The Claws of Axos (TV story)

Synopsis
An approaching alien spaceship is detected on monitoring equipment at UNIT HQ, where the Brigadier is entertaining two visitors - Chinn, a civil servant making a security inspection, and Bill Filer, an American agent sent to discuss the threat of the Master. The ship lands in England and the UNIT team, joined by Hardiman and Winser from the nearby Nuton power station, meet its occupants: beautiful golden-skinned humanoids called Axons.

The Axons claim that their ship, Axos, is damaged and that they need time in which to repair it. In return, they offer Axonite, a substance that can cause animals to grow to enormous sizes and thus end food shortages. The Doctor is suspicious, and rightly so: Axos, Axonite and the Axons - whose true appearance is hideous - are all part of a single parasitic entity brought to Earth by the Master to feed on the planet's energy.

The Doctor manages to materialise his TARDIS, with the Master on board, at the centre of Axos. He offers to link the two ships together to make one giant time machine, on condition that Axos in return helps him to take revenge on the Time Lords for exiling him to Earth. This is merely a trick, however, and Axos is locked in a time loop from which it can never escape.

The Doctor returns to Earth in the TARDIS, where he reluctantly admits to the Brigadier that the Master may also have escaped.

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
 * Jo Grant - Katy Manning
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Sergeant Benton - John Levene
 * Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
 * The Master - Roger Delgado
 * Filer - Paul Grist
 * Chinn - Peter Bathurst
 * Corporal Bell - Fernanda Marlowe
 * Hardiman - Donald Hewlett
 * Winser - David Savile
 * Pigbin Josh - Derek Ware
 * Axon Man - Bernard Holley
 * 1st Radar Operator - Michael Walker
 * 2nd Radar Operator - David G. March
 * Axon Woman - Patricia Gordino
 * Axon Boy - John Hicks
 * Axon Girl - Debbie Lee London
 * Captain Harker - Tim Piggott-Smith
 * The Minister - Kenneth Benda
 * Technician - Royston Farrell

Crew

 * Action / Stuntwork - HAVOC
 * Assistant Floor Manager - Roselyn Parker
 * Costumes - Barbara Lane
 * Designer - Kenneth Sharp
 * Film Cameraman - A A Englander
 * Film Editor - Bob Rymer
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Make-Up - Jan Harrison, Rhian Davies
 * Producer - Barry Letts
 * Production Assistant - Marion McDougall
 * Script Editor - Terrance Dicks
 * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson
 * Studio Lighting - Ralph Walton
 * Studio Sound - Dave Kitchen
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - John Horton

Story Notes

 * It is never stated exactly who Bill Filer works for.
 * This is the first time the interior of the Doctor's TARDIS is seen since The War Games.
 * The 'blue CSO cloth' behind Benton when he is driving the jeep (with the Axon behind him), is the sky and not CSO as it was on film and there was no CSO film work performed in the 1970s.
 * UNIT mobile HQ is a BBC Outside Broadcast van.
 * Working titles for this story include: The Vampire from Space, 'The Gift, The Friendly Invasion and The Axons.
 * The line “freak weather conditions” is in the script to explain the shifts in weather between filming (which goes from snowy to sunny from take to take).

Ratings

 * Episode 1 - 7.3 million viewers
 * Episode 2 - 8.0 million viewers
 * Episode 3 - 6.4 million viewers
 * Episode 4 - 7.8 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Location Filming
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * In episode four, after the TARDIS dematerialises from the Nuton lab, it is still there during the UNIT gun battle which follows.

Continuity

 * In Last of the Time Lords both the Doctor and the Master mention the Axons.

DVD, Video and Other Releases
to be added

Target Novelisations

 * Novelised in 1977 as Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos by Terrence Dicks.