27-528: The Krotons is the fourth serial of the sixth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who , which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 28 December 1968 to 18 January 1969. In the serial, the time traveller the Second Doctor ( Patrick Troughton ) and his travelling companions Jamie McCrimmon ( Frazer Hines ) and Zoe Heriot ( Wendy Padbury ) battle alongside
54-519: A Colonel) in The Web of Fear . He would soon make regular appearances in the program beginning with season 7's Spearhead from Space . John Levene makes his first appearance as Corporal Benton in The Invasion . He would continue to make regular appearances, with the character promoted to sergeant, from season 7 until season 13 . Alan Bennion makes his first of three appearances in
81-517: Is Philip Madoc , who appeared in a different role later in the season in The War Games (1969) as well as in other roles with Tom Baker 's Fourth Doctor . The actor James Cairncross, who plays Beta, previously appeared as Lemaitre in The Reign of Terror with William Hartnell 's First Doctor. Episode 1 had the highest viewing figures of any Second Doctor story, at 9 million. The serial
108-625: The Second Doctor , Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot respectively. Troughton and his fellow actors collectively decided that the workload of Doctor Who was exhausting them, and that they would soon depart from the show. From Season 7 onwards the show would never have such a high number of episodes again. The three actors remained with the show until the conclusion of the final season six serial The War Games . Troughton reprised his role in three subsequent special stories, one of which also featured Hines. Nicholas Courtney reappears as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in The Invasion , last seen (as
135-522: The article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article . Search for " Dolly bird " in existing articles. Look for pages within Misplaced Pages that link to this title . Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try the purge function . Titles on Misplaced Pages are case sensitive except for
162-413: The 12-part serial The Daleks' Master Plan from Season 3 was longer. Both of these would be beaten in 1986 by the 14-part season-spanning story The Trial of a Time Lord The Dominators and The Mind Robber were both produced at the end of the fifth recording block and held over to Season 6. ^† : Episode is missing All releases are for DVD dolly bird From Misplaced Pages,
189-568: The BBC as a stand-alone science-fiction serial in 1965. Head of Serials Shaun Sutton rejected the serial as being not the kind of thing the BBC was interested in making at the time, but suggested the writer pitch it to the Doctor Who production office as an idea for that series. Holmes did so, and although story editor Donald Tosh was interested, the scripts went no further at the time. Some years later, assistant script editor Terrance Dicks found
216-415: The BBC's Audience Research Report on the first episode the story received a mixed reception from viewers. Some enjoyed the story, describing it as "intriguing" and "compelling". More critical viewers thought the series was becoming "stale" and "boring" and that it was "too horrific" and "too far-fetched". A small minority considered it to be "the usual predictable rubbish", some saying that they only watched
243-728: The Dynatrope (the Kroton spaceship). The newly created Krotons capture Jamie, but are really seeking the Doctor and Zoe, the "High Brains", who have now left the Dynatrope. Eelek and Axus, two councillors previously loyal to the Krotons, begin to rally for all-out war with them and seize the initiative in Gond society. The more level headed Selris is deposed, but warns that an all-out attack will not benefit his people. Instead he has decided to attack
270-569: The Gond race against the crystalline aliens the Krotons, who enslaved the Gonds in their city for thousands of years. On an unnamed planet, a race called the Gonds are subject to the mysterious Krotons, unseen beings to whom they provide their brightest intelligences as "companions". Thara, son of the Gond leader Selris, is the only one to object to this practice; those who have become companions before have never been seen nor heard from again. The Second Doctor , Jamie and Zoe arrive in time to witness
297-579: The Kroton vats. Outside, Jamie and the scientist Beta launch an attack on the structure of the ship using sulphuric acid . This two-pronged assault destroys the tellurium -based Krotons and their craft. The Dynatrope dissolves away and the Gonds are free at last, choosing Thara to lead them. Leaving the Gonds to find their own answers for the future, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe return to the TARDIS . Working titles for this story included The Trap and The Space Trap . Holmes had originally submitted The Trap to
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#1732772000818324-657: The Krotons arrived, releasing a poison that polluted the lands beyond the Gond city – which the Gonds call "the Wasteland" – and killed much of the population. Thara uses the disquiet of the situation to lead a rebellion and attack the Teaching Machines of the Krotons in the Hall of Learning. This prompts a crystalline probe to appear and defend the Machines, and warn the Gonds to cease. Zoe tries
351-505: The Teaching Machines and is selected to be a "companion" of the Krotons. The Doctor elects the same fate and both are summoned into the Dynotrope where they are subjected to a mental attack. Zoe deduces that the Krotons have found a way to transfer mental power into pure energy, while the Doctor busies himself with taking chemical samples of the Kroton environment. Circumstances now trigger the creation of two Krotons from chemical vats within
378-570: The death of the chosen companion Abu, who is vaporised by smoke sprayed from nozzles on either side of the doorway from which he emerges, and intervene to save Vana, the other selected for this fate, using her survival as a means to convince Selris and the Gonds of the malign influence of the Krotons on their society. The Doctor calls it "self-perpetuating slavery" by which the brightest in Gond society have been removed. Similarly, there are large gaps in their knowledge, especially relating to chemistry. This situation has been in existence for many years since
405-529: The first story of season 6 The Dominators and ended Patrick Troughton 's reign as the Doctor with its final story The War Games . Only 37 out of 44 episodes are held in the BBC archives; 7 remain missing . As a result, 2 serials are incomplete: only episode 2 of the 6-part story The Space Pirates still exists, while The Invasion has had its two missing episodes (episodes 1 and 4) reconstructed using animation. Patrick Troughton , Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury make their final regular appearances as
432-631: The first two seasons of the Second Doctor from which only two complete serials ( The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Enemy of the World ) survive. The missing two episodes of The Invasion have since been reconstructed using animation and released on DVD. The War Games , which was the final serial of the season, and the last of Patrick Troughton's tenure as the Doctor, was also the second longest serial up to that point, spanning 10 episodes – only
459-897: The 💕 Look for Dolly bird on one of Misplaced Pages's sister projects : [REDACTED] Wiktionary (dictionary) [REDACTED] Wikibooks (textbooks) [REDACTED] Wikiquote (quotations) [REDACTED] Wikisource (library) [REDACTED] Wikiversity (learning resources) [REDACTED] Commons (media) [REDACTED] Wikivoyage (travel guide) [REDACTED] Wikinews (news source) [REDACTED] Wikidata (linked database) [REDACTED] Wikispecies (species directory) Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Dolly bird in Misplaced Pages to check for alternative titles or spellings. You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use
486-721: The high quality 35mm negative can be seen in the restoration documentary on the DVD release of The Aztecs and as part of the 40th Anniversary music video on Doctor Who DVDs released in 2003. The "special sounds" from this serial by Brian Hodgson at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop were released on CD, Digital Download on 13 May 2013 with a limited run of 10" vinyl 24 May 2013. All tracks are written by Brian Hodgson , except where noted Doctor Who season 6 The sixth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 10 August 1968 with
513-401: The machine from underneath by destabilising its foundation in the underhall. Eelek has Selris arrested and reasserts control by negotiating with the Krotons that they will leave the planet if provided with the two "High Brains" who can help them power and pilot their ship. Zoe and the Doctor are forced into the Dynatrope and Selris dies, providing them with a phial of acid which the Doctor adds to
540-434: The role for The Space Pirates . Derrick Sherwin took over as producer from Peter Bryant for The War Games . Season 6 is the most complete of all the Second Doctor's seasons, with only seven episodes missing (compared with thirty-three from Season 4 and eighteen from Season 5 ), none of the season's stories missing in their entirety and only two stories ( The Invasion and The Space Pirates ) incomplete. This compares to
567-531: The serial was viable, and it went before the cameras very quickly as an emergency replacement. Robert La'Bassiere is actually a pseudonym for Robert Grant, who requested that he be credited under this name for his appearance as one of the Krotons. Scenes set on the planet's surface were filmed at the Tank Quarry and West of England Quarry on the Malvern Hills . One of the guest actors for The Krotons
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#1732772000818594-508: The series playing an Ice Warrior . In this, his first appearance, he portrays Lord Slaar in The Seeds of Death . Kevin Stoney makes his second appearance as a villain in The Invasion as Tobias Vaughn. Louise Pajo and Ronald Leigh-Hunt guest star in The Seeds of Death . Terrance Dicks took over from Derrick Sherwin as script editor from The Invasion , with Sherwin resuming
621-508: The show because their children enjoyed it. Patrick Mulkern of the Radio Times gave the serial a mixed review, acknowledging that "The episodes are packed with incident, the slate-dark quarry filming is fluid and moody, and there are decent performances." but criticising the Krotons themselves as "some of the silliest monsters ever to shame the series." The serial was positively received by James Peaty of Den of Geek who noted that whilst
648-484: The story in the production office files when clearing a backlog, and decided to develop it with Holmes as a personal project, in case other scripts fell through. When the latter event occurred (Dick Sharples script Prison in Space , a comedic dystopian tale where females rule with dollybird guards, proved unworkable), Dicks was able to present the serial to his superiors as a ready production. Director David Maloney agreed
675-464: The story was a fairly standard one it benefitted from the dramatic intensity and sharp dialogue crafted by writer Robert Holmes. Peaty was also impressed by Philip Madoc's performance as Eelek and the direction by David Maloney. Although he considered the Krotons to be a "workaday adventure" Peaty said that "there are still many things to enjoy within its relatively brisk 90-minute running time." A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks ,
702-615: Was published by Target Books in June 1985. This story was released on VHS in February 1991. The soundtrack was released on CD in November 2008. The Krotons was released on DVD in the UK on 2 July 2012. The Region 1 DVD was released on 10 July 2012. Episode One of The Krotons exists as both a 16mm telerecording film print and a 35mm negative. Clips taken from a VidFIREd transfer of
729-478: Was repeated on BBC2 in November 1981, daily (Monday–Thursday, 9–12 November 1981) at 5:40 pm as part of "The Five Faces of Doctor Who", a series of repeats to bridge the long gap between seasons 18 and 19. At the time, it was the only four-part Patrick Troughton serial that existed in the BBC Archives. The viewing figures for the repeats were 4.4, 4.6, 4.6 and 4.5 million viewers respectively. According to
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