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.

We've also got an appearance of K-9 in human form, with John Leeson finally getting his face on screen but bringing little to proceedings, and the wonderful Philip Madoc seems wasted as Fenner, a character who has lines to say but no personality to speak of. The good thing is that Madoc is too fantastic an actor to let that slide, and he manages to inject as much into the part as he possibly can, despite the bland writing. The vacuum left by the character is ably filled by Madoc's natural charisma and talent. He gives Fenner a brooding, sceptical, sardonic edge by adding unscripted glances and facial expressions. He was such a great actor.

The TARDIS materialising in the middle of a swamp, its roof and flashing light just peeking over the top of the reeds, is glorious. Doctor Who has rarely been shot in such a stark, striking, memorable setting as the marshes around Snape and the River Alde in Suffolk, and director Norman Stewart makes the absolute best of the lush greens and cavernous open skies. Stewart was not an experienced director by any means (although his experience on Underworld was surely a baptism of fire) but he has a good eye for location filming, even if his studio work is a little flat. The fact he sacrificed one of his studio blocks to film for an extra week on location proves that he at least had ambition, and as a result The Power of Kroll looks splendid, and suitably alien.

"Was it absolutely necessary to land in a quagmire?" asks a clearly unimpressed Romana, before the Doctor lets her get on with searching for the fifth segment of the Key to Time with the tracer while he messes about by the river making reed flutes and playing J S Bach's flute concerto Badinerie (which is actually a very difficult piece of music to play on a flute, never mind a reed, but then I suppose the Doctor has history with woodwind instruments).

So we have the Doctor taking minimal interest in the frankly quite vital quest for the Key to Time, messing about by the river, while his assistant Romana stalks off in his place and gets attacked by something in the bushes. Sound familiar? This was the way The Androids of Tara played out, just weeks previously... It's not the only similarity between the two consecutive stories either: in both the Doctor is seen paddling about in a canoe. Now how often does that happen generally?

It's clear that this story is a tale of colonisation and imperial exploitation, reflecting the British plundering of Africa in the 19th century, with the local natives being suppressed and treated as low-life, unequal to their oppressors. The Swampies are indigenous to Delta Magna (of which this is a moon) and are being armed by the Sons of Earth via gun-runner Rohm-Dutt so that they can attack their oppressors and storm the refinery.

The Swampies are particularly poorly realised, among the very worst in the Doctor Who canon. Written as native savages, the production team decided to paint the actors bright green and dress them in tiny loin cloths, completing the indignity by plonking green mops on their heads. The Swampies look nothing more than sad, demoralised extras stripped to their pants, daubed with green paint and given woolly wigs. They look exceptionally silly and unconvincing.

The Swampie leader is called Ranquin, played by John Abineri, an actor with so much more dignity than this role could possibly allow. I'm not really sure why Abineri - who'd appeared in Doctor Who three times already by this point, always in rewarding roles - accepted the part of Ranquin. I suspect it had something to do with his Emmy-nominated role as Mohican chief Chingachgook in 1971's The Last of the Mohicans (and its sequel, Hawkeye, the Pathfinder), but Ranquin is a far cry away from that part, and The Power of Kroll is a world away from James Fenimore Cooper's classic. Interestingly, The Last of the Mohicans also starred Philip Madoc, so maybe Stewart was a particular fan of that serial?

No, the Swampies are just awful all round. There's even one called Skart, which is ironic because as well as being a well-known electrical adaptor, skarts are also fine clothes, or "Sunday best", which is ironic given that Skart wears so few clothes that he barely manages to cover his viridescent bum cheeks!

I do love the backchat Romana gives to Rohm-Dutt during interrogation. Romana isn't one to struggle or attempt escape, she tends to just accept situations and see how they play out. That's not the best strategy for survival when travelling with the Doctor, but Romana is a refined lady of culture and poise; she's not Leela. Nevertheless, she has an acid tongue, telling her captor: "Emotional insulation is usually indicative of psychofeudal trauma". Romana also stated that she would not "give way" to psychofeudal trauma in The Ribos Operation, so perhaps Robert Holmes had a particular interest in this condition?

Meanwhile, the Doctor's getting the measure of Thawn and his men at the refinery (and boy do I love the subtle, easy-to-miss moment where he's handed a drink, and Tom Baker quietly drops it in his pocket!). The way these men treat lowly Mensch, the Swampie valet is telling, to the extent that they don't even rate him as a person. "Doesn't he count?" asks the Doctor. "No," replies Thawn quietly. You can tell this rankles the Doctor, particularly when Thawn claims they'll "look after" the Swampies so long as they "see reason". "What, teach them to carry trays?" glares our hero. The Doctor's clocked what's going on here very early, and I'm pleased to see him taking the situation seriously, unlike he might have in other stories of this era.

Also, the word "mensch" means a person of integrity or honour in American slang, and even more cleverly, means "person" in Yiddish. Holmes is having fun with his character names (see also: Skart).

The episode reaches a "climax" with Romana being sacrificed to the Swampie god Kroll, which is apparently a giant squid that can be summoned by everybody dancing about like they're desperate for a wee, chanting "Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!" A LOT! When Romana is mauled by a set of unconvincing pincers for the cliffhanger, I acknowledge the fact I don't think I'm going to get along with this story.

Nevertheless, ever onward...

First broadcast: December 23rd, 1978 (what a way to celebrate Christmas!)

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The wonderful location filming in the marshes of Snape, complete with reed canoes and hovercraft.
The Bad: The Swampies. Near-naked supporting actors painted green and given mops for wigs. Costume designer Colin Lavers (who would go on to design the Fifth Doctor's outfit) has little to be proud of here.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 18

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part Two; Part Three; Part 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: https://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-power-of-kroll.html

The Power of Kroll is available on BBC DVD as part of the Key to Time box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Key-Time-Re-issue/dp/B002TOKFNM