From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated   
   From Address: jphalt@aol.com   
   Subject: The Macra Terror: my review   
      
   4 episodes. Approx. 97 minutes. Written by: Ian Stuart Black. Directed   
   by: John Davies. Produced by: Innes Lloyd.   
      
      
   THE PLOT   
      
   The Doctor and his companions arrive at a human colony in the distant   
   future. The colony appears to by an idyllic place, populated by people   
   who are happy in their work under the guidance of the kindly Pilot   
   (Peter Jeffrey) and the patriarchal Controller (Graham Leaman). But   
   something nasty lurks at the heart of the colony: parasitic monsters   
   feeding off the Colony's dangerous labors. When the Doctor sees the   
   insect-like Macra, he and his friends find themselves prisoners,   
   assigned to "The Danger Gang" - effectively, under sentence of death!   
      
      
   CHARACTERS   
      
   The Doctor: The Colony stands for conformity. Throw a nonconformist   
   like the Doctor into its midst, even as an honored guest, and   
   resistance is inevitable. And practically instantaneous. When put into   
   a machine that cleans his suit and leaves him looking like a proper   
   gentleman, he instantly jumps into another machine to restore his   
   rumpled appearance. It's a tiny act of resistance, played cheerfully   
   for laughs, that nevertheless establishes the Doctor's entire   
   relationship with the Colony. The authorities want him to conform, and   
   he insists on retaining his individuality. Despite the struggle, the   
   Doctor remains compassionate in his treatment of the Pilot (a   
   basically well-meaning man) and the brainwashed Ben. A brief, 8 mm   
   clip from Episode Three shows the softness in the Doctor's face   
   matching that in his voice as he talks to Ben about how hard it is "to   
   struggle against the voices in (his) head." He has far less compassion   
   for the rigid Ola or the bureaucratic Officia, but the serial as a   
   whole reinforces the 2nd Doctor's essentially genial nature.   
      
   Jamie: The first story in which Jamie registers as something other   
   than a glorified extra. He's still decidedly in the supporting cast,   
   but we do get hints of a character emerging. One thing that would come   
   to define Jamie is his sense of humor even in a crisis, which shows   
   itself memorably in Episode Four when he pretends to be a dancer to   
   escape the guards' notice. His dance? "The Highland Fling... because   
   at the end of it, we fling ourselves out the door!" He is protective   
   of both the Doctor and Polly when they are assigned to "The Danger   
   Gang," protesting about giving dangerous jobs to "old men and   
   lassies."   
      
   Ben: Jamie's first decent story as a character is also Ben's last good   
   one. Ben is the member of the party who is successfully brainwashed by   
   the Colony's conditioning. He does regain himself temporarily when   
   Polly is attacked by a Macra, putting himself in harm's way to save   
   her. Even then, it's a struggle. At first, he can't even see the   
   Macra, because he has been conditioned to see "nothing evil in the   
   Colony." The brainwashing reasserts itself after the crisis is clear,   
   but he spends the second half of the story struggling visibly against   
   it. Michael Craze's performance is quite solid, as he gets to show a   
   more earnest side of Ben, notably when he struggles to apologize to   
   Jamie after reporting him to the guards in Episode Four.   
      
   Polly: It's her turn to be a glorified extra. Other than getting   
   herself into trouble in Episode Two, which temporarily breaks Ben's   
   conditioning, she basically stands around and provides the Doctor with   
   someone to talk to as he works things out. Anneke Wills still tries,   
   but where Polly has any character at all in this story, it's as a   
   source of useless whimpering... Though the attempt to condition her   
   does provide a good bit early in the serial, in which the Doctor urges   
   her to always question rather than just mindlessley obeying.   
      
      
   THOUGHTS   
      
   Doctor Who does 1984, and the results are surprisingly excellent. The   
   cheerful tyranny that is The Colony is expertly portrayed. With the   
   forced cheer and uniform happiness that pervades the populace, the   
   setting is downright eerie long before we ever see the monsters. This   
   was the last of Ian Stuart Black's three Doctor Who scripts, and the   
   best of the three by a considerable distance. At 4 episodes, it fairly   
   zips along. It establishes a tyrannical society that at the same time   
   appears at a glance to be idyllic, and spends the first two episodes   
   stripping away the cheerful facade to show the truth: The tyrants at   
   the heart of The Colony are parasitic monsters - In this case,   
   literally so!   
      
   We don't see much of the Macra in The Macra Terror. Which is a good   
   thing, because the Macra themselves are pitiful - and, thanks to some   
   censor clips, can be seen in all their very fake (even by 1960's Who   
   standards) and artificial glory on the Lost in Time DVD set. The   
   oversize, near-immobile Macra were not quite the last straw for the   
   BBC's use of Shawcraft Models - but they certainly sped the way toward   
   the company's dismissal from the BBC payroll, their association with   
   Doctor Who lasting for only one serial after this. Looking at the   
   existing footage of this oversize, unthreatening monster, it's not at   
   all hard to see why. The best thing that can be said for the Macra is   
   that we rarely see them when they aren't obscured by gas and shadows.   
      
   Fortunately, the human monsters are a lot more effective than the   
   mechanical ones. We see the friendly public faces of tyranny in the   
   well-meaning Pilot and the image of the strong, confident Controller.   
   The Pilot is genuinely a decent man, but he is strictly conditioned to   
   obey Control without question. Meanwhile, the end of Episode Two and   
   the start of Episode Three show us the reality behind the Controller's   
   public image: a thin, frail man, seeming frightened and confused as he   
   is used as a puppet by the Colony's true masters.   
      
   The human monsters are rounded out by the sneering Ola, a man who is   
   cheerful largely because his position allows him to abuse his power at   
   will. Ola ultimately doesn't care whether the Colony is in the claws   
   of the Macra. He just wants his own position to be secure. Finally,   
   there is the bureaucratic Officia, who is... Well, he's appropriately   
   named. And everywhere, at all times, the false face of Control stares   
   out from viewscreens, issuing orders which are obeyed without   
   question.   
      
   Though The Macra Terror benefits from an outstanding script, it is a   
   visually weak production. In addition to the Macra themselves, the   
   production design is weak. Sets are bland and generic, and from the   
   existing clips and still photos it seems likely that they were badly   
   overlit as well. The ending is also quite weak, with the Macra   
   defeated by flipping a couple of switches, followed by a tacked-on   
   tag. These issues are balanced out by the strength of the overall   
   story, excellent performances by the regulars, and an above-average   
   guest cast.   
      
   Also of note is the incidental score, one of Dudley Simpson's most   
   effective compositions for the series. Harsh, atonal and machine-like,   
   it creates a jarring atmosphere all on its own, bringing tension to   
   scenes that otherwise would lack it. Of course, the serial is also   
   notable for the introduction of the Troughton title sequence. I love   
   these titles - they vie with the Season 11 title sequence for my   
   favorite of the entire series - but I am glad they adjusted the music   
   after the first two episodes. The Hartnell theme, unaltered, simply   
   doesn't mesh well with the Troughton graphics, and the sequence is a   
   much stronger package after the score has been tweaked to match the   
   visuals.   
      
   A weak production is trumped by an excellent story, further buoyed by   
   a terrific score. Certainly one of the most ambitious stories of the   
   Troughton era, it's also probably among his best... at least, as long   
   as the monsters are kept off-screen.   
      
      
   Rating: 9/10.   
      
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