'The Krotons'

THE KROTONS
4 episodes

Ah. This was a bit of a comedown. I know I was operating on less than three hours' sleep (snatched after 'The Invasion' this morning), but I think staying awake through the whole of 'The Krotons' might have been a trial anyway... As with 'The Dominators', I came in not knowing the first thing about this serial - which, I'm beginning to realise, probably means that a story isn't going to be much cop since logically if it has a great deal to recommend it I'd have heard about it already, no?

Anyway, it's not as if 'The Krotons' is a bad story: it was the first from perhaps the programme's most successful writer Robert Holmes, features a fine turn from Philip Madoc as one of the Gonds, Eelek, has one cool cliffhanger where the Doctor is menaced by a serpentine metal probe with a glowing 'eye' at its front like those in the recent War of the Worlds film, and doesn't do anything particularly objectionable at any stage. It's just that it's so average it almost hurts - the story just sort of washed over me without ever once threatening to grab my enthusiasm. Admittedly I fell asleep for half an hour a little way into part 2 and had to stop and go back to where I'd dropped off, but even allowing for that it seemed to drag out far more than would appear to be theoretically feasible for a mere four-parter. The titular Krotons are, like the Dominators, only two in number, and are a kind of chunky sub-Quark type of robot whose most notable feature is that one of them is apparently from Birmingham. The Gonds that they have apparently been oppressing for thousands of years are too boring a bunch to waste further wordage on at this point, sorry.

Was going to give this a middle-of-the-road 5-ish, but in light of the fact that absolutely nothing interesting happened at any point I feel I must mark it down, sorry. Plus, I can never think of it without thinking of those little crunchy bits of toasted bread you get in soup...

4/10

Episodes watched: 128
Episodes still to watch: 594

Ten episodes today - back to just four behind schedule now!