The Claws of Axos Episode One

The one where a gibbering tramp makes first contact with an alien species...

The episode opens very similarly to Spearhead from Space, with an unidentified mass approaching Earth and being picked up by UNIT technicians on radar. Although he's a pretty poor actor, Michael Walker (as Harry, according to the novelisation) is very easy on the eye and manages to make it past this first scene to feature in two entire episodes. Was there an effort to introduce a wider "UNIT family" in Season 8 to back up the Brigadier, Captain and Sergeant, what with the introduction of Corporal Bell in The Mind of Evil, who also features here? I like Harry: he can stay...

It's a damn good opening to the story actually, showing a weird alien mass (ship?) approaching Earth like some giant galactic puffer fish (it even seems to have breathing "gills"). The glimpse we get inside the ship is a nightmarish collage of cross-fades and superimpositions of various strange organic beings. It's truly alien and I love it.

We're then bought down to earth with a bump as we meet the officious Ministry of Defence rep Mr Chinn, an excitable chap who insists on there being a personnel file on "this mysterious Doctor", and on the face if it, I don't blame him. The MoD would want some background on who the Doctor is, seeing as he has top level access to pretty much anything the Brigadier wishes (which reminds me, I love Chinn's childishly penned "top secret" file!), but the Brig doesn't seem to see his point of view. Yes, Chinn's an awkward arse, but his point seems valid to me!

All of this rather tense but ultimately dull political arguing is cut delightfully short when Captain Yates bursts in and announces: "UFO, sir, coming in fast", accompanied by the alarming sound of what seems to be a school bell. UNIT is suddenly on full emergency! It seems a UFO of variable mass is approaching Earth (specifically, the south-east coast of England!) at a velocity of 20 miles per second. Chinn, in a highly unlikely move, assumes command of the entire operation and orders that missiles are aimed at the approaching vessel in order to destroy it. I'm really not convinced that an MoD pen-pusher would be allowed to take control of such a vastly important operation (surely it'd be more military-led?), but I do like the idea that the Americans are concerned enough about the recent machinations of the Master to have sent over a representative from Washington (although Bill Filer doesn't have a lot of fight in him when he's asked to leave!).

The alien mass arrives on Earth, burying itself into the shingle on a snow-swept beach near a power complex, and the first example of life on Earth that it encounters is an illiterate tramp with apparent aphasia called Pigbin Josh. All of the scenes involving this character are jarringly silly but also enormously entertaining, as we follow him in the moments leading up to his encounter with the alien mass. The scenes of Dungeness in the snow are incredibly atmospheric, and when Josh is grabbed by a tendril and dragged into the vessel, it's all quite unsettling and visceral, reminiscent of The Thing from Another World. Josh's ultimate fate is pretty gruesome (his face collapses) and it was probably wise of director Michael Ferguson to cut away from the full effect (I remember being pretty horrified by the similarly collapsing skulls of Jean and Phyllis in The Curse of Fenric).

The fact a gibbering tramp, and then an American secret service agent, manage to get to the scene of the alien craft's landing before UNIT just reminds me of how inept they have a tendency to be, but when they do arrive, they arrive in style, and really do look like a formidable force. This is how UNIT should always be portrayed and presented, but sometimes this got diluted - even sent up - in later years. Suits from the power complex get involved too, and all of the men get to investigate while Jo is told to stay behind (the fact the Brigadier specifically charges Yates with the task of "keeping an eye on Miss Grant" suggests that's she's some kind of liability!). Predictably, Jo decides to disobey orders and enter the ship herself, and all of the UNIT troops looking on simply let her!

Inside the alien craft, magic happens. For once the use of Colour Separation Overlay (CSO) creates a strange, otherworldly atmosphere, and Kenneth Sharp's way-out design, coupled with Ferguson's trippy direction and editing, make these scenes some of the most memorable of the Pertwee era. The cross-fades with superimposed shots and images is disorientating and bizarre, making Axos by far the strangest and most alien environment Doctor Who has conjured since Vortis in The Web Planet. The ship is beautifully organic; this level of creativity has been largely missing from Doctor Who for some years. I love it!

Nineteen minutes in there's an ever-so-brief reveal of the Master, seemingly a prisoner on the ship alongside Bill Filer. The moment is so brief that it takes a moment for you to process it really was him, but it would have been much better not to have the Master in episode 1 at all. He plays no active or necessary part in it, so why not hold back his presence until episode 2, to add to the "surprise"?

It transpires that the ship is Axos, a living organism grown from a single cell, and it and the Axons within are all that survive of the species due to their world being destroyed by solar flares. They introduce something called axonite, the "chameleon of the elements", a thinking molecule which has the ability to copy, recreate and restructure any given substance (but not, it seems, their own fuel, as the Doctor sagely points out). It also has the ability to make frogs bigger. The Axons - who look like Greek gods with their hair of spun gold, svelte leotard-bound bodies and statue-like eyes - offer the gift of axonite and its powers in return for the chance to replenish their energies on Earth. The potential axonite offers - essentially ridding the planet of hunger and starvation - is irresistible for ambitious Chinn ("We must have it!").

Episode 1 has offered a lot to take in, almost all of it marvellously eccentric and creative, just as Doctor Who should be. At the end we get a traditional monster reveal, with Jo screaming as a tentacled mass materialises before her. Perfect! This really feels like the Doctor Who of the 1960s is back.

First broadcast: March 13th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The way Michael Ferguson directs and edits the interior of Axos is wonderfully trippy.
The Bad: The Master's presence is revealed too early, spoiling the impact.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

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

NEXT TIME: Episode Two...

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