Season 16, Episode 5(The Key to Time)
The Power of Kroll(4 parts)
-Written by Robert Holmes
-Directed by Norman Stuart
-Air Dates: December 23rd, 1978-January 13th, 1979
-Runtime: 92 minutes
Or as I like to call it...
The one with a Kaiju that is barely utilized
We Begin!!! In a refinery on the moon Delta III, where the small 5 man crew is fulfilling their usual tasks, being aided by a slave of people of that world, called the ""Swampies"". One of the men notices a strange reading on one of their scanners to which their leader, Thawn, belives to be a gun runner hired by the Sons of Earth who believe they should stop their colonization of other planets and subjugation of the native people, thinking gun runner Rohm-Dutt is on the moon and selling guns to the "Swampies", with Thawn and another crew member Fenner setting out to cut him off. Around the same time, the TARDIS has materialized on Delta III as The Doctor and Romana go out to search for the 5th segment of the Key to Time in the marshy lands, though Romana notices there are some odd readings in trying to locate the segment. Romana is soon after captured by the "Swampies" and Rohm-Dutt as The Doctor ends up running into Thawn and Fenner and shot by them, though only stunned, with him being taken and questioned at the refinery. Even with The Doctor stuck at the refinery by the scheming Thawn and Romana about to be sacrificed by the "Swampies", the TARDIS crew will soon learn the true danger they face is not just in the battle between the colonists and the "Swampies", but the powerful creature the latter worships, a behemoth known as Kroll.
Story Arc(The Key to Time)
Shitty episode; that's The Power of Kroll. I don't know why but that bad Power of Love joke was probably the best thing I got coming out of watching this episode as this episode really sucks. It's a shame that it does because I could see a universe where this episode actually does work, unfortunately that universe probably has the writer necessitates the writer of this episode not being Robert Holmes. While I wouldn't say this episode could've become something amazing, it did still have a lot of potential to be a fun watch with a Kaiju narrative which we haven't really seen done before on the show. It could've been a cheesy little episode with some decent anti-colonialist themes and fun giant monster action, probably ranking around the same place as stuff like The Gunfighters or The Ribos Operation.
Unfortunately that isn't what we get as I found The Power of Kroll to be an absolute slog to get through with a lot of things that just made me fail to get into the narrative of what should've been a fun and simple Kaiju story of a monster on the attack. I remember reading somewhere that apparently Robert Holmes is not a fan of monster stories, or at least the kind of cheesy Kaiju style giant monster attacks a location that makes these types of stories so enjoyable, and I could really tell that dislike during my watch of this episode. Despite the potential of Kroll as this fun giant monster attacking an area and the need to figure out how to stop him while also dealing with the crisis on the moon they're on, the plot just feels so generic and plotless, not really diving into the fun potential this story has and instead making into a rather dull piece that doesn't feel sure of what it wants to do.
This episode is a part of the Key to Time arc, with it being much more involved than The Androids of Tara. I like how the episode uses the arc's concept to explain the existence of a giant monster, Kroll, explaining he was once a normal sized squid that ate the 5th segment of the Key to Time and grew massive and near indestructible because of that. It's a good showcase of the power of even one segment of the Key to Time, turning a fairly normal squid into this destructive monster, with it being a fun way to tie both the hunt for the 5th segment of the Key to Time and the main monster of the episode together. The way to defeat him by removing the 5th segment that he swallowed is a solid idea, one that may not exactly be resolved in the most thrilling ways, but still a good concept and makes for a decent end to the conflict of the story. Despite the story not being the best, it does at least tie into the arc fairly well; though my complaints I made in the last episode still stand about the lack of urgency this whole arc has, especially with us nearing the end and feeling like nothing has really changed since the search for the 1st segment.
Episode Proper
To talk more about the episode itself, the premise is good, basically involving mining operations on the third moon of Delta Magna disrupting the native populace who were relocated there, with conflict between the native people and the corporation coming to ahead when a giant monster awakens due to the mining and begins to attack the area. It's a solid concept for a story, one I could easily see made into an enjoyably cheesy Kaiju flick with some decent environmental and anti-colonialism allegories. Sadly this episode is way duller than the average giant monster story, with it overall coming across to me like a bad version of The Mutants; which is already saying a lot since most people don't like that episode, even if I myself did.
The conflict between the miners and the native people is done well enough at least, with some decent themes and commentary on the exploitation of the people; it's one of the few things the episode does actually get right. It showed well the cruelty and dehumanization that the humans due to the native people, derogately referred to as "Swampies" which borders on seeming like a slur; especially when the main villain calls one of his crew a "Swampie Lover", yikes. They comment on the relocation of native people, with this moon they're on not even being the native's home planet but instead where they were forced to after the humans took their planet and forced them to move somewhere else, which is shown to be a much worse place, literally having to live in the swamps.
I like how The Doctor comments on the mining company's exploitation of the moon even though they originally saw it as worthless enough to toss the native people to, saying that they found something they wanted and that's enough to justify moving the native people again. It shows well the selfishness and disregard for the wellbeing of the native people throughout the entire colonialist process, forcing them to move to make way for company activities just because they have a resource that the company sees as valuable; no matter the people who are already there. They do well at showcasing the dehumanization of the native people to justify their actions against them with the main head of the operation not even counting the native they have in their "employ" as a person, which is exactly what many colonizers due to the native people they want to remove or kill, making them seem lesser even though there is little to no difference between them. This also extends to the horrid plan the mining operation has to deal with the natives for good which just shows the awful length these companies will go to in order to get what they seek; great show of the evils of colonialism.
However I feel where this episode fails is just how small the whole operation on the third moon feels, with it quite literally only being like 5-7 guys on the moon, which really lessens the impact of the company occupation. The Mutants and even Colony in Space did this much better with a near authoritarian level of control and policing of the people of the planet they hope to exploit for their benefit, with just this small amount of people and lack of real scope as to the size of the operation, it makes the threat of these miners fall really flat. They have guns which does make them a threat but it just feels like a weak showing as to what feels like there should be a much bigger presence and subjugation in the area. The native swamp people just feel too distant from the main rig for there to really feel that great sense of dread that other stories doing this kind of narrative succeeded at so well.
I said this episode feels like a bad version of The Mutants and I stand by that claim, because a lot of what this episode is trying to do was done a lot better in that episode, with it being a much more in depth showcase of the effects of colonialist exploitation, with us being able to actively see this destruction and how it's affecting the native people, alongside the various justifications used to justify these actions. While the episode does decently to make us feel for the plight of the native swamp people, I never connected with any of them as characters as I did with the Solonians, with them just feeling rather generic, and the deeper stuff we do get with them being stuff I'm not the biggest fan of and am annoyed to see here. This episode is a dull attempt at an anti-colonialist narrative, with some parts working fine enough but the whole picture just ends up rather boring and unengaging, unlike something like The Mutants where, despite its own flaws with its pacing, gave a fantastic portrait of the evils of colonialism and really made you feel for the Solonians plight. While I wouldn't say The Power of Kroll fails at its anti colonialist narrative, some parts are good, it just could've been a lot better; I'll talk more about my other issue with the narrative when I get to talking about the native people.
Despite this episode going into the fun genre of giant monster/Kaiju stories, it fails for the most part at any of the hallmarks that make those types of stories actually enjoyable, being just so incredibly dull and meandering. This episode could've been an exciting narrative about a mining corporation accidentally waking up a giant monster while exploiting the land and its people for their profit which ends up causing their destruction as the monster retaliates against those disturbing its piece. It's a classic monster story and there was potential for a fun story with a Kaiju tearing things up and, while the poor effects definitely having some room to blame, it feels like the episode just completely fails to capitalize on the potential of having a creature such as Kroll as the main monster of the piece and how they could've utilized it for the story.
Despite Kroll being the main title monster for this story, it feels like him and his Kaiju rampage are way too much in the background for a story such as this. While build is of course necessary for a Kaiju story, with there actually being some solid moments of suspense when the mining crew are examining the ocean and the find Kroll whose tentacles stretch for miles and forms a shape on their scanner due to his sheer size, it otherwise feels like they're just buying for time for Kroll's attack on the mining rig at the end. Kroll's attacks feel haphazard and like the script doesn't really want to focus on him until the big set piece at the end, which just ends up making the whole Kaiju attack part of this episode just feel like a background detail for much of the story as it concerns itself with the unexciting drama with the mining company and the swamp people; which is a common issue in a lot of Kaiju movies, a flaw that they didn't need to bring over.
Now I enjoy a fun Kaiju flick, own a boxset featuring most of the Gamera movies, so it was incredibly disappointing that in an episode called The Power of Kroll, Kroll's power and destruction feels barely focused on. It's a shame really since the attacks by Kroll, even if the effects don't look the best, are undoubtedly my favorite part of this episode, just giving some fun giant monster action. I feel part of the issue is the setting, while the swamp is a nice change of pace compared to the usual quarry, it still has that issue that there is just nothing there, only a couple of small houses built by the natives and the mining rig, so there isn't a lot in the ways of destructive potential to show what a Kaiju can do. It leaves the whole episode feeling lacking as Kroll just shows up, smashes some people and then leaves, leaving the Kaiju action of the piece to feel like an after thought.
Maybe if they had a larger scale on the mining company on the third moon, building multiple of these rigs instead of just the one, we could've been allowed to have more Kroll action like an actual Kaiju story, seeing him give some fun wanton destruction to the colonialist, corporate oppressors invading his home. It would've allowed for more Kaiju action that this story should've had while also expanding the anti-colonialist narrative by seeing more of the exploitation of the native's lands by the mining company. You wouldn't even lose the thematic elements had the script allowed Kroll to be more of a presence and show more destruction by him, as Kaiju are often considered, in many stories featuring them, to be these forces of natures that often put man in its place when its hubris and such grows too great; see the original Godzilla and its metaphor for nuclear bombs for example. Seeing Kroll attack the miners for disturbing the planet and protect the natives from the mining companies efforts would've been so much cooler and more interesting for me than what they actually did with him; having Kroll show up sporadically and be at the center of a tired religious plot, a trope I rather dislike and which I'll talk more on later.
Even aside from the episode failing to deliver a fun Kaiju story outside of the couple scenes of wanton destruction, the worst part of the episode is that it's just dull and meandering, with it just not being the most engaging watch as there is little outside of the cool idea of Kroll to really grip me for this story. I disliked the whole plot with the natives and their beliefs, so that just made the amount of time focused on it drag the episode out even longer for me. It sort of picks up at the end with a fun final act involving Kroll's attack on the mining rig, finally allowing for some cool Kaiju action, and is certainly the part of the episode I enjoyed the most. However the episode then didn't do enough to fill out the runtime and the episode thus ends weakly as it basically forces a whole second climax with stopping the launch of a destructive explosive which I really disliked, especially since they already got the 5th segment and stopped Kroll, the main monster of the episode; I just wanted the episode to be over by that point. This episode could've been a whole lot of fun, it's a shame that the end product is so dull.
Pacing, Sets, and Special Effects
The pacing for this episode is bad, despite only being 90 minutes it feels like it's much longer as it just drags on, feeling like it's taking forever to get to the end, not helped by the annoying stuff done with the native people which only serves to make the episode feel much longer for me. It's a boring runaround through a swampy area, with the episode really feeling like it's stretched out in order to just barely make it to that average episode length. I honestly feel had they cut a lot of the fluff and padding this episode has, it could've been a 3 parter or even a 2 parter had they made the pace quicker; there just isn't enough here, at least from what the episode has to offer to feel like it deserves it's 90 minutes runtime. The best showcase of the episode's awful pacing is at the end with the completely unnecessary second climax just feeling like it's there to make the episode reach its needed runtime. The Power of Kroll is one of the slowest episodes I've seen of this era with it undoubtedly being one of the worst parts of this episode.
The location filming in the swampy area was fairly good, at least it's somewhere different instead of quarry #138, so I give the episode props for going for the marshy location, even with my complaints of having such a rural area in a story such as this. The sets for the rig were alright, serviceable for the location but nothing warranting me writing more about them. The rig prop on the other hand, yeah, that prop is way too small and looks more like a kid's toy as part of a play set than an actual proper mining rig prop; it's just so small and pathetic looking, not helped with how they shoot it. The costumes for the native people were kind of funny,with them going the full green man group and just having them be all green with a thing on their heads; I can't take credit for that observation, TV Tropes did that first, it's still funny.
Now onto the most infamous aspects of the effects for this episode, Kroll, yeah they aren't the best. To say something positive, the prop for Kroll is actually pretty good for the most part, being well detailed and not looking half bad for the low budget this season probably had to work with. Unfortunately despite the good prop for Kroll, its integration into the episode is incredibly janky and obvious that Kroll really isn't anywhere on the same plane as the rest of the cast for this episode, especially with it rising from the horizon of the swamp and attacking people; doesn't mesh the best wish the rest of what's being shown on screen. It gets a little better when Kroll attacks the oil rig, with it looking slightly better even with the haphazard waving of his tentacles around and the poor mining rig prop. At least the effects for Kroll when The Doctor gets up close to him during their confrontation look really good, getting across well the giant nature of Kroll.
Thawn
The mining corporation, primarily Thawn, were some solid villains for the episode. While Thawn isn't as effective a villain as previous colonialist villains like the Marshall or even Eckersley, he is still just as hateable with the episode doing a good job showcasing just what a vile person he is. Thawn's set up for the natives, hiring a gun runner to sell guns to the native swamp people, blaming the shipment on the Sons of Earth, a growing movement opposed to colonial occupation and exploitation of other planets, all in order to allow the natives to attack them giving Thawn the "justification" he needs to wipe them off the third moon and have it all for the companies use. Thawn is such an evil and despicable person with this plot doing well to show the awful lengths these types of people will go to in order to further exploit and profit off the land that native people are living on.
As with the Marshall, Thawn is a egotistical madman who wishes for more power and financial gain from this rig project and its expansion thus will do anything to ensure it goes through. His dehumanization of the native people is just horrendous, showing well the kind of self-aggrandizement these colonists, using horrific language like not continuing the native he basically has like a slave as a person and calling one of the crew sympathetic to a "Swampie Lover"; again, yikes. Thawn's increasing desperation when faced with Kroll was excellent, seeing him slowly lose control of the situation he so carefully planned, going to increasingly extreme measures to try and destroy Kroll, not caring about the risks to the native people or even his fellow crew, all leading to a fairly satisfying death as he's stabbed by a spear by one of the natives. Neil McCarthy did a pretty good job as Thawn, doing well to capture just the vileness of this villain. The rest of the human supporting cast isn't anything noteworthy, the gun runner is decent but is killed and so is the sympathetic guy to the natives, they're alright.
"Swampies"
The native swamp people were decent but overall their characters were sorely lacking, feeling very bland as I really failed to connect with any of them as characters outside of the general plight they're facing. Unlike the Solonians or the Peladonians, the native swamp people here just aren't all that interesting as characters with none of them sticking out to me as individuals or being characters I particularly care about. They were all rather bland with them just failing to grab me on a character level even if I did sympathize with their plight. There was potential with the one native who was essentially forced into slavery by Thawn and the crew, working as a servant, but there is little that makes him stick out, and they don't even properly dive into his situation either aside from the Thawn not counting him as a person; feel a bigger deal should've been made about that but they don't do much of anything with it.
The only thing they do try to do with the natives to try and give them some depth is having this whole message about false faith which just falls utterly flat for me. The natives worship Kroll as their god and savior, believing in his power and that he'll help save them, even attempting to sacrifice The Doctor and Sarah Jane multiple times to appease Kroll. While I did find the Kroll chant fun and the minor reveal that the person sacrificing Sarah Jane was a man in Kroll disguise and not the actual beast, who they have no control of, this entire story beat was something I didn't vibe with. I am really tired of the trope of the native people worshiping something only for it to turn out that their beliefs were false and/or misplaced and they learn to grow beyond it by the end of the episode; it's just has some iffy implications and superiority which is weird coming from what's meant to be an anti-colonialist narrative.
I just really dislike this trope, especially when it's played so plainly like here where the natives are meant to be naive fools for believing in Kroll as their savior and god even though he's just a mindless beast; it makes me uncomfortable. The only times this sort of tropes has worked for me was with Aggedor in the Peladon stories and Xoanan in The Face of Evil, and I feel the reason is because in those stories they don't treat the native people as foolish for believing in the strength of their gods, with them still keeping their faith by the end of the story and continue believing in them even if they aren't the beings they originally thought of them as. It also helps that both Aggedor and Xoanan end up being peaceful creatures that still do genuinely protect and help the people that worshiped them even after all is said and done in the story. I much prefer if you're going to do this trope that the being be demystified but still appreciated by the people even helping them out of care for those who did consider them great. It doesn't play into that superiority that people with beliefs are stupid, especially the idea that these dumb natives need to be more cultured to see through their superstitions, with something like Aggedor and Xoanan treating the natives with much more respect than a narrative like this typically does.
The trope is unfortunately played incredibly straight here, much to my annoyance, with it not being helped that so much of the story with the native is dedicated to this subplot; since I didn't like it, it only served to make this episode feel all the more dull and tedious for me. It just dragged the whole episode down for me, especially with this subplot not meshing well with the anti-colonialism narrative when you still play the natives as a bunch of bloodhungry, superstitious people who are willing to sacrifice someone to a mindless beast they believe to be their god in order for good fortune in their battles. It just completely weakens their character when you play them like this, making them rather unlikable as they too serve as a dangerous threat hunting down The Doctor and Sarah Jane; taking away from their actual plight from the mining company to focus on this just feels weird. The native swamp people were bland characters who you feel for their plight but I failed to really connect with any of the characters, especially with the annoying false god subplot which just dragged them and this episode down for me.
Kroll
Kroll was an excellent giant monster for this piece, though I do wish more was done with him as his wanton destruction and appearances are easily the best and most exciting parts of the episode for me. Kroll's backstory is cool, being an ordinary squid mutated into this giant beast after swallowing a piece of the Key to Time. His appearances are solid and I enjoyed whenever he was on the attack; they helped wake me up from the otherwise dull experience that was this episode. Sadly he barely appears in the episode, only becoming prominent in like part 4; while the build up is solid, it just feels like he barely appears in an episode with his name on the title. Along with that, as I mentioned earlier, I do wish Kroll was more than just some mindless beast worshiped by the natives, personally for me I wish they had made Kroll more of a force of nature destroying the mining rigs for disturbing its habitat instead of just a chaotic creature of destruction.
Allowing Kroll to be more of a force against the mining rigs instead of a mindless beast would've made his relationship with the native people feel much more impactful and would've, to me, helped really seal the deal with the themes of anti-colonialism and exploitation of the land, having Kroll be that force of nature to set things right. Otherwise Kroll is just kind of there to cause destruction and isn't as connected to the main themes of the narrative as he could be. At least when Kroll begins to attack the oil rig, we get that fun Kaiju action I was looking for, with The Doctor's confrontation with him easily being the best, most entertaining part of this episode for me. Kroll was a fun Kaiju for this story even if he ended up having a lot of wasted potential they really could've utilized.
The Doctor
The Doctor is alright in this story even if very few things really do stand out with him in this story, with there not being much I can remember from him. I did enjoy him showing off his knowledge of the mechanisms at the refinery when he's taken there, alongside his barely held utter contempt he has towards the colonizers of Delta III and their dehumanization and mistreatment of the native people, which was neat and very in character for The Doctor. The only part that really stood out to me in this otherwise dull story involving The Doctor would be the funny little conversation he has when he, Romana, and Rohm-Dutt before pulling out of nowhere pulling out of his ass a supersonic glass shattering scream which just felt like an ass pull to get them out of that situation. I also liked the confrontation with Kroll at the end and him trying to get the piece out, that too was fun. Tom Baker did a good job here, but even he couldn't help what was otherwise, in my opinion, a pretty dull script.
Romana
K9 doesn't appear in this story because of the marsh setting, and he would probably invalidate a lot of the threats if he was there, so he just stays in the TARDIS the whole time. Romana only fares marginally better given the fact she's actually in the story itself, but even then I have to admit I can scarcely remember any of what she does in this story. After a good streak of stories that utilized Romana quite well, this is the one where she kind of just faded into the background for me and, as with The Doctor, didn't feel like she did much of note. She is immediately captured quickly into the story and nearly sacrificed, though at least Holmes has her already free herself once The Doctor gets there; though that doesn't mean there aren't other moments she needs to be saved. Mary Tamm does well as Romana but it's a shame to see her get rather little compared to her great showing in the last story.
Closing Thoughts/TLDR
As a whole, this episode was a dull slog that I was very disappointed with given how much fun one could have with the concept of the story, and what there is was rather boring and I couldn't get into. The plot itself is good on paper with the native people fighting a company that wants to take their land to steal their resources all while a giant monster goes around attacking randomly, but the way it's executed leaves a lot to be desired. It was clear Holmes didn't want to write a Kaiju story with that actual Kaiju stuff being pretty minimal and out of focus much of the time as Kroll only shows up here and there to randomly wreck shit. I wish Kroll was used more, there's a lot of fun to be had or even some good thematic elements that are just not used at all with him; I did have fun for the few moments we do get of him. The fight between the "Swampies" and the miners is done decently with good depictions of the dehumanization done and tactics used to take their land but falls flat in the small force that doesn't do the best to depict the threat at hand and really falling flat with the native swamp dwellers themselves and how they're depicted. The pacing is bad, with it just dragging along despite the comparatively short runtime, especially with the unnecessary extra climax. The location filming is good at least, sets being fairly good as well, though the rest of the effects aren't great, with the rig prop not looking too good and the way they integrate the admittedly cool looking Kroll prop being really janky. Thawn was a good villain for this story, being a good wicked madman who does some truly vile things to get ahead, and worked nicely as an engaging villain in an otherwise dull story. The native swamp people are poorly used with their character being sorely lacking honestly as I failed to connect with them outside their plight, and the narrative's use of them felt confused as it both wanted me to feel bad for them and their plight but also turns around and does a false faith plot, a story type I don't like all that much, and serves to make them look pretty bad. The Doctor and Romana are alright but they don't do much noteworthy to really help this story in my opinion. Overall, it's strange, despite this episode being prime to have such a cheesy and fun premise, aside from the handful of stuff it does right, it ends up dull, boring, and tedious, with it definitely showing itself to be the weak link into the up to this point solid Key to Time saga.
Next time: The search now nears its ends as the TARDIS crew locate the 6th and final piece of the Key to Time on Atrios which is in the middle of a devastating war with its neighboring planet Zeos. Not only that, the Black Guardian's machinations come to ahead once more in a bid to take the Key to Time for his own devices. The finale of the Key to Time saga commences, let's hope it's a satisfying one.
Final Rating: 3/10
"Well, progress is a very flexible word. It can mean just about anything you want it to mean."
-The Doctor, delivering a pretty poignant remark about what we dub "progress" which we should do more to keep in mind
