The Claws of Axos

How do we stop it, Doc?

The Claws of Axos is a fun little story that is also an excellent microcosm of the Third Doctor era in both the good and the bad.

The story is pretty straight forward as the Axons are a race of scavengers who promise technology to humans which will help them. But it is in fact a trap and then the Axons will consume all of Earth's resources. The Doctor suspects a trap and is confirmed when the Master escapes the Axons who had doubled crossed him. Working together, the Doctor and the Master manage to use the TARDIS to pull the Axons off Earth and catch them in an infinite time loop, from which the Doctor manages to escape but still finds himself tied to Earth in exile.

This story does very little mucking about in terms of pacing. The set up of episode could probably be contained to the cold open of a new series episode, but after than, the story moves quickly with not much time wasted on drawn out discussions. There is near constant action starting in episode two, with the Axons moving from seemingly benevolent to aggressive antagonists very quickly. While I liked that, I could see a benefit if this story had been given a bit more time to breathe and extended to five episodes. It's that sort of problem where you want action, but you still need a little bit of downtime to fully understand what is going on and how the protagonists are going to fix it.

Regarding the action, it looked pretty good. UNIT actually looked somewhat competent in their attempts to fight off the Axons, although they were highly overmatched. Effort was made to make it sees as though the Axons were being hit but were immune to the weaponry UNIT was using. Again, if a little more time and budget were available, we probably would have seen UNIT break out the flamethrowers as those would have likely been shown to be the most effective weapons against the Axons.

But, since we're on the subject of budget, let's talk about the major downside of this episode. There is no way around it, much of the sets and aspects of the Axons themselves looked cheap. Sometimes you can get away with it or you can forgive it like in the black and white days, but there is something about bringing a story into color and a style of filming that seems to magnify the limitations that these type of stories had. It's not so bad that it takes you out of the story, but when the Axonite comes out of it's dormant phase at the end of episode two, you have to work rather hard not to see a man covered and shaking a pink blanket around.

I would be remiss if I didn't also talk about the two other major players in this story: the Master and Bill Filer. The Master was quite good in this. It was possibly the best story I've seen the Master in simply because he didn't have a plan. Whatever convoluted plan he had tried, he'd already tried and been betrayed. So his role in this story was simply to escape. That meant he was more or less improvising and not grandstanding which made him even more likable even if he was still being a bit of a bastard. The uneasy alliance where it is the Doctor who breaks faith also made for an entertaining twist on their normal relationship.

Then there is Bill Filer. Filer is an amusing character as he is both great and terrible. On the good side, he's action oriented, a good fighter and seems genuinely dedicated towards the good. On the other hand, he indulges in action tropes, is over the top in his acting, and has one of the worst American accents I've ever heard. But I'd say the good outweighs the bad with Filer as you look forward to the moments where he is onscreen most in this story.

There's also the mocking of bureaucrats in this story but that's a fairly standard 70's and 80's trope so I tuned out of most of the scenes involving Mr. Chinn. It didn't really help or hurt the story except to defer the full assault of the Axons until episode three.

So overall, I'd say this was a good story. It has warts but those don't distract from it's overall entertainment value. Easily one that you could pop in and watch again.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5.