With the launch of the Whoniverse the other week the BBC also included well over eight hundred hours of classic Doctor Who. This means that alot of very little known stories can now get rediscovered such is the case with the episode that i'm about to review for you all today as this story has the honor of being one of the few fully surviving stories starring Patrick Troughton to exist in it's entirety and well I thought that i'd review this really little known episode of classic Doctor Who and so then join me as I review the episode that alot of either didn't know about or really just straight up forgot about with the episode in question being called simply just "The Krotons" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is The Doctor , Jamie and Zoe find themselves on a planet and ave to help some people overcome the people that they think are helping hem. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that thew actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was n all honesty not that that bad bur that's also the issue as the plot of this episode isn't all that good either with this p;lot being one of the very few classic Doctor Who plots that is rather OK at best and nothing really more then that in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is Patrick Troughton as The Doctor , Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon and Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot. Also starring in this episode is James Copeland as Selris , James Cairncross as Beta , Gilbert Wynne as Thara , Philip Madoc as Eelek , Terence Brown as Abu , Madeleine Mills as Vana , Richard Ireson as Axus , Maurice Selwyn as A Custodian , Bronson Shaw as A Student , the great Roy Skelton as The Voice Of The Krotons and Patrick Tull as The Voice Of The Krotons.
Now then interms of what personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. Wit all three main leads turning in some really good performances with the the same also beg true for the episodes guest cast as well but what lets the the acting down in this episode is the fact that this episodes script just isn't that good as it gives none of the cast members anything to work with interms of what their characters personalities even are and so the cast can't turn in that good of a performance as the script just won't allow for it.
This episode does do a fairly decent job of showing us just how this new TARDIS team really acts together. With The Doctor and Zoe being the brains of the bunch and Jamie being the muscle this does give them a different dynamic from when they were travelling with Victoria as there only The Doctor was the brains with Jamie mostly watching over Victoria where as here he doesn't really have to do that as Zoe knows what she's ding which means that instead of forming romantic feeling like what happened with Victoria Jamie now forms a brother and sister type of relationship with him also developing the same respect that he has for The Doctor only this time it's for Zoe which does mean that the three form kind of a close family unit with each other.
This episodes titular villains aren't really the best villains that the show has had with them just being huge lumbering robots. Not really helping things is the fact that characters don't really have any stand out voices with them instead of just having the bogstanderd robotic voice which if anything just makes them sound more comical then it does threatening all of this really shouldn't be the case as this episodes writer is Robert Holmes who was one of the great Doctor Who writers and who is known for creating The Autons and yet here The Krotons just come across as being personality less machines and not really something that could be featured in more episodes as there's really nothing that you can do with these characters.
I will admit that while The Krotons in this episodes aren't used to their fullest potential there design does for the most part look really good. As while they do look like nothing more then giant lumbering robots their diamond shaped heads and their claws do work really well for their designs and go along way to help making them look like aliens and these designs could have worked if they had a good enough story to help to support them which sadly they don't heck we don't even get that much of a backstory for these characters which seems like the BBC had plans to try and make these characters as big as The Daleks but they couldn't do it as what made The Daleks work is that they felt like real three dimensional characters where this episodes villains just feel like cardboard cutouts of much more better villains.
As was stated at the start of this review this episode is one of the very few rare episodes to still completely exist in it's entirety. As alot of Doctor Who from the sixties was wiped from the BBC Achieves these range from episodes that nobody remembers to episodes that are important to the world of Doctor Who like The Tenth Planet for example have episodes that are missing or are completely missing as such when you come across a story that is fully intact you have to appreciate it as it is a very rare thing to see indeed and while alot of the missing episodes have either been found or recreated using animation it still doesn't change the fact that are still alot of missing episodes not just Doctor Who episodes out there just waiting to be discovered by fans both old and new.
Now then while I cannot for the absolutely live of remember whatever this episodes grand total running time even was I do know that for a fact that this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of roughly one hour and thirty minuets. This to me is a huge issue as this episode has more then story to last at the very least six or seven episodes and with that added time it would have allowed the story to be more fully developed and for the villains and side characters to be more fully developed as ell all of which would have gone a really long way to making this story alot better then what it actually is as would have made the villains feel alot more of a threat and it would have made the story alot more better as well but I really will admit that as it is that this episode really does have some really good acing to it.
So now then as this is an action show that means that I gave to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. However at the same time tho the action in this episode does look really clumsy looking and is only when compared to other action scenes sixties Doctor Who and while it is nice to see companions get to take part in an action scene and while it does make sense for tat companion to be Jamie it's not something that a companion should be looking to do in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall for a Doctor Who episode that's written by Robert Holmes this episode feels like a waste of a good idea as this episode had all of the potential to be a really good Doctor Who episode in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that means that this very episode earns itself a grad old score of exactly a 6 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Amazon . Co . UK , the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from these very special that I used in this very review being the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page simply just due to the fact that alot of the images that are on the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page are all really fairly high in quality and as well as them all being fairly freaking high in definition.