The Power of Kroll Part Four

The one where the Doctor works out why Kroll is so big...

After a tedious reprise going as far back as Rohm-Dutt's death, the episode continues with an anti-climax, as Kroll decides to simply go back to bed (sea bed?) and not terrorise the Doctor and Romana at all. But Kroll does re-emerge elsewhere to terrorise the terrified Swampies, and this time the terrible split-screen effect just gets worse. I thought it had been bad enough so far, but when Kroll attacks the Swampie settlement, the harsh line dividing the screen between the Kroll puppet and the actors on location is embarrassing. It's the best they could do, blah, blah, blah. Yes I know, but their best on this occasion just wasn't good enough!

Meanwhile, at the refinery the technicians are turning on themselves, or rather Fenner and Dugeen are turning on their increasingly megalomaniacal leader. Thawn's thirst for genocide hasn't exactly come out of nowhere - he's made no secret of the fact he thinks little of the Swampies - but his rather steep descent into madness has been signposted less subtly. The truth is that Neil McCarthy isn't equipped to portray a nuanced collapse of this man's sanity, so all we get is a very melodramatic face-off between a man with a gun and a man with a conscience.

The Power of Kroll Part Three

The one where the Doctor saves his life with perfect pitch...

Harg is gone, but I doubt anybody will notice, and he certainly won't be missed, because right from the start he was a one-dimensional character who had "Dead By Part Three" written all over him. And, like the other three technicians, he has about as much personality as a grape. It's really difficult to believe that the great Robert Holmes - the man who gave us Spearhead from Space, The Talons of Weng-Chiang and The Caves of Androzani - is responsible for this tedious dirge. There's no colour in the writing at all, it's all dialogue and no expression. Maybe he was having an off-day (we're all entitled to them) but this really is his worst work since Season 6 (but even lows like The Space Pirates have something to enjoy).

Reflecting the lifeless scripts they're given, the actors playing the refinery staff are equally as morose, especially Philip Madoc, who looks like he's struggling to stay awake through proceedings, even propping himself up against the scenery at one point, and often looking to the floor in despair. Madoc is in such a mood, and you can tell! John Leeson achieves nothing more than mastering the art of twiddling knobs, while Neil McCarthy struggles to convince even himself that this is a good part for him. He has flashes of steel which work (he was always a good bad guy), but there's no escaping the fact the role of Thawn would have been much better in Madoc's hands (or even George Baker's, who pulled out).

The Power of Kroll Part Two

The one where Romana is rescued from being sacrificed to a man in a rubber suit...

Oh. My. God! Just when you think you've got a hold of the fact that the unconvincing pincers mauling Mary Tamm at the end of part 1 are being operated by an actor in a rubber suit, it's revealed that it really is a man in a rubber suit! Rather than the mighty god Kroll come to take away his juicy sacrifice, it's actually Swampie Skart in a pretend monster suit. What a brilliant way to undermine viewers' expectations! What's less brilliant is the fact Romana actually believes it to be a real monster. It probably looked more convincing from the front, as the Doctor says...

It's nice to have Tom Baker and Mary Tamm reunited because they're so good at the witty repartee. They bounce off each other so well. I wouldn't call it a natural screen chemistry (such as Baker had with Elisabeth Sladen), but they were definitely on the same page as actors, and riffed to the same thespian rhythms.

The Power of Kroll Part One

The one where Romana is sacrificed to a giant squid by green savages...

The very first thing you see as The Power of Kroll begins is Philip Madoc looking up for his cue to start the scene. It's easy to miss, but once you see it, you can't miss it, and it's a shame it's there at all because it wouldn't have been much effort to shave that tiny bit off the front in the editing suite to make it smoother. As it is, it's very Acorn Antiques!

Straight away I can get the measure of this story. Even though it's written by the indomitable Robert Holmes, the fact we have middle-aged men striding round post-Star Wars sci-fi sets in what Terry Nation might call "space clothes" and acting very seriously tells me that this is going to be quite laboured stuff. The guest cast are almost universally bland (Grahame Mallard as Harg is especially forgettable), and I can't help thinking that Neil McCarthy - so heartbreakingly good in The Mind of Evil - is terribly miscast here as plummy leader Thawn. The part just doesn't suit him.