The Macra Terror

I obey Control

From more than one source I've heard that The Macra Terror is reminiscent of The Prisoner and I can see where that would come from. Fortunately it's no where near as surreal as The Prisoner or there would be no hope of following the story as it only exists in telesnap form.

The Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie land on an Earth colony planet and immediately run into a man feeling from authorities. He is believed to be suffering from delusions but the Doctor believes him. The colony appears to be the model of happiness and efficiency with cheerful music playing, recreation facilities, and a cheerful optimistic attitude. They are overseen by the Controller, who is very evocative of Big Brother as he seems to know all of what is going on in the colony but is only seen as a large still picture with a booming voice. Ben is brainwashed while sleeping but the Doctor realizes what is happening and destroys the equipment before it can work on Polly and Jamie. The Doctor, Jamie and Polly are sentenced to work in the gas mines while Ben is dispatched to oversee them. Jamie escapes down an unused shaft while the Doctor figures out how the piping system works. Jamie is confronted by the Macra but the Doctor manages to reroute the mining gas to lull the Macra back to sleep. Jamie reemerges into the colony while the Doctor and Polly discover the control room with the Macra running things. They show it to the Pilot who had been starting to resist Control anyway. They are locked up to be killed but Ben finishes coming back to his senses and destroys the piping per the Doctor's instructions, killing the Macra.

This one was a pretty tight little story. It was a bit less engaging as a recon due to there being more action and less talking that in other stories, but the recon was good enough to keep me engaged. One of the things that struck me most was how a preview clip worked into the end of The Moonbase was used as a key plot development in the first two episodes of this story. Had the Doctor and his companions not seen that clip they might have been less accepting of Medok's story. Of course, the Second Doctor was always suspicious of authority so that was keeping within his nature.

It was nice to see Ben given an interesting arc with him becoming brainwashed by the Macra and the others not. Jamie was given the adventure plotline while Polly assisted the Doctor so that no one felt wasted which is done a lot with three companions. There was nice depth with the supporting cast and it was interesting to see how the fully brainwashed ones could go from so inviting and cheerful to authoritarian when "the rules" were threatened.

I've got two downsides to this story, aside from it being a recon. First is the Macra. Because of the Australian censors decided they were too scary and cut the footage out, the only moving bits of this story are of the Macra attacking in episodes one and two. I'm sure the production team was trying hard and the director did a good job of keeping them in shadow, but even with that the Macra look a bit shoddy. It's part of the ease that one has to give to Sixties Doctor Who sometimes.

My second tick is that the ending felt very rushed. This is a bit of a recurring problem in the classic series where there is a real meandering through the first few episodes, establishing the problem and then there is a slap dash rush to fix things again. More time should have been paid to convincing the Pilot to see the Macra and I would have preferred to see the Doctor a little more involved in the final resolution other than shouting instructions to Ben through the door. I know he had confirmed that Ben was back to normal in a subtle way in the Pilot's office, but it was still a bit of a risk, especially since it was dependant on Control also sending all guards out of the drilling control room, giving Ben the ability to destroy the machinery unencumbered.

The ending aside, this was a good one and I think I might give it a half point more if it was not a recon. Seeing the action would keep me even more engaged, but it was reasonably engaging enough. A good story and one that I could enjoy again. I would certainly jump at the chance to watch it again if the full episodes were recovered.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5