Plot:
The Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie arrive at a human colony in the future. Everyone seems very happy, there's festivals and dancing, and muzak fills the air jollying everyone along in their work in the not-sinister-at-all gas mines. Only one person, Medok, is not happy; he believes the colony is being overrun by giant crab creatures called Macra. The Doctor frees Medok from a cell where he'd been imprisoned, and they witness the creatures wandering around a deserted area outside the main colony buildings. Medok is recaptured, and is taken off for some definitely not-sinister-at-all correction procedure in the hospital. The Doctor returns to his friends in their temporary quarters to find that they have been subjected to hypnosis during their sleep. He vandalises the equipment applying this process; Polly and Jamie seem unaffected, but Ben has succumbed and is now a loyal Colony drone. He reports the Doctor to the Colony guards. The other three are put to work in the mines, with Ben sent to spy on them. They discover that the Macra are in charge, and have been controlling the humans to harvest the gas they need to live. Ben breaks his conditioning and helps the Doctor manipulate the gas supply, blowing up all the Macra. The colony wants to elect the Doctor as their new leader, so the TARDIS team make a quick getaway.
Context:
I watched the colour animated version on the big screen at the BFI South Bank in London. I was accompanied by fan friend Trevor, mentioned several times before on this blog; other fan friends old and new, Chris and Alan, were also in the audience. Alas, my longest-term fan friend David, also mentioned many times before here, had a prior engagement for the weekend, and was very miffed not to join us; we raised a glass or two to him in the BFI cocktail bar afterwards (in fact rather too many more than two were raised in all, it was a good night). Anneke Wills, who played Polly and did an onstage Q&A after the screening (see below for more details), was around in the bar until quite late too. I saw Christel Dee and Gary Gillatt around the building earlier, but that was it in terms of spotting anyone vaguely well-known. There was a good turn out of cosplayers, with a smattering of Troughtons and a very realistic Hartnell in attendance. It was a good atmosphere, all told. I think there was a lot more buzz than for any story shown at the BFI since the first animated release, The Power of the Daleks.
First-time round:
I bought the cassette tape - cassette tape!!! - version of the soundtrack in the summer of 1992, and likely listened to it first at home, as I would have been on my hols from University at that time. It had linking narration by Colin Baker written in the past tense in character: a later Doctor recounting a story from his past. This was the standard approach of those early releases; the script and Colin's delivery were markedly better than others at that time, but it still didn't really work. When the CD version was released in the year 2000, it was the only one where they retained the original narration: all the other re-releases updated the script and got a companion actor from the story in to perform vocal duties. A few clips had surfaced in between those two releases, and I first saw them when they were included on the 1998 Missing Years VHS that came with The Ice Warriors. Finally, I saw the full animated version at the BFI as described above. They did release a CD version in 2012 with narration by Anneke Wills, but I never purchased it. It's included on the DVD as an extra, though. As a copy of the DVD was included in the BFI event's ticket price, I will get to experience that version before too long.
Reaction
Though the choice of The Macra Terror as the latest candidate for animation was likely dictated by logistics - limited number of episodes, few guest characters, most of the regular cast already had character design work banked from The Power of Daleks animation - the story has a lot to recommend it anyway. It was rated sufficiently by BBC Worldwide to be one
of the earliest official audios on tape, and then again later on CD. It has an intriguing premise and memorable baddies. Plus, since those clips were discovered in the 90s, another key factor has came to light: there was so much room for visual improvement. To be fair, fans were under no illusions that Macra Terror scored high in the production values stakes before we had the footage as evidence, but seeing was disbelieving: a wobbly claw threatening the aged Controller, Anneke Wills gamely shuffling herself into the clutches of a listless Macra, and a few other disappointments. The animation meanwhile delivers creepy scuttling creatures that can tower over people, pick them up, swing them around, and threaten them with a drop into a mighty chomping maw. This was never going to be possible with the expensive but static lump of fibre-glass made to represent the monsters in 1967.
There are lots of similar improvements and surprises, right from the off. It's a nice touch to create a pre-credits prologue, using the last lead-in scene of previous serial The Moonbase. Then, the colourised beginning credits kick in, unexpectedly featuring the Doctor's face appearing in its cartoon art version; I think this is the first time that's been done. The superlative backgrounds depicting various different locales help to expand out the world of the Colony, and create a greater sense of place than the original sets managed (at least from the remaining photographic evidence). As ever when watching on a big screen with a large audience, one gets surprised by the number of laughs. The animation retrieves wonderful moments, such as when we see the Doctor's indignant reaction to the suggestion that he, of course, would "like his clothes cleaned". You can't enjoy that gag when looking at a still image while some narration plays out; it's thus that the animation adds the most value. Ditto the sequence where Jamie has to do a highland fling to make his escape, which was never much fun to listen to, but now is an absolute joy.
There are places where the animation has to compromise and so ends up losing points compared to the original. Notably, an entire sequence is excised early on where the TARDIS team are pampered at a sort of day spa, and the Doctor is smartened up (much to his chagrin). It avoids a very complicated effort of animation, but robs the piece of some humour, and removes the only lengthy demonstration of the enticements that this society uses to keep its populace subdued. The ending too snips out a nice call-back moment when everyone has to emulate Jamie and dance their way out of the Colony to escape. This version instead does a lengthy, slow pull out through a window, to a long shot of a Colony building exterior, giving us a mini-cliff wondering how the Doctor will extricate himself from this planet's cloying gratitude. It almost works, but not quite. The jury's out on one other moment, the capture by Jamie and Ben of Medok at the start of episode 1. As per the narrated audio, Medok's trying to grab the stick that Jamie's wielding, and the TARDIS crew members think he's coming in for an attack. As it's animated, though, it just looks like they've piled on poor Medok for no reason. It could, however, have looked just as bad in the original production - we'll probably never know.
Apart from those minor points, the animation is an absolute triumph. The only other issues are inherited from the original production. Like a very similar later story The Happiness Patrol, the fantastic concept is let down a bit by the slightly clumsy narrative constructed to illustrate it. There's a lot of pointless to- and fro-ing, Jamie seems to spend ages wandering round caves, and Polly doesn't get a whole lot to do (the curse of the three companion story). Medok is a great character and early on is presented as a significant ally for the Doctor; the story makes an implicit promise that this disbeliever will triumph and be proved right. But then he dies abruptly, and is not mourned nor even mentioned again. Head of Police Ola is good too, a memorable henchman; but, he presents us with a bit of a plot hole. This society is being hypnotised into being mindless happy worker drones, so why would the Macra need guards, particularly guards whose leader is so aggressive? Maybe Ola's sleep hypnosis tape was turned up a little too loud. One also has to suspend a lot of disbelief to accept that giant crab creatures have managed to set up the intricate technology required to sustain the illusion of the happy colony. The ending is very bloodthirsty too. The Doctor blows up every member of a sentient species without hesitation or apology.
That's not to say there aren't many positives in the original production: the sinister atmosphere of cheerful banality works well, with empty slogans, blank-eyed positivity and tinny muzak, and is an interestingly different backdrop. When the music isn't deliberately being irritating, it is very good mostly (but sometimes veers towards being unintentionally irritating). Fraser Hines as Jamie starts to come into his own in this story too; but, the best performance and the best part of the story by far is Ben's subplot. Michael Craze gets to give a different shade of performance when under the influence, in sharp relief to his usual cheeky chappy character. He then gets to play the arc of Ben fighting against this brainwashing to go from betraying his friends to saving them. It's the best opportunity a script gave him during his time on the show, and Craze makes the most of it, in his last full story (he would leave alongside Anneke halfway through the following serial, The Faceless Ones).
There are lots of similar improvements and surprises, right from the off. It's a nice touch to create a pre-credits prologue, using the last lead-in scene of previous serial The Moonbase. Then, the colourised beginning credits kick in, unexpectedly featuring the Doctor's face appearing in its cartoon art version; I think this is the first time that's been done. The superlative backgrounds depicting various different locales help to expand out the world of the Colony, and create a greater sense of place than the original sets managed (at least from the remaining photographic evidence). As ever when watching on a big screen with a large audience, one gets surprised by the number of laughs. The animation retrieves wonderful moments, such as when we see the Doctor's indignant reaction to the suggestion that he, of course, would "like his clothes cleaned". You can't enjoy that gag when looking at a still image while some narration plays out; it's thus that the animation adds the most value. Ditto the sequence where Jamie has to do a highland fling to make his escape, which was never much fun to listen to, but now is an absolute joy.
There are places where the animation has to compromise and so ends up losing points compared to the original. Notably, an entire sequence is excised early on where the TARDIS team are pampered at a sort of day spa, and the Doctor is smartened up (much to his chagrin). It avoids a very complicated effort of animation, but robs the piece of some humour, and removes the only lengthy demonstration of the enticements that this society uses to keep its populace subdued. The ending too snips out a nice call-back moment when everyone has to emulate Jamie and dance their way out of the Colony to escape. This version instead does a lengthy, slow pull out through a window, to a long shot of a Colony building exterior, giving us a mini-cliff wondering how the Doctor will extricate himself from this planet's cloying gratitude. It almost works, but not quite. The jury's out on one other moment, the capture by Jamie and Ben of Medok at the start of episode 1. As per the narrated audio, Medok's trying to grab the stick that Jamie's wielding, and the TARDIS crew members think he's coming in for an attack. As it's animated, though, it just looks like they've piled on poor Medok for no reason. It could, however, have looked just as bad in the original production - we'll probably never know.
Apart from those minor points, the animation is an absolute triumph. The only other issues are inherited from the original production. Like a very similar later story The Happiness Patrol, the fantastic concept is let down a bit by the slightly clumsy narrative constructed to illustrate it. There's a lot of pointless to- and fro-ing, Jamie seems to spend ages wandering round caves, and Polly doesn't get a whole lot to do (the curse of the three companion story). Medok is a great character and early on is presented as a significant ally for the Doctor; the story makes an implicit promise that this disbeliever will triumph and be proved right. But then he dies abruptly, and is not mourned nor even mentioned again. Head of Police Ola is good too, a memorable henchman; but, he presents us with a bit of a plot hole. This society is being hypnotised into being mindless happy worker drones, so why would the Macra need guards, particularly guards whose leader is so aggressive? Maybe Ola's sleep hypnosis tape was turned up a little too loud. One also has to suspend a lot of disbelief to accept that giant crab creatures have managed to set up the intricate technology required to sustain the illusion of the happy colony. The ending is very bloodthirsty too. The Doctor blows up every member of a sentient species without hesitation or apology.
Connectivity:
Both stories feature a dance where one or more of the regulars make an escape after being pursued by the baddies. The cloudy forms of the Family of Blood before they take over a host look quite similar to the gas being mined by the colony members. That's about it.
Deeper Thoughts:
Johnson (L), Fiddy (R) |
Director John Davies (in middle) |
(L to R) Fiddy, Salmon, Geraghty, Norton |
Johnson (L), Wills (R) |
Amongst the gems wilfully revealed was the tale of watching back her first story, The War Machines, and seeing Hartnell check her out with an appraising up and down glance when they're introduced, and later on have his arm a bit too low around her waist: "He fancied me." She recalled on a visit to the set of the 2013 drama about the making of early Doctor Who, An Adventure in Time and Space, that she had been fussing around David Bradley (who was playing William Hartnell) making sure he was feeling okay, asking if he needed anything, just like she had done with the real Bill back in the day. Another anecdote from the filming of the show was a moment where Anneke ran into shot when Reece Shearsmith arrived playing Pat, shouting "No, no, no" and redid his hair which was all wrong. The crew were apparently very shocked, but the fans watching with her all said "Well Done". Convention circuit appearances and events like this BFI screening were clearly something Anneke loved; conversely, when Doctor Who was broadcast back then, she recounted, the only feedback you got as a regular was the odd comment from someone in a pub, but there was complete freedom with no getting hassled.
Maureen Lane (in the middle) |
Another great screening, then, and another great recreation of a lost story. When Doctor Who started to be released as sell-through home videos, there were only five Patrick Troughton stories that could be released in full, out of 21 that were made in the 1960s. The Macra Terror's release makes the total available to buy 14. This is because of reconstructions, finds and - not least - because of superlative work by different animation teams. Two thirds of the way through, and no reason not to think that they might all one day be released. I'll drink to that, and indeed I did, into the evening after the screening in the overpriced but pleasant environs of the BFI bar. Looking forward to the next one!
In Summary:
A crab-tastic cartoon that's a welcome addition to the canon!
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