The Macra Terror [1.1]

The TARDIS lands on a 'happy healthy colony' where people sing cheesy songs and do naff dances. The Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly enjoy a bit of a luxury spa treatment. Little do they know that the colony harbours a dark secret – it is being run by giant hypnotic crabs.

The Majesty

There are some nice ideas here. In particular, the notion that the whole colony has been brainwashed into simply providing nourishment for their leaders feels decidedly satirical.  The face that these leaders are giant crabs, referred to by the Doctor as parasites, only heightens this potential. However this aspect of the situation is never really properly explored. Equally, the notion of people entertaining themselves with empty nonsense while they are enslaved to some hidden dark power is also quite impressive. It puts a new spin on the term “laughing to death”. Again however, we only sidestep around this issue rather than placing it front and centre. Some of the best scenes come after Ben has been brainwashed: he cheerfully betrays the Doctor and friends to the guards.

The Misery

The Macra are utterly useless as monsters. In terms of their looks, they have to be up there as possibly the least believable of any of the monsters in the Dr Who series. Literal dinner plates for eyes, set on the end of antennae made of hoover tubes, the whole appearance is farcical, and not remotely scary. To add to this, the Macra are almost completely immobile. In the whole show we only see them slowly extend and wave their front claws with roughly the same energy as the sloths in Zootopia. If the designers had gone with crabs the size of motorbikes they would have been potentially terrifying – there could always be one lurking under the bed... But they decided to go with crabs the size of aeroplanes, and the result is ridiculous.

Magical Moments

• In the CGI reconstruction I watched, the dancers all wear Santa hats. But however they are dressed, it's still got to be one of the weirdest openings to a Dr Who show yet. A bunch of people dancing and prancing, singing along to the dumbest of music.
• The scenes in the spa have a pleasantly light feeling to them. Polly gets a shampoo, the Doctor gets tumble dried and Jamie is getting so much attention from the ladies he has to ask the manager to call them off.
• “All right” roars Medoc hysterically. “Have fun while you can. Before they Crawl All Over You!!!”
• In my reconstruction, when Polly screams, her eyes literally pop out of her head.
• Jamie gets a fun scene where he has to impersonate a dancer auditioning for a troupe. But he then spoils it with a terrible joke. “Why do you call it the Highland Fling?” - “Because we end it by flinging ourselves out the door”. It's a good job he gets captured at this point – he deserves it after a quip like that.
• The whole crew then repeat the manoeuvre at the end of the show, with the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly all doing the Highland fling and dancing off screen. It's an appropriately ridiculous way to end a ridiculous story.

In Summary

The Macra Terror is completely missing, but in this case I do not think it is a big loss. Who knows – maybe the story would come to life if we were to actually see it happening in live action, but I suspect not. The Macra let the side down, the colonists are totally forgettable, the setting unremarkable, the singers and dancers add a ludicrous air to proceedings and the story shuffles along with about as much pace as the giant crabs themselves. The one good scene, where Control is revealed to be a terrified old man held captive by the Macra, is never revisited, and is illogical at numerous levels.

Overall: 1.1