The Claws of Axos Episode Four

The one where the Doctor pretends to betray the entire Earth...

"The claws of Axos are already deeply embedded in the Earth's carcass!" says the Doctor at one point. It's always great to hear a story title spoken by a character in the fiction, even if it is in a rather contrived way such as this!

At the top of the episode the Doctor and Jo are struggling to escape Axos, and Jo appears to have the mother of all panic attacks as the confusion floods her mind. She's hysterical, and there was a moment where I really did think the Doctor was going to give her one of those classic Hollywood slaps across the face to "knock some sense into her". But no, not even the Third Doctor would do that. Such unnecessary violence is largely confined to the 21st century series, where it seems to be a rule that every companion gets to slap the Doctor at some point (except when the Doctor's a lady).

I can't blame Jo for losing it though, I'd probably be the same if I was trapped in a writhing alien spacecraft full of floating heads, marauding monsters, grasping claws in the walls and shifting fleshy floors. The Doctor tries to get Jo to concentrate by reeling off calculations ("What are three sevens?"), but I would be nowhere near as good as Jo is at the maths! I'm appalling at numbers! The Doctor's calculations in full are: 7 x 3 = 21; 21 x 4 = 84; 84 - 35 = 49; 49 x 2 = 98; 98 + 10 = 108; 108 / 9 = 12; 12 / 4 + 3; 3 x 7 = 21. He takes her brain on a mathematical loop, strangely foreshadowing the climax of the story and the method by which he defeats Axos...

This episode is very stunt heavy, thanks to some well choreographed "Action by HAVOC"! Even down to the wonderful way Jon Pertwee throws himself out of the Axos doorway onto the shingle beach. One of the most impressive stunts is the moment where Hardiman is hurled across the laboratory (actually a stuntman bouncing off a very briefly visible springboard), but there's much more where that came from.

The Axons' attack on the UNIT jeep is wonderful and exciting, with Yates and Benton fending off hordes of marauding monsters who stand in the road and leap onto the speeding vehicle. It shows Derek Ware and his HAVOC stuntmen off at their very best. You simply don't get scenes this action-packed and perilous in Doctor Who very often, even nowadays. This is all topped off by a spectacular explosion as Yates bungs a grenade in the back of the jeep and he and Benton leap out as the flaming vehicle careers down a hillside. This is James Bond on a BBC budget!

The biggest surprise of the episode comes when writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin make it appear that the Doctor is abandoning mankind and running away with the Master. Making the Doctor appear to swap sides and ally with the baddies has been attempted a few times in the series' history (The Invasion of Time is the daddy of these), but only certain Doctors can get away with it believably, and Pertwee is one of them. After seven stories of him demonstrating his displeasure at being stranded on Earth, and his desperate, obsessive attempts to fix his TARDIS and leave, it's perfectly possible that the Third Doctor might take the earliest opportunity to escape his exile.

We're to believe that the Doctor and the Master have teamed up to fix the TARDIS and flee. When the Doctor plays his hand to his friends, it feels so raw, accentuated by the fact the Doctor uses the Master's laser gun on Filer (or his hand, anyway!). The desperate betrayal on Jo's face is heartbreaking ("Goodbye Jo, I shall miss you"), especially when she's hammering on the TARDIS door as it dematerialises. Jo Grant is so devoted to her Doctor that a revelation such as this is devastating for her. Thank goodness it's all a ruse.

The Doctor then proposes a further treacherous alliance with Axos in order to destroy the High Council of the Time Lords, again a vaguely believable aim of the Doctor's as revenge for his exile. Surprisingly - or perhaps not - the Master wants no part of this and opts to scarper in his TARDIS instead. It's interesting that the Master does not yet crave revenge on his own people, just the people of Earth.

Of course, the Doctor has pulled the wool over everybody's eyes by tricking Axos into allowing him to link its ganglia to the TARDIS, so that he can throw the organic nasty into a time loop (the modelwork of Axos on the beach and then disappearing is lovely). The hordes of Axon creatures attacking the Brigadier and his men in the lab fade away too, and the day is saved! There's the small matter of an exploding nuclear reactor to deal with, but all our friends have to do is drive a few miles away, wait for it to pop, then get back to the ruins. No such thing as nuclear fallout or radiation poisoning or anything like that, not in 1971...

The story ends with the Doctor's frustration that he still cannot leave Earth, feeling like "some kind of a galactic yo-yo!", while the Master still roams the universe freely. Free for a rematch one day...

The Claws of Axos is probably the definitive UNIT story in that it's four episodes, has the whole regular cast in, involves an alien invasion with great monsters, and has the Master thrown in to boot. There's some fantastic action scenes and some very big ideas at work in the script, while the direction is creatively trippy and memorable. I'm still not sold on Dudley Simpson's music score though (for the scene where the power station explodes it sounds like he's just hitting random keys). I'd go so far as to say this is my favourite Third Doctor story to date.

First broadcast: April 3rd, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The action scenes are great, especially the Axons' attack on the UNIT jeep.
The Bad: The naivety of "standing back" while the nuclear power station explodes, and then returning immediately to the ruins. ARGH!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆ (story average: 8.3 out of 10)

"Now listen to me" tally: 13 - there's a barely audible "listen to me" when the Doctor's trying to get Jo to focus at 2m 15s.
Neck-rub tally: 3 - not one but two neck-rubs in the one episode! Firstly when the Doctor is reluctant to admit he has a block on his knowledge of dematerialisation theory, then later when he struggles to make his explanation for time loops understood. Embarrassment seems to bring on the Doctor's neck-rubbing habit!

NEXT TIME: Colony in Space...

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

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