The Krotons - Episode 4

 The first episode of 2014 and the final episode of 'The Krotons'. I love how its four minutes before the Doctor thinks about Jamie. It's a good thing Jamie couldn’t see this otherwise he wouldn't have stuck around for as long as he did. The thing that has stood out about the latter half of this story has been how well the Doctor and Zoe have worked together. It's been fun to see Zoe given some good on screen time instead of just popping up at the end and do something useful.  

 

The Krotons main plan is now to take the Doctor and Zoe off the planet and with them. It seems to have come out of nowhere because I must have missed any indication that this was what the Krotons were planning.  It's good how we finally get a proper explanation about what the Krotons have been doing and why they arrived in the first place. Not sure why we've had to wait until this point for this explanation but better late than never I suppose. 

 

Philip Madoc is very good and really becomes the best Gondon. His power struggle with Selris was a good moment but it was a shame when Selris was killed. Selris did a great job through these four episodes and it would have been nice had he survived to the end of the story. The Gonds have been very consistent in this story. Apart from the occasional weak character, I think that the Gonds have been well written and due to the performances they are miles better than the Dull-Dulcians from 'The Dominators'.  

 

As an episode it does what a final episode should do and manages to tie up the loose ends perfectly well and doesn’t commit the ultimate crime of padding and its good that they went with four episodes instead of five, six or eight like most stories have been recently. Sadly this is the only four part story of this series. The Krotons isnt a well liked story and I can sort of see why. The monsters arent particularly practical or fun to watch. They don’t have much to them apart from what they we saw in this story so it's not surprising to see that they didn’t come back. The search for the new Daleks continue. I must admit that I think that this story has improved watching it a day at a time as opposed to in just one sitting. It's not a classic by any stretch of the imagination. In the grand rankings of story ratings, The Krotons are in 15th place. It's hard to believe that I am just three stories away from the end of the Troughton era. Just one more incomplete story before its DVDs all the way and three stories before I am back into colour television.