You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand! - The Krotons

After a quick stop at Victoria-era Troughton, I decided that wasn't enough so popped along for the last two Zoes on my recommended list. The first is The Krotons. I'll admit I didn't have high hopes for this one. The title sounds like one of those serials that's best forgotten due to dodgy aliens.

Well, I was wrong.

While the titular aliens do look terrible (something that's becoming very typical with this round of serials) everything else about them is fantastic. But it really does seem like once you get past the iconics, the BBC lost all ability to design robotic monsters after the Daleks.

However, as I said, apart from their look they're pretty cool aliens. Being a crystalline race that can regrow they don't see death as an end and so had manipulated an entire race's evolution, the human Gonds, in order to get them to a point where their mental power would be enough to refuel their spaceship. It's so different to most things we see. It's great.

The Gonds initially seemed to be the weak link in the story. Just another backwards, very human race that's being manipulated. But once that manipulation is brought out into the open by the Doctor suddenly we have fractions popping up, internal fighting and politics. This gave the Doctor the double threat of not only having to worry about Krotons, but what the Gonds were up to at any given minute. The one issue was this did come a little out of nowhere, as the early meetings with the Gonds didn't have any of it.

Overall it was a pretty good serial. It was nice to see Jamie just outright slug it out for a change too.



That's all there is. The Krotons is one of those serials I'd love to post about with another, but with two major Ice Warriors either side of it in my viewing that really wasn't happening. So instead a short post this week.