The Power of Kroll

Much to the dismay of K9, the next segment of the Key to Time is located on a swamp moon orbiting the planet Delta Magna, and the Doctor and Romana venture out into the marshes on their own. The largest lake is now home to a refinery set up by big business to pull raw nutrients from the moon to feed the people back home. This may sound like business as usual to most, but to an extremist organization called the Sons of Earth this is exploitation of a natural resource, to the natives - charmingly known as the Swampies - this is an act of sacrelige agsinst their god, Kroll, and to gun runner Rhom Dutt this is a moneymaking opportunity. And to the sleeping menace that is Kroll, it's dinner time.

As Jay pointed out somewhere in the middle of the show, this is the one adventure of this season that is not totally focussed on the Key to Time; the Doctor and Romana are caught up in the tide of events as usual, with Romana being offered up as a sacrficie to Kroll and the Doctor being taken captive by the refinery crew and its ruthless commander, Thawn. Thawn's racist attitudes towards the Swampies evokes old colonial days when Britain controlled India, claiming to be doing everything for everyone's own good but still looking with suspicion and hatred at the natives. The Swampies resent the presence of the refinery as they have already been relocated from Delta Magna to this moon once, and now they face invasion once more by the culture they refer to as "dryfoot". With what's going on down in Caledonia, Ontario these days the plotline has relevance to the present day, which is something Doctor Who has always been good at.

Then there's Kroll. Oh yes. The giant squid monster. Jay started to get itchy to see the monster early in the show, not wanting to wait until the climax at episode 3 as is the norm. So it showed up in episode 2. And Jay whimpered "Why?" when he saw it. The design of the creature isn't too bad on its own but the awful bluescreen effect used to get it on the program is something entirely different. We only see it as a bluescreen effect a few times, though; the rest of the story it is alluded to and represented by the odd tentacle dragging someone off to their doom, be it a dryfoot technician or one of the Swampies, who look like nudists from Mars with their green skin and their lionclothes. This has to be the most male skin every flashed on Doctor Who in this era. Jay and I were unsure of any of it was erotic, though, at least from our personal points of view. Might have something to do with the green skin. Not that we're racist. We're just not sure about green cock.

And somewhere in there, they find the fifth segment of the Key to Time, almost as if it was an afterthought. And that leaves on segment to go.

NEXT EPISODE : THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR