The Macra Terror Episode 4

The one where Jamie dances the Highland Fling...

The first five or so minutes of this episode consist of a pretty laboured catch-and-escape scenario, with the Doctor and Polly running away from Ola's guards, and Jamie dodging the Macra's giant claws. It struck me only now, four episodes in, that the Macra don't make any sound (except for their control voice). They're huge monsters, this is Doctor Who, so why don't they roar or growl or gnash their fangs (that's if they have fangs - there's certainly plenty of teeth on display on the sleeve of the BBC soundtrack CD!). They must be the quietest monsters Doctor Who ever had (aside from the Weeping Angels).

Everything picks up when Jamie escapes into the main hall where a group of colonists are rehearsing. There's no doubt about it, the chant they're rehearsing is sheer bonkers, and the main cheerleader is as ardent as an American Christian TV evangelist (surely his refrain to recite the chant again "but this time with more feeling" is a sly reference to the 1958 play/ 1960 film Once More, with Feeling?).

The Macra Terror Episode 3

The one where Polly and Jamie become miners...

A quick question before I kick off proper: why is the Pilot called the Pilot? It's a ground-based colony, it doesn't fly or travel anywhere. It's a strange moniker for Ian Stuart Black to give the leader, because it's just a rank, not a name. Everybody else has a proper name - Ola, Medok, Officia etc - but the guy in charge has only a faceless job title for a name. Strange...

Anyway... The Pilot sends the Doctor, Jamie and Polly to work down the mines, as part of the amusingly named "danger gang", which sounds like one of those ensemble comedy troupes from the silent film era, such as the Crazy Gang or Our Gang. I love how the Doctor takes the mickey out of the name too, by claiming that the person who wrote the lyrics for the colony's inane jingles should be in the danger gang!

The Macra Terror Episode 2

The one where Ben turns bad guy...

Although there isn't much opportunity for the guest cast to make a huge impression (The Macra Terror isn't the most character-driven serial), Trevor Lodge does his best to make poor old Medok a rounded, sympathetic character. The viewer knows he's telling the truth about the creatures he sees, and the Doctor knows he's right too. But Medok isn't your run-of-the-mill rebel; once he knows the Doctor believes him, he realises that he'd be more useful free than incarcerated alongside him, so tells the Pilot that the Doctor is innocent.

We later see Medok in the hospital undergoing correction treatment, and the telesnaps make this look pretty awful, as if someone's beating him while he's hung upside down, but I'm sure that wasn't the case! Lodge's performance is heartfelt and truthful, making him a character we can relate to and care about, unlike almost everybody else in the colony. Patrick Troughton shares some lovely scenes with him, particularly when Medok insists the Doctor wasn't helping him.

The Macra Terror Episode 1

The one where Polly gets her hair done and Ben and Jamie get a massage...

Twenty-one years before the Doctor visited a futuristic Earth colony which turned out to hide a dark secret beneath its sugary-sweet veneer, the Doctor visited a different futuristic Earth colony which appears to have its own dark secret beneath its sugary-sweet veneer. But unlike The Happiness Patrol's Terra Alpha, The Macra Terror's colony goes unidentified.

From the outset, The Macra Terror is bonkers. Or at least it sounds bonkers, with some out-there sound design from Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire, making her first contribution to the series since realising the theme tune in 1963. And the entire aural smorgasbord is rounded off eccentrically by the late, lamented Dudley Simpson. The soundtrack burbles and fizzes with energy and typically 1960s visions of the far flung future. There are snatches of The War Machines and The Daleks in there for good measure too.