The Krotons | Doctor Who Marathon From The Beginning | Can I Kick This Story When It's Down? 

This was the first Troughton story that I ever saw during the Five Faces of Dr Who repeats in the early 80s. I’ve always had a soft spot for it.

I love the charm of this story. It’s a quiet classic.

The clips in the Lively Arts documentary peaked my interest so it’s showing in 1981 pleased me enormously. And I wasn’t disappointed. I agree with virtually everything you say I ❤ this story. Though I can’t believe you ignored the first use of the HADS (1969 - Present or at least 2023) nor the first tv appearance of Philip Madoc nor the first direction by David Maloney. It’s a workable script and the guest characters are not memorable. But it does start a great double act that doesn’t often get mentioned between Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks which features prominently through the 70s.

I actually like The Krotons 😂.

I completely agree Chris - not the best story, but a massively underrated one! Great worldbuilding, great jokes, and humour that comes out of the characterisation of the regulars rather than just being a stock line that anyone could say. It's definitely a throwback to Hartnell too - indeed the basic shape of the narrative here isn't a million miles away from The Daleks - albeit Holmes is a far better writer, doing more interesting stuff. I think the main reasons why this one isn't as well regarded are twofold; firstly its throwback nature, and secondly being well, it's the 'cheap one' of the series, with reused sets all over the place, and less than impressive monster costumes. To his credit, director David Maloney does the best he can, with some really striking compositions, as does Philip Madoc - but both would do much better in subsequent stories, starting with The War Games. You could easily make the case that The Krotons, by pointing to how the show used to do it, is in fact pointing a way forward to a more interesting show - as opposed to the one Troughton mostly got! Maybe The Krotons is what Doctor Who should've been doing all along!

Robert Holmes ended up writing some of the best Doctor Who stories ever. This story however isn't one of those in my opinion

The Krotons could sustain a comeback. They’re an interesting concept and with modern techniques could be truly striking visually. A creature composed of living, moving crystal that manifests itself from a bubbling pool of chemicals.

Hey Chris, you've alluded to having watched through all of Doctor Who in order on a number of occasions. Out of curiosity, how many times over have you done this marathon to completion (3 times? 4 times? 5 times? More?). Also, on average how long after watching An Unearthy Child do you typically reach the most recent episode? Obviously the marathon probably gets longer each time you do it, with new episodes still being made and all that, but the bulk of the marathon wouldn't fluctuate all that much given how much "classic Who" there is, and especially given how many off-years the show has had over the past decade, particularly during Capaldi and Whittaker's respective eras. Anyway, I'm super interested in hearing your answers! Love this review series you do, it's by far the most nuanced and insightful coverage of Doctor Who on the internet. Seriously, other Who reviewers take twice as long to say half as much as you do.

I've not seen this one, but it seems perfectly fine from even this summary, and certainly not the dregs of Who. It probably also suffers within fandom from not being as good as the later classics written by Holmes...though it'll be interesting to see how you rate his other contribution to this season...but, then, given the quality of many of them, that's not exactly shameful.

My love for ‘The Krotons’ simply stems from its inclusion as the Troughton segment of 1981’s, BBC2 repeat season of ‘The Five Faces of Doctor Who’. In my not so ‘umble opine, the best ever season of ‘Doctor Who’ ever televised. I was a complete , immersive rapt by it, the Krotons themselves I think look ‘top half’ great, it’s just their silver, obviously rubber skirting letting them down. The sets largely look fab, reminiscent of the fantastic filmic sized sets of ‘The Underwater Menace’. I agree completely, it’s a wonderfully full companion story for Zoe, her and Pat, as much a punchy/witty ‘double act’ as the second Doctor and Jamie. When it comes to acting excellence, Troughton’s performance is off the scale. Everso slightly more than even Tom, for me, Pat is the actor who is more ‘The Doctor’ than any other and they’re all of course, The Doctor. His wonderfully and ‘seemingly’ out of control Doctor, never more performativly distilled and ‘controlled’. A wonderful review. Gx

not a great start from the legend that is Robert Holmes but it shows we improve as we go along

I think it’s just an ok story there isn’t really much to it other than some nice interactions between The Doctor and Zoe.

Not a lot to say about this one. I think it's harmless, and that's pretty much it. But the question I have for you, and have done since I started watching these vids, and kept forgetting to ask, why oh why is The Android Invasion dislodged on your shelf? - AFA

I think the Krotons design is fine, but the story just dulled me. There's some good stuff but I just couldn't get into it.

Not really a fan of this one to be honest. Aside from the Krotons themselves, it doesn't have the bizzaro eccentricies that made the Dominators so fascinating to me, and just winds up really dull. Probably my least favourite of the Season (yes, it's even below THAT one).