for intelligence, but their society being artificially held back from development. The idea of a crystalline life form that thrives on complex mental energy (maybe). The “trap” for “higher brains.” Lots of great ideas…but the execution was uneven at best, going in fits and starts. The episodes, it must be admitted, moved on at a good clip, and I’d give director David Maloney full credit for that. No, it’s the scripts that go in fits and starts. When it’s “on” (say, the Doctor and Zoe at the Learning Machine or Jamie and Beta mixing acid), it’s really on. And when it’s off, it’s really not.
You might have noticed that I didn’t have a final thought for the last episode. Well, we had some technical problems, so I had everyone e-mail their FTs in. (Ronelyn, who’s thought also didn’t get published, basically said, “It wouldn’t work without all of you guys around.”) So, here’s my final thought: the story was not as good as I remembered. Mostly what stuck in my mind were the good scenes, but I’d forgotten almost all of the stuff in between. Ultimately, I think it was a bit on the dull side, really, with some great ideas. Holmes would get exponentially better extremely quickly–remember, we’re not even a year away from “Spearhead From Space”–but this first story is definitely his weakest. (That being said, I’ve never seen The Space Pirates–and yes, I’m very excited to!)
Here’s the BBC episode guide for this story.
And here are the links to our discussions:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
And, in a few hours, a brand new story! Until then, I remain
THE HISTORIAN
