Review of The Power of Kroll (#102)
DVD Release Date: 03 Mar 09
Original Air Date: 23 Dec 1978 – 13 Jan 1979
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana I
Stars: Tom Baker, Mary Tamm
Preceding Story: The Androids of Tara (Four, Romana I)
Succeeding Story: The Armageddon Factor (Four, Romana I)
It’s been my impression that The Key to Time as a whole is generally considered by fandom to be pretty good stuff. However, The Power of Kroll, the penultimate installment, frequently gets brought up in “worst of” conversations (and truth be told, its immediate successor The Armageddon Factor is often not far behind).
So what makes this story so dodgy? It had been long enough since I’d last seen it that my memory was pretty sparse. Vague impressions of a city-sized plant-monster and the religious fanatics who worshipped it were enough to give me pause, but I girded my metaphorical loins and pressed “Play.”
Within minutes, it was clear that I’d forgotten a great deal indeed. To begin, there was John Leeson in the flesh. (As his metallic canine persona was marooned in the swamp, I can’t help but wonder if his contract required him to appear in a certain number of episodes, and this is how that got fulfilled.) More importantly, there was a “Swampie” butle-ing for the colonizers in the refinery. Oh, and Kroll is meant to be some sort of giant squid, not a plant-monster (I was clearly confusing the creature itself with the vines that would contract during the ritual by which the Doctor, Romana, and gun-runner Rohm-Dutt were to be executed by stretching them on a rack).
Another key fact I’d forgotten, and somehow managed not to notice again until I started Part Four, was that this story was written by Robert Holmes. Holmes is upheld by many fans, especially those of A Certain Age, as one of—if not the—all-time greatest writer for the show. And yet, here we are. Granted, the instant I realized this was one of his scripts, a lot of things started to make more sense; Holmes never shied away from letting his personal worldview take center stage in his scripts.
Both sides of this conflict—personified on the colonizer side by Thawn, the highest-ranking individual at the refinery, and on the native side by Ranquin, the high priest of Kroll—have over-the-top problematic attitudes. Thawn is greedy to a fault and doesn’t give a shit about the lives of the native people that he sees as less-than-human. Ranquin is blinded by the power of his position and works really hard to make events fit into the framework of his faith, rather than allowing his faith to evolve (or break). Neither is particularly concerned about the well-being of anyone under their command as they pursue their goals.
Thus on some level, there’s some meaty stuff to grapple with in this story. So why is it so… well, I hesitate to label it as outright “bad,” but it ain’t good! I think this may be a case where the production values really let the story down. The creature itself does nothing for me; I find it more laughable than frightening. The natives are painted a ridiculous shade of green that is sometimes inconsistent across a single actor’s body. The rack where our heroes are supposed to be stretched to within an inch of their lives makes no sense, especially when you consider that there’s a height difference of some ten inches between the Doctor and Romana. It’s just hard to take the story seriously when so many of the trappings are dodgy.
Then there are the somewhat subtler issues. For example, we first hear the natives—the original inhabitants of Delta Magna, resettled to this moon—called “Swampies.” The term is clearly derogatory, and we hear them refer to themselves several times as the People of the Lakes, yet throughout the story, the Doctor continues to use the slur without batting an eye. That sits poorly with me.
Something else that grated on me was the fact that in the entire damn story, the only female character anywhere was Romana. We don’t even get a glimpse of another woman, despite the fact that the People of the Lakes supposedly have an entire settlement (for Thawn to try to destroy, and Kroll to succeed at). It’s been a common problem in sci-fi for decades, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
And speaking of Romana, I can’t help but feel sorry for Mary Tamm. It’s no wonder she decided to leave the role after a single season; the character as written here is almost vapid—a far cry from the equal to the Doctor she was promised. For example, Romana is tied up as a sacrifice to Kroll for the cliffhanger at the end of Part One. You can just tell poor Mary is Not Into It™ by the lack of enthusiasm in her screams. And who could blame her?
Worse, Romana comes off as utterly clueless throughout, not picking up on half the things the Doctor does. Yes, she’s supposed to be learning practicalities from the Doctor to complement her academic prowess, but this is the fifth segment of the Key to Time they’ve collected—she’s not that naïve anymore.
The part that especially rankles, in my mind anyway, comes at the end of Part Four. [Spoiler alert] When the Doctor goes off to confront Kroll, holding the Tracer in the air as he leaves, Romana turns away with a thoughtful, confused look. Even if she hasn’t put all the pieces together for herself before this point, there’s no way she’s too dull to figure out Kroll is (or has?) the segment with that last hint almost literally waved in her face. It’s frustrating to see such a fabulous character reduced to passing the Doctor things and telling him how brilliant he is.
So on the one hand, perhaps the reputation of Kroll is undeserved—there’s some serious, if blatant, social commentary there, and a plot that actually mostly makes sense. On the other hand, it’s pretty hard to sit through yet another story about a bunch of nasty men being terrible to each other while the Doctor is smugly clever at them, and the effects not only don’t stand up to but actively detract from the story.
I’m afraid that for me, anyway, this one’s still a Fail.
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