The Krotons (TV story)

The Krotons was the fourth story of Season 6 of Doctor Who. Future script editor Robert Holmes penned this story, his first for the series.

Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives on the unnamed planet of the Gonds, who are ruled and taught in a form of self-perpetuating slavery by the alien Krotons - crystalline beings whose ship, the Dynatrope, crash-landed there thousands of years ago after being damaged in a space battle.

The Krotons are at present in suspended animation, in a crystalline slurry form, awaiting a time when they can be reconstituted by absorption of mental energy. Periodically, the two most brilliant Gond students are received into the Dynatrope, apparently to become 'companions of the Krotons' but in truth to have their mental energy drained, after which they are killed.

When the Doctor and Zoe take the students' test, their mental power is sufficient to reanimate the Krotons. The Doctor discovers that their life system is based on tellurium and, with help from the Gond scientist Beta; he is then able to destroy them and their ship using an impure form of sulphuric acid.

Part One
On the planet of the Gonds, a ceremony is underway. The two brightest students, Abu and Vana, have been selected to become companions of their unseen masters, the Krotons. As Abu eagerly dons his selection robes and enters through a hatchway, Vana’s lover Thara desperately begs her not to go. Gond leader Selris, Thara's father, is resolute, stating that Kroton law dictates that she must.

The TARDIS lands in a desolate area nearby. Jamie immediately notes the strong odor of sulphur, and Zoe suggests that they depart, but the Doctor opts to explore. From a clifftop they see the Gond city below. They encounter a metallic crystalline structure with a hatchway similar to the one in the city. The Doctor is cautious, identifying the structure as a machine, and they hide as a dazed and weary Abu emerges from the hatchway. Before their horrified eyes, he is evaporated by blasts of energy.

As Thara and Selris argue over Vana’s selection, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe enter the city. They are received with suspicion. The Gonds have never encountered strangers before, and the area where they came from, the Wasteland, is believed to be uninhabitable. As a particularly hotheaded young man fights with Jamie, Vana enters the Kroton machine. The Doctor’s description of the death of Abu sends shock waves through the crowd. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe rush back to the Wasteland to rescue Vana, followed by Thara. They block the energy beams with rocks and pull her away as she stumbles from the machine. She is near-catatonic.

Back in the city, the Doctor tends to Vana as Selris attempts to make sense of what is happening. The Krotons, he says, have long been the Gonds’ benefactors, providing them with knowledge. The Kroton machine landed on the planet thousands of years earlier, and the ensuing war nearly annihilated the Gonds and ruined the landscape. Since then, the Krotons have never left their machine, but created the teaching machines to train the Gonds, and the laws that require their top students to become companions; the Doctor notes this to be a form of self-perpetuating slavery.

Thara and a band of students sneak into the Learning Hall and vandalize the Kroton teaching machines to force them to emerge. They are stopped by a bellowing mechanical voice ordering them to leave the hall. As the Doctor and Selris reason with the vandals, a portal opens and a metallic snakelike object emerges and homes in on the Doctor.

Part Two
The device stops when the Doctor shields his face. Zoë notes that the device must utilize pattern recognition, which is confirmed when the Doctor inadvertently lowers his hands causing it to come back to life. A student attacks the device, which vaporizes him and then retracts back into the Kroton machine. The Doctor notes the apparently limited logic of the device's programming; it appeared to think it had completed its task of destroying him. The bellowing mechanical voice returns, ordering them to leave the hall. They obey.

The Doctor and Zoë note the large gaps in the Gonds' knowledge; the Krotons apparently are training the Gonds for a specific purpose. They leave Jamie to care for Vana and enter the Learning Hall to investigate the teaching machines for themselves. On the way, the Doctor investigates a closed-off chamber running under the Kroton machine, and that the machine's foundation resembles a root structure - could the Kroton machine be organic? When he returns, he is horrified to see Zoë operating a learning machine. She earns a score twice as high as any Gond, much to Selris's amazement, and is almost immediately summoned to be a Kroton companion. The Doctor takes the test himself; not scoring as high as Zoë but still respectable enough to be promptly selected.

They enter the Kroton machine and find the interior chamber empty, save for two chairs. They sit and are subjected to a force device which activates a pair of tanks filled with a crystalline slurry. Zoë notes that the device converts mental power into energy. They see the tanks and realize that whereas the Gonds' mental energy was insufficient, their mental energy triggered the tanks into operation. Two Krotons, crystalline bipeds, are formed out of the slurry and awaken.

The Doctor and Zoë escape from the Machine's rear exit, eluding the blasters, while Jamie breaks in through the front. The Krotons note that the Doctor and Zoë are not Gonds, and resolve to recapture them. Jamie, who the Krotons believe to be a Gond, is captured and subjected to the mental probe. They note that he is not a 'high-brain,' and that the power will thus destroy him.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Patrick Troughton
 * Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines
 * Zoe Heriot - Wendy Padbury
 * Abu - Terence Brown
 * Axus - Richard Ireson
 * Beta - James Cairncross
 * Custodian - Maurice Selwyn
 * Eelek - Philip Madoc
 * Kroton - Robert La'Bassiere
 * Kroton - Miles Northover
 * Kroton Voice - Roy Skelton
 * Kroton Voice - Patrick Tull
 * Selris - James Copeland
 * Student - Bronson Shaw
 * Thara - Gilbert Wynne
 * Vana - Madeleine Mills

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - David Tilley
 * Costumes - Bobi Bartlett
 * Designer - Raymond London
 * Film Cameraman - Alan Jonas
 * Film Editor - Martyn Day
 * Make-Up - Sylvia James
 * Producer - Peter Bryant
 * Production Assistant - Edwina Verner
 * Script Editor - Terrance Dicks
 * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson
 * Studio Lighting - Howard King
 * Studio Sound - John Holmes
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Bill King

Story Notes

 * A preliminary outline for the story, then entitled The Trap, was submitted for Season 2, but it was rejected because the robots were deemed too similar to the Mechanoids, then set to feature in DW: The Chase.   Three years later, Holmes re-submitted the outline as The Space-Trap to a more receptive new production team.  The script — under the name The Space Trap — was actually commissioned for delivery in 1969, probably to be the penultimate story of Season 6.  However, because Holmes had completed the scripts early, the story  could go into production in late 1968 when a Dick Sharples story, The Amazons (later known as The Prison in Space), fell by the wayside.
 * All episodes of this serial exist in 35 mm telerecording negative
 * This was repeated as part of The Five Faces of Doctor Who.
 * This is the first collaboration between writer Robert Holmes and script editor Terrance Dicks. It was only Dicks' second story in that capacity.  In a neat bit of symmetry, Horror of Fang Rock was one of script editor Robert Holmes' last stories, written by Terrance Dicks.

Ratings

 * Episode 1 - 9.0 million viewers
 * Episode 2 - 8.4 million viewers
 * Episode 3 - 7.5 million viewers
 * Episode 4 - 7.1 million viewers

Myths

 * The Krotons were the winning entry in a Blue Peter 'design a monster' competition. (One of the winning entries in a Blue Peter 'design a monster competition, the 'Aqua-Man', resembled a cardboard box with legs and arms - similar to the Krotons' appearance.)

Filming Locations

 * West of England Quarry and the Tank Quarry in Malvern, Worcestershire
 * Ealing Television Film Studios, Ealing Green, Ealing
 * Lime Grove Studios (Studio D), Lime Grove, London

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * The first shot is of a sliding door refusing to open.
 * Beta is magically transported from place to place.

Continuity

 * When the Doctor hypnotizes Vana he at first uses a stopwatch, much as his third, fourth and sixth selves would later do. However in the later moments of the process, seen at right, he appears to use his hands in a "significant" manner.  It is possible to interpret this last stage of the hypnosis process as the Doctor giving the process an extra psychic "nudge".
 * It might be a limited form of the more extensive "mind-meld" heavily used by the Tenth Doctor.


 * The Krotons appear in EDA: Alien Bodies which greatly fleshes out Kroton history, biology and origins. They also return to battle the Sixth Doctor and Charley Pollard in BFA: Return of the Krotons.  Further examination of the Gond has, as of 2008 not been undertaken in any medium.


 * The Second Doctor's affinity for umbrellas in this story prefigures the Seventh Doctor's obsession with them. Indeed, the umbrella in this story is key to saving the Doctor and Vana's lives, perhaps suggesting why the Seventh Doctor seemed to find them so useful.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after ST: The Avant Guardian
 * This story occurs before DWM: Land of the Blind

DVD and Video Releases

 * Released on video as "The Krotons" in episodic format in 1991.

Novelisation

 * Main article: The Krotons (novelisation)


 * Novelised as The Krotons by Terrance Dicks published in June 1985.
 * The Doctor's claim that he is "not a doctor of medicine" is repeated, followed by the omniscient narrator describing this reply "a little unfair[...], since he was in fact a doctor of almost everything."