It’s also worth mentioning that we were watching 20”ish tellys in those days…. And tv reception in Wales (well the bit I lived in, at least) was pretty poor well into the 80’s! ….. all of which helped to render the ropiest of visuals as terrifying and real (oh, plus we were all pre-Star Wars, too. Which helped)…..
Even if the realisation leaves something to be desired, i always thought the concept of the Krotons, or at least what was implied about them, was pretty neat. Creatures that exist in a liquid form and use energy derived from mental power to reconstitute themselves. What a cool sci-fi idea.
I love the Krotons - loads of Troughton and big creepy crystalline monsters (had never been tried before) with really disturbing voices. And that eeries doorway with monsters beyond it set-up. Should read Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles - he totally rehabilitates the Krotons as terrifying and powerful creatures (one eats a Dalek through a feeding tube)...
Totally agree it was weak and weird, but when I recently watched it on iPlayer I was really amused by the arguing married couple vibe the Krotons had. Especially when their heads were rotating really fast which I took to mean frustration.
My major problem with “The Krotons” was that it felt like literally EVERYTHING was zoomed in WAY TOO CLOSE and I just couldn’t get a feel for what was going on…hard for me to feel menaced by some weird robot thing that only looks impressive because the camera’s filming right up its arse…😅😵💫 Claustrophobic doesn’t even begin to describe it…”The Krotons” is the only story that I honestly think would’ve been actually IMPROVED if it actually had the decency to be missing, at least then I could IMAGINE them as a well-conceived threat impressively shot with nice and wide ATMOSPHERIC viewing angles rather than having to accept the fully-intact hard truth that everything’s shot closer than Frazier Hines’ stock talking telesnap…😵💫😬😅 Aside from the bickering voices themselves which are nice in an ironically funny way, this one makes “The Dominators” watchable by comparison…😵💫
If the Krotons weren't masterminds... I guess that's to be expected. These weren't even necessarily scientists, just a couple of surviving midshipmen from a crew of four. Essentially a couple of redshirts.
Weirdly, a few years after this episode, a new family moved to town, and the sons started at my school. They were called the Krotons. Perhaps that's why they had to move 😊
The Krotons. One of my favourite Doctor Who series, I saw it the first time around, it was cold and wet, Man City and Man U were top of the table and Jimmy Greaves was scoring wonder goals in the snow!………It’s pointless overanalysing and being hypocritical of 60’s WHO, it was a product of its time and at that time I thought it was pretty scary!
'60s who had such good robots. It really felt like sci-fi then. And, strangely, the universe of '60s Who feels bigger, to me. I don't entirely know why.
Are you High Brains? We require High Brains for our Dynatrope. We visited a country called the United States, but found few High Brains there. We must have High Brains!!!!!!!!
Maybe perhaps someone could have the halfway decent sense to actually make a costume that looks good enough to shoot from a decent viewing angle instead of filming everything so up close and personal that you almost feel like if it farted you’d smell it through the telly…😵💫
Watched this one with my partner and every time someone mentioned the krotons we'd say "ahh man, I hate the krotons" Made the whole affair a lot more fun
Never really understood the hate this serial gets. I guess because it's just average.. AND of course being the only complete Troughton 4-Parter available in 1981, was probably the only serial that most of us my age got to see from the 2nd Doctor. The received wisdom was that this was a bad representation of the era.. and that just kinda stuck. The era has a problem in that it really doesn't have too many absolute stinkers (The Space Pirates? The Dominators?), so a perfectly servicable serial like this gets kinda downvoted in Fandom. Holmes would also rip off his own basic plot in The Mysterious Planet part of Trail of a Time Lord, with two candidates being sent to work for an alien Overlord... I like it because it's a real Zoe showcase, I love the bants between her and the Doctor here. I like the weird electronic music (enough to buy the 10" LP of all the blips and blops), I like the way it eschewed Incidental Music, whether or not that was a success.
