The latest Classic Doctors, New Monsters set has once again created a two-parter but split the parts across two different eras of the Doctor, in this case the Second and Seventh, so in order to cover the story as a whole I’m linking them together with the Seventh Doctor template, but Part 1 is still all Troughton, so to speak. The Krillitane are an interesting concept in that that keep adapting themselves all the time, stealing things from other species in packs, so no Krillitane grouping is ever the same, visually or power-set-wise, so it’s nice to see them appear here (even if the visual on the cover has them looking exactly the same as their TV appearance, but I can forgive that as it’s kind of the point of the set…) Let’s take a look!
“The Krillitane Feint” is set on a research base where experiments are being ran on the Krillitane in an attempt to manufacture the perfect soldier by ironically harvesting their ability harvesting powers. The base is extremely remote so it comes as something of a shock when The Doctor (Michael Troughton), Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) essentially knock on their doors and ask to be let in. The Doctor pretends to be an inspector from back home, something Colonel Mant (David Carlyle) is willing to accept, for now anyway, though other members of staff like Helier (Amber Grappy) aren’t so sure. We’re treated to some “these creatures are too dangerous to keep locked up” scenes, setting up their eventual escape, and some “Doctor and his companions are being watched so they speak in code but Jamie doesn’t catch on immediately” scenes as well. It’s all pretty standard stuff, until the big twist. Now normally this is the kind of thing I’d save for the Spoiler Section, but given it directly ties into the second story of this two-parter I have to talk about it, so if you want to go into the whole story unspoiled then maybe listen to Feint first, then read this review?… or something like that. Anyway…
So the twist comes when The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive outside the base again and ask to be let in, confusing the Colonel until he’s told by The Doctor that they were jumped shortly after landing on the planet by three Krillitane who have at some point harvested the ability to shapeshift, meaning the three in the base were in fact Krillitane, Sadly for all involved it’s too late to stop them from opening the pens and freeing their “brothers”, and while Colonel Mant manages to kill the Jamie and Doctor Krillitane he’s killed along with nearly all the staff. Helier lives long enough to initiate the self destruct sequence, leaving the actual Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to head back away from the base and eventually head back to the TARDIS after a rather brief adventure, from their point of view! What the listener finds out though is that the Zoe Krillitane survives, which leads us to the Seventh Doctor era and “The Krillitane Relic”.
The Krillitane hanging off the TARDIS is a good bit imagery, even if it doesn’t happen in the story (not that this cover for all four stories needs to do that, obviously…)
The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ray (Sara Griffiths) from the serial “Delta and the Bannermen” for some reason arrive on a space station and encounter the head of security John Sloan (Colin McFarlane), the leader of the station Catherine Peacock (Sheila Hancock) and most importantly in The Doctor’s eyes Zoe for the first time in a long time, but he’s surprised to find out that she doesn’t remember him at all, as even accounting for the Time Lord’s memory wipe she should still remember their first encounter on the Wheel. This causes The Doctor to want to stay on board despite there being nothing else seemingly at fault going on, barring an important visit from some higher ups, at least until the duo are freed and find the corpse of a random guard and eventually Catherine, all mysteriously killed by claws…
It’s a fun twist on a two-parter, having a linked villain that’s in disguise as a companion/old companion, and works well. I’ll admit it doesn’t end in a very exciting way, but I’ll get to that in the spoilers, but it’s still a good double bill!
The Continuity:
The big one is the Krillitane themselves, whose only TV appearance comes in the Tenth Doctor story “School Reunion”. Whereas Ray, as mentioned, comes from early Seventh Doctor story “Delta and the Bannermen”, how she ended up travelling with The Doctor is not yet known. Funnily enough Sara Griffiths was nearly selected as a companion at the time, before Sophie Aldred got it, so there is a nice little nod there.
Overall Thoughts:
This double bill is good fun, it uses the Krillitane’s unique set up for a bit of a Zygon-like story, but hey, it still works. Connecting the Second and Seventh Doctors is a fun one too, it’s only really the pretty generic ending and just suddenly having Ray as a companion with no explanation that threw me a bit.
Basically Zoe lets the higher ups land despite the crisis and its revealed that the ship is full of Krillitane who want to use the space station as something of a breeding ground to assimilate and take the appearance of top Earth people. Sadly they see Zoe as the titular Krillitane Relic and kill her for not being part of their more advanced clan, so that was kind of a waste of a fun character, The Doctor didn’t even see it to get a reaction out of him… Ah well, The Doctor, Ray and Sloan manage to eject them all into space and save humanity, as our titular Time Lord tends to do, vanishing with Ray into the TARDIS and leaving Sloan to deal with the mess. Not a very interesting ending, especially with the Zoe Krillitane right there for some good drama!
Hogan Reviews 