The Power of Kroll

At times it seems as though Doctor Who was always imbued with exactly enough resources to stretch over an average season. So when it turned up something above-average, a genuine classic, you could be pretty sure that the additional effort had been robbed from some other story in the same season. For every "Revelation of the Daleks" there is a "Timelash"; for every "Earthshock" a "Time Flight". The first half of the Key to Time Season is very good indeed.

With "The Power of Kroll", it's not so much budget as general inspiration that seems to have suddenly dried up. We've given our fair share of praise towards Robert Holmes, now we must be equally fair in dealing with this story - it's generally not very good. And it has to be said that being told to insert this or that into the Season (in this case the "biggest monster ever" demand) doesn't excuse the general lack of season continuity that we get here. At the start of Part 1, Romana is still bantering with the Doctor about his apparent psychological problems and it's almost as if we are back at the end of the "Ribos Operation" again. This is, not coincidentally, where we last saw writer Robert Holmes, but one has to question why a script editor hadn't thought to intervene to bridge such appalling character continuity. Likewise, Romana ends part 1 of this story in exactly the same way she finished the opening of "Ribos"; screaming and helpless, as if no-one was aware of either the flapping stereotype the character had been written to overturn, or her gradually improving relationship with the Doctor over the past few stories. Whatever, it all gets thrown away here and "Kroll" surely marks the point at which all concerned gave up and started counting down until the end of the season.

The jokes too are desperately poor for Doctor Who's alleged greatest writer. Some aren't even finished off with punch lines, while we get re-takes of tried and trusted gags such as the Doctor getting his directions confused and repeating his assistants instructions back to her. Only when we first reach the refinery and the Doctor gives a joyful demonstration of its workings to it's crew do we get a half-decent scene. Here we meet our guest cast; one third of whom is only here as a 'thank you' for his voice work on the regrettably absent K9. Of the remainder, Neil McCarthy actually does a passable job of rendering Thawn believable, while Philip Madoc just appears lost and embarrassed. Overall, it really is an appallingly shoddy production. Was there a law that said every season had to have its share of clunkers?

It's typical that fan wisdom perceives the monster Kroll itself as the mortar that sunk this already heavily leaking ship. In fact, it's the best thing about the story; the split screen incarnation is seamlessly done (there's not even much of a line, contrary to what you've been told) and the scenes of its tentacles locking around characters in the closing episodes are almost up to feature film standard in comparison with other special effects that season. But you still have to ask what on Earth possessed them to ask for a story featuring "the biggest monster ever". It's one thing to set yourself challenges, but another to actually request the unachievable for the sake of it. Why deliberately make life difficult for yourself?

Against all the odds, episode 4 is actually quite good. Its relentless action is highly entertaining, although it does make you wonder why it's taken so long to get there. There are mentions of plot elements that show promise throughout, such as the fact that Thawn paid Rohm Dutt to deliver the arms to the Swampies, but these are brushed away as we never even see the characters meet, let alone get brought to justice. Besides which, so absurd are the indigenous population of Delta Magna, near-naked men wandering around painted green, that it scarcely seems to matter. Couldn't they at least have got some extras who were physically pleasing on the eye?

"Kroll" bores from the off, and there are few worse crimes for a Doctor Who story. The sets are flat and dull, there are no lovable characters and the dialogue is atrociously bad. When asked what the "first ritual" is, the Doctor is amazingly told that "you're thrown into a pit and then they drop rocks on you". It's enough to seriously bring Holmes credentials as a writer into question, and it probably explains why he took the next five years off from Who. Most stories have their champions, but nobody loves "The Power of Kroll". Looking ahead to the turgid "Armageddon Factor", it seems to mark the exact point at which this particular season went tits up.