Dr Who — Season 4, Serial 7: The Macra Terror — A Review

16th April, 2019.

Yeah, I’m right, aren’t I … ?

I really do need to work on my phrasing for those intro videos.

“Crabs,” may well be an accurate description of what I’ve just seen tonight … 

But does sound just a little … you know … camp … !

Oy … !

~≈§≈~

But let me at least tell you exactly why we’re talking about crabs at this time of night.

You see … I’m something of a fan of Dr Who: and have been for a while.

So … ?



With a little cash to spare from the recent sale of a tablet, I had just enough cash to treat myself: to the 3 disc version of the ‘lost’ Patrick Troughton story, The Macra Terror.

Yes: I know I’ve been watching series two of Westworld, just recently.

But vintage Dr Who?   Is something I fell I had to watch … 

~≈§≈~

This cut of The Macra Terror opens with the TARDIS in deep space above an unnamed planet: and viewing the ship’s Time Scanner, to see their immediate future.

Seeing only static … and a menacing claw.

It’s not long before the team land on an unnamed colonial planet on Earth’s distant future.

A colony … 

That’s mining a mysterious gas … 

and that’s run in a a way that makes Airstrip One seem tame.

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) is curious about the place: as is Jamie (Frazer Hines).   Polly (Anneke Wilkes) is quite as wary: whilst Ben (Micheal Craze) … 

Is soon hypnotised when the team are given quarters to rest in, by the Pilot (Peter Jeffrey).

It’s only then that Medok (Terence Lodge) is paraded before his fellow colonists — warning, Cassandra like, that the colonists are being menaced by hideous, evil things* — that the Doctor realises there is a reason the colonists are kept under curfew.

Something wants them out of the way … 

~≈§≈~

Now … 

What did I make of this little lot … ?



Keep in mind it’s getting late, here: so bare with me:

Firstly, the story, itself?

The Macra Terror?

Is actually quite something.

I know 1960s Dr Who was aimed at a family audience.

So I wouldn’t necessarily have expected sophisticated.

For all parts of it are aimed at younger children?

The Macra Terror ALSO has a setting that, with it’s manipulated population, and Big Brother like Controller is also reminiscent of Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four.



And, with cheerleaders, over-happy singers and rampant sleep teaching?   Picking up where Brave New World left off.

Definitely one for the literati.

On top of a dystopian setting … ?

On top of that dystopian setting we have an adventure story that makes for quietly entertaining viewing … 

But viewing that possibly puts the blame in the wrong place: we never actually find out quite how the colonists come to be in this situation were the Macra are in charge.

It’s entertaining, The Macra Terror.

~≈§≈~

On the technical side?

On the technical side, the actual look of The Macra Terror is superb!

I couldn’t tell you exactly how animators, Sun and Moon, researched the original show.

But, in line with earlier such episodes?



The company would have been able to reconstruct the visual look of each episode from the pre-existing tele-snap reconstructions that fans and professionals have made.

The audio component on the other hand?

Are from audio recordings made by fans, at the time of original airings: and reconstructed by Mark Ayres†.

I THINK he may have had trouble with The Macra Terror.

I don’t know if I’m the only person who noticed it … but it seemed to me that Ayres has used the best possible audio sources he could find for each given bit of dialogue.

Meant — from what I could see — that parts of it didn't quite match up.

Don’t get me wrong, the audio — over all — was perfectly acceptable: but parts were noticeably echoey, others, quite tinny, still more perfectly acceptable.

Like I say, over all, perfectly acceptable: and not detracting from the quality.



But it did seem as if The Macra Terror had three to four different audio sources: that Mark Ayres maybe had to struggle to sew together.

~≈§≈~

There’s possibly one or two other things.

I caught Shada, last year: the famously uncompleted Tom Baker story.

And, at the time?

Found the fact that what was a six episode reconstruction had been edited together into — effectively — a one hundred and forty eight minute movie, very unsatisfying.

That’s something that’s not been done for The Macra Terror: it preserves the episodic format that the story would have originally been seen in.

The other thing that caught me?

Was simply the format.

I got the three disc blu-ray version: with two blu-ray disc containing colour, and black and white, versions of The Macra Terror.

And with an extra disc that contains a copy of the David Tennant episode, Gridlock: the only other episode to feature the Macra.

Frankly?   That standard definition episode of Gridlock — and it’s accompanying standard definition episode — of Dr Who Confidential — occupy a third blu-ray.

That content?

Occupies some six and a half gigabytes of a twenty-gigabyte blu-ray.

I know blank blu-rays are getting cheaper … but that seems a waste of a blank blu-ray!

~≈§≈~

Now … overall … ?

Overall, there’s flaws to The Macra Terror.

And good points.

But from where I’m sitting … ?

You’re not going to be wasting you money, buying The Macra Terror.

*        It’s Nineteen-sixties Dr Who.   Hideous, evil, monstrous things that dwell in the darkness and WANT TO KILL ALL OF US … are one of the basics … 

†        Mark has cropped up in the DVD/blu-ray extras for earlier episodes: happily discussing audio aspect of the reconstructions.   He uses a Mac.   I like him already.