Giant Squid Terrorises a Swamp Tribe and Gas Refinery: THE POWER OF KROLL

On the third moon of Delta Magna, The Doctor and Romana I are caught in the middle of an on-going conflict between the local Swampies and the crew of menthane refinery. However, The Doctor will soon have a much bigger problem, to solve. Something huge, and deadly lurks beneath swamps, something which is beginning to wake from a long slumber.

Cast

Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Mary Tamm (Romana), Neil McCarthy (Thawn), John Abineri (Ranquin)

Philip Madoc (Fenner), Glyn Owen (Rohm-Dutt), Carl Rigg (Varlik), Frank Jarvis (Skart), John Leeson (Dugeen)

Grahame Mallard (Harg), Terry Walsh (Mensch)

UNCREDITED CAST: Philip Bird, Richard Edmunds, Mark Hardy, Barry Stearn, Norman Clive-Fisher

Curtis Dabek, Steve Palmer, Steve Sandis, David Babin, Graham Baker, Paul Mann, Steve Vickers

Steve Pleasance, Peter Crutchley, Paul Smith, John Hodges, Julian Mark, David Sinclair

Mike Wilson, Michael Archer (Swampies), Terry Walsh (Stunt Double for Nual)

Crew

Robert Holmes (Writer), Kate Nemet (Production Assistant), John Nathan-Turner (Production Unit Manager)

Dudley Simpson (Incidental Music), Dick Mills (Special Sound), Martin Patmore (Film Cameraman)

Stan Nightingale (Film Sound), Michael Goldsmith (Film Editor)

Warwick Fielding (Studio Lighting), Richard Chubb (Studio Sound), Tony Harding (Visual Effects Designer)

Dave Jervis (Electronic Effects), Rod Waldron (Videotape Editor), Colin Lavers (Costume Designer)

Kezia Dewinne (Make-Up Artist), Anthony Read (Script Editor), Don Giles (Designer)

Graham Williams (Producer), Norman Stewart (Director)

Broadcast

EPISODE	DATE	TIME	VIEWING FIGURE	CHART POSITION	APPRECIATION INDEX
1	23/12/1978	6:15-6:40pm	6.5M	85th	-
2	30/12/1978	6:30-6:55pm	12.4M	26th	-
3	06/01/1979	6:25-6:50pm	8.9M	51st	-
4	13/01/1979	6:25-6:50pm	9.9M	31st	63

Connections in the Who-Niverse

Ranquin, Leader of the Swampies. I bet your not green with envy being him.

Neil McCarthy was the inmate George Patrick Barnham (or Barnham for short) during The Mind of Evil. John Abineri graced his talented as the Dutch engineer, Van Lutyens for Fury from the Deep, the corrupt General Carrington for The Ambassadors of Death and the Space Corps explorer Richard Railton for Death to the Daleks. Philip Madoc appeared in two latter-day 2nd Doctor serials: The Krotons and The War Games, before being the scientist who resurrects Morbius during The Brain of Morbius. Frank Jarvis was previously the Corporal for The War Machines and then Ankh for Underworld. Swampie extra Mark Hardy was later promoted to be a Cyber-Lieutenant for Earthshock, The Five Doctors and Silver Nemesis.

Death, the Constant Companion

A Swampie is killed after their weapon - supplied by Rohm Dutt - explodes in their hands; another Swampie is pulled beneath the swamp lake by the Kroll. Other victims of Kroll are Mensch, Harg, Rohm-Dutt and Ranquin - everyone is pulled to their deaths by Kroll's gigantic tentacles - persumably they are later eaten. Duggen is shot and killed by Thawn. Thawn himself is impaled with an spear thrown by a Swampie.

Episode Cliffhangers

(1) The Swampies continue their chant and procession. Ranquin calls for Kroll to raise from the depths of the swamps. Romana who has been tied up a sacrifice shrike in terror as a creature appears and begins to attack her.

(2) Kroll has risen from the depths, and one of its tentacles makes it way through the refinery’s pipe systems and smashes its way through. The tentacles grabs hold of Harg, who screams in horror. His fellow refinery workers hear his cries and run to see what is happening. They arrive too late, as Harg is pulled inside the pipe to be consumed by Kroll.

The Doctor and Romana I have a little trouble finding their way around the Third Moon of Delta Magna

(3) The Doctor and Romana escape from the Swampies on a canoe, but they are heading into more danger. Kroll has risen from the depths again, and The Doctor and Romana are heading straight for it.

(4) The Doctor and Romana head back to the TARDIS, but discover the swamps are covered in dozens of smaller squids. They finally reach the TARDIS and head for their next adventure.

Fun Facts

(1) Robert Holmes who ended up writing the fifth serial to the Key to Time was then busy working on Terry Nation's Blake's 7. Another script by Ted Lewis fell through during the planning stages; (2) Robert Holmes opted to write K9 out of the narrative since his new adventure was take place on a swampy moon, and the character would have been problematic to write for; (3) The entire Swampie population ended up being male in the finished programme. However, Robert Holmes did write a scene featuring a Female Swampie and a Child

Kroll rises from the depths!!

Swampie as The Doctor and Romana I walked through the village; (4) The green make-up used on the Swampies was a special product that had to be imported from Germany, it proved to be very difficult to remove; (5) The Third Moon of Delta Magna was originally called Ganymede. However, Ganymede was a moon of Saturn that had been discovered in 1610, so the moon was renamed; (6) Filming location took the team to marshlands, where weather patterns were very unpredictable. The team would start off in dry lands, and soon enough would find themselves surrounded by water; (7) Tom Baker lost the tracer prop during the location shoot, which required a new one being sent from London; (8) Some of the set dressings came from Blake's 7, whilst one of the Swampies' spears was a recycled prop from Star Wars: (9) The sound Kroll was actually a recycled sound effect, previously used for the Nestenes during Spearhead from Space

Recording Days

The four part serial took 14 days complete Monday 18 September - Friday 20 October 1978. The Third Moon of Delta Magna was complete at The Matlings and Iken Cliff both in Suffolk. The production team went back and

The TARDIS lands on the Third Moon of Delta Magna. I've got a sinking feeling something is a miss here.

forth between the two locations over the 9 production days between 18 - 27 September; a stand-by day was scheduled for Friday 29 September. Nothing was recorded on this day, as all necessary material had been completed.

The studio days took only 3 days to complete at Television Centre Studio 6 over 9 - 11 October. Production wrapped with 2 days of model filming at Bray Studio over 19 - 20 October.

Verdict

‘Well, progress is a very flexible word. It can mean just about anything you want it to mean.’ On both sides of the coin, you have a component production that manages to tread enough swamp water from falling into the abyss, but on the other side, you have the same production which continually disappears beneath the bog standard of a narrative (really this is from Robert Holmes are we sure?) and has very little to cling onto before swallowing itself up, by its own mediocracy. This is a poorly padded and constructed affair, with an overlong sacrifice-ritual sequence and limply, static scenes shot from afar, and jarring jump cuts. And let’s not begin analysing the moment with the fake monsters. Was this supposed to be a metacommentary moment? If so it misses the mark by a long shot.

It is also not original how many times has ‘The Power of Kroll’ be done before on Doctor Who? This one is dull and super repetitive, lacking in much creative integrity. It is another typical story of colonisers arriving and telling the natives to bugger off. Seriously how many times has this been done? Why would Holmes take a subject that the show has never really done that well, and give his own unique spin? He does try by introducing his own Holmes-y world building ingredients, they just don’t quiet work. At least Holmes’ commentary is better from the likes of Colony in Space and less in your face compared to The Mutants. Positives.

Rohm-Dutt makes some dodgy dealings with the Swampies. Would you trust that face?

Somehow this is a solid production. The location shoots, the use of hovercrafts, and even the Swampie society is well constructed, and Holmes once again creates an off-screen world effectively well through dialogue alone, and even Kroll is not that bad of a monster. The scripts also fail to bring out the potential of the characters, but at the same time, they do provide plenty moments of great acting throughout. Some of the show strongest alumni are in this one. The biggest insult is Romana, delegated and neglected to being the screaming-hapless ‘save me Doctor, save me’ companion’. This is also a nice showcasing for John Leeson, who was given a rare opportunity to act in front of the Doctor Who cameras. The production design is also [not bad], and even the realisation of Kroll is memorable – he is the biggest Who to date – one can’t deny that no one ‘doesn’t’ remember him. The squid had 40 tentacles no less.

Whilst this one really excites on paper, it disappoints in practice, but it has some rewatch value, it really does. It is very hard to get mad or frustrated by it, in a sense it was always doomed to fail. But on the plus side, out of Holmes’ second worst Doctor Who, came what was commonly regarded as the best serial of all time (for a while), and one of the most beloved story of all time. ***