2.5: The Macra Terror
In which the notorious ISB completes his trilogy about fascism, and everyone gets crabs.
Broadcast: March-April 1967
Watched: September 2019
Two observations, before we begin:
1. This is one of the 14-and-rising available Troughton stories. We are living in the future. [This was three years ago. The 18th, The Abominable Snowmen, comes out next week; although there, alas, things seem set to rest, for the moment.]
2. Whoever is drawing the comic advertised inside the DVD case has never seen Doctor Who or any photographs of Doctor Who.
The Macra Terror, Episode 1
“How do you know?” “I don’t know. I’m guessing.”
That’s definitely the best animation I’ve seen on a Who DVD. Being able to see the colony actually adds something to the setting and the story, and, the black & white intro fading to a colour title sequence is a nice touch (even if I did momentarily worry there had been a screw up with my discs). Unlike some of the others, it works as a cartoon rather than a “well this’ll have to do” stopgap because we don’t have the tapes. Even if it is a shame they decided it was too much hassle to animate the sequence in which Polly gets her hair done. Oh well, one for the special edition I suppose.
The start is an interesting inversion of the structure of a Doctor Who story: the regulars accidentally prevent a rebellion so the authorities love them. Also, all three of [writer Ian Stuart] Black’s stories – which are all about fascism, of course – have the Doctor working with the authorities, at least initially. It is kind of cool that the first thing we see Ben do in this story is piss about, to contrast with what’s going to happen to him later.
While on holiday I read Dorian Lynskey’s book about 1984. The big face on a screen, plus actually much of The Savages too, suggests that Black might have been reading the original recently, at the time when he was writing Doctor Who.
Anyway, this i/s great, and I hope they do more animated Doctor Who. [They did! Since I wrote all that, they’ve animated four more stories, which is lovely. Shame they didn’t manage the bit of this where Polly gets a haircut.]
The Macra Terror, Episode 2
Oooh! [I have no idea what this refers to; I have kept it in for verisimilitude reasons.] Also, seeing the Doctor from the Macra’s perspective. Nice visual touch. Was that in the original?
Why is Polly sharing a room with the boys? Is that just on the animation? [Yeah, it is, they didn’t want to have to animate two sets apparently.] Bit weird. “But he’s betrayed you!” Wow Jamie really wants to get rid of Ben doesn’t he. Tardis love triangle I bet.
Actually, Ben’s betrayal is *also* more upsetting when you can actually see it. The bit where Polly is literally hiding from him is really unsettling.
Why the Macra allow the controller to appear on video in his current old man form, and then instantly kill him on screen, is totally baffling. I’m imagining a Macra boss shouting at a Macra underling (“You did WHAT you idiot??!?”).
The Macra Terror, Episode 3
The boss in the mine looks just like Lesterson from Power. Suspicious.
Anyway, this one’s odd. Suddenly we’re not in the evil holiday camp at all, everyone’s just stuck down a mine while the Doctor writes some equations. There;s often space filling in old Doctor Who, but it’s quite unusual for it to be episode 3 of 4. [Thinking about it more, this feels like a structural problem. The episode 2 cliffhanger – the Macra killing the controller – should really come at the episode 3. So now ISB has to busk for an episode.]
The Macra Terror, Episode 4
The scene where Jamie does the Highland Fling for some cheerleaders is brilliant.
Very not obvious why the Pilot switches sides beyond “it’s episode 4 and we need to be bringing this to a conclusion”.
It is also not clear why a) the Macra have a human voice or b) the Pilot believes that crabs are insects. [An explanation! They were spiders at the script stage, but then the special effects people said they couldn’t do spiders, so they became crabs. Even though a) spiders aren’t insects either, and b) from what we can see of the original episodes, the special effects people couldn’t do crabs either.]
Also, it is a relatively benign form of fascism isn’t it? Beyond violently enforced conformity, it’s rather cosy.
And then it ends with something going bang to get rid of the crabs, but nothing else changing. It’s a bit dissatisfying and there’s no thematic unity. Oh well.
I had a lot of affection for this one as it was the first missing story I heard, back in 1992, and it starts great – but it’s definitely ISB’s weakest script, I think. It starts really well, and his three stories make a nice trilogy thematically – they’re all about different aspects of fascism – but, ironically considering what RTD does to the Macra 40 years later, this one devolves into a bit of a run around as it goes on.
The animation is really good though. And bloody hell we can watch The Macra Terror now. That’s pretty great.
Some other stray thoughts
Hang on the bonus episode is the first 10 minutes of The Wheel in Space – what’s that all about? Did they start it and then decide it was too expensive or something? [Answer: someone gave them a few quid to do it for some conference or another, and they used it as a way of animating a version of Jamie they could use elsewhere. The Wheel in Space remains one of the three Troughton stories you can’t buy on DVD.]
Just watched the censored footage so I can see an actual Macra. Yeah, maybe it was for the best that this one went missing.