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The TARDIS arrives on the unnamed planet of the Gonds, who are ruled and taught in a form of self-perpetuating slavery by the alien Krotons — crystalline beings whose ship, the Dynatrope, crash-landed there thousands of years earlier after being damaged in a space battle. The Krotons are in suspended animation, in a crystalline slurry form, awaiting a time when they can be reconstituted by absorption of mental energy. Periodically, the two most brilliant Gond students are received into the Dynatrope, nominally to become "companions of the Krotons", but in truth to have their mental energy drained, after which they are killed.
CinemaSerf
May 22, 2026 · via TMDB
Flushed with success from their last adventure, the team arrive on a planet that's inhabited by the enslaved "Gonds". These folks spend much of their lives awaiting to be chosen by their gods so they can enter through a doorway from which they never re-emerge. Well, that is except for the fact that the "Doctor" (Patrick Troughton), "Jamie" (Frazer Hines) and "Zoe" (Wendy Padbury) just happen to espy what exactly does happen to their glorious chosen - and suffice to say there's not enough left to trouble the coroner. It doesn't take the "Doctor" long to upset the equilibria between master and servant and between servant and servant, and thanks to some scheming from "Eelek" (Philip Madoc) to usurp the hereditary leadership of leader "Selris" (James Copeland) there is soon a discord amongst the "Gonds" that could provoke the anger of their mechanised bosses. To be fair, the wheelie bin hadn't been invented in 1969 so that can't really claim to be an inspiration for the robots who rule the roost and who turn their prey into a soup suitable for a "Kroton". The rest of this is, though, all a rather pedestrian affair with a tribe of C-lister supporting talent adding little to any sense of jeopardy that Troughton might have managed to make from their tin foil nemesis. It wasn't unusual for theses stories to condense the denouement into ten minutes, but usually there was just a little more beforehand than we get here with this and I could have done with a little more of Madoc and his Machiavellian plotting too to help pad it out a bit better in it's earlier stages. It isn't terrible, but smacks a little of tired actors, writers and production creatives who just needed a break from the routine.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
Patrick Troughton
The Doctor
Frazer Hines
Jamie McCrimmon
Wendy Padbury
Zoe Heriot
James Copeland
Selris
Gilbert Wynne
Thara
Philip Madoc
Eelek
Richard Ireson
Axus
Roy Skelton
Kroton Voice
Brian Hodgson
Special Sound Effects
David Maloney
Director
Peter Bryant
Producer
Brian Hodgson
Original Music Composer
Delia Derbyshire
Theme Song Performance
Terrance Dicks
Script Editor
Robert Holmes
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