The Claws of Axos Episode Two

The one where the Doctor makes things ten times worse...

Chinn really is very annoying, isn't he? For some reason he has become the face of the British Government, who otherwise show very little interest in what's going on, despite the obvious enormous repercussions. An alien spaceship has landed on British shores and is offering a miraculous deal which may completely change the course of progress on planet Earth, but all HM Government does is give self-important pen-pusher Chinn "special powers" and leave him to it.

Granted, the minister who speaks to Chinn on the phone warns him that he is their "man on the spot", but to invest so much responsibility and importance in one civil servant is both bonkers and unrealistic. Writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin are really stretching credulity here! Also, Chinn's "special powers" (under the Emergency Powers Act) appear to give him the right to command the regular British Army and get them to arrest the Brigadier and UNIT's men, and subsequently prohibit them from contacting the outside world, or indeed UNIT HQ in Geneva! It's utterly preposterous.

Chinn also manages to deftly get from location to location very easily. At first we see him on Axos, then he's suddenly talking with his boss on the phone in the UNIT mobile HQ, then he's suddenly back in Axos picking up the goods. The editing is definitely a little haphazard in this episode (eg, the super-quick shots of Benton and Yates when everybody returns to the trailer is pretty much the only glimpse we get of them in this episode).

I continue to be impressed by the design of the Axons. In some ways having them in body stockings seems a bit cheap, but these creatures are merely copying the humanoid form in order to appear more acceptable to the humans. It's a basic template of man, a mix of functional and beautiful. The design of Axos is also impressive, and that swiveling giant eye a particularly effective prop (even if it can't actually look at anybody it's speaking to). Then there's the bit where the Axon woman becomes absorbed into Axos itself, and we see - surprise surprise! - its face collapse in quite a gruesome effect. Later we briefly see Axons running through the corridors of Axos clutching their melting faces as the nutrition cycle accelerates. It's all very weird and wonderful, and slightly unsettling for younger viewers.

We get much more action with the Master this episode, and learn that he came a cropper after running into Axos on his intergalactic travels. He struck a deal with them that he would lead them to Earth, a planet full of vital nutrients for their absorption, in return for the destruction of both the Doctor and the planet Earth. The Master really does hold grudges, doesn't he? As soon as Axos releases the Master, he characteristically wastes little time in getting stuff done (something the Doctor struggles with sometimes!). On exiting Axos, he murders a soldier with his laser gun, then leaps from a road bridge onto a passing UNIT lorry and manages to hypnotise the driver to commandeer the vehicle. Once inside UNIT HQ he puts plans in motion to steal away the Doctor's TARDIS and send a message to the UN. Meanwhile, the Doctor has argued with Winser and been knocked unconscious by an Axon double.

Ah yes, the Axon double of Bill Filer. The fight between the real Filer and the fake Filer is actually very well done, well choreographed, although you do glimpse the stuntman's real face from time to time. The fake Filer is pushed into the light accelerator and reduced to a seething mass of soap suds, which you'd think would give the Doctor an idea of what will happen to the axonite if it were to be placed in there too... but oh no, the Doctor's pride comes first, and he ends up making the situation a whole lot worse. The dormant axonite is activated by the process ("nutrition cycle prematurely activated") and begins to seethe and bubble into soap suds. We almost simultaneously learn that Axos/ the Axons/ axonite are all the same thing, the same one entity or creature, and the cliffhanger sees an Axon monster crash into the lab to join the reforming creature that used to be Winser.

What happens to Winser (last words: "Oh you stupid quack!") is pretty gruesome, first electrocuted and thrown across the room, then his face collapses, and then he becomes a writhing, seething Axon creature. The brief shot of the malformed Winser Axon moving in slow motion is so effective, like something Lawrence Gordon Clark used to do in his 1970s M R James adaptations, but when seen at normal speed, it just looks like a man inside a big red blanket.

It's a nice twist that it's the Doctor's meddling which actually makes things worse, and based upon the Doctor's own pride and selfishness (at the end of it all he just wants to use axonite's powers to fix his TARDIS so he can get away from Earth for good).

Oh, and one last quick mention for Jo Grant, who gives Chinn a good dressing down in this episode, but impresses me most by pricking the Doctor's ego when the Brigadier asks for an explanation as to how the Axons duplicated Filer. The Doctor says they don't have the time to explain, but it takes Jo precisely one second to say: "Axonite, the copying molecule". There, job done!

First broadcast: March 20th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Most impressed by the Master's determined plan of action, particularly his leap from a high bridge onto the roof of a UNIT lorry!
The Bad: The rough sketch of Chinn's "special powers" is so unrealistically naive as to render the whole situation laughable.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 12
Neck-rub tally: 1

NEXT TIME: Episode Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Three; Episode Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-claws-of-axos.html

The Claws of Axos is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Mind-Evil-DVD/dp/B00BPCNNXS