Format: DVD
Warts & All: Missing Background!
Quote: Oh, I suppose you can take the normal precautions against nuclear blast, like, er, sticky tape on the windows and that sort of thing.
Review: Flaws of Axos, more like. A psychedelic palette, some general bizarreness and a choppy sort of pace make this more watchable than it deserves. It strikes me as a case of the writers having a really nice idea and then forgetting to include it in the finished script. Okay, it is in there, but the twist on which the entire thing turns is blown within the first 30 seconds. Surely if you’re having a bunch of ostensibly beautiful golden aliens coming in peace like a lot of aureate hippies wouldn’t it have been better to have the audience hoodwinked too and hold back on your writhing orange tentacle monsters until later? Not only does it not bother to deceive us, the con the Axons try to pull on humanity is rubbish. Listen, mate, we’ve got this miracle stuff, works absolute wonders, and all we want in return is a bit of fuel. The Doctor sees through it right away – but still lets humanity get on with negotiating an inter-species trade deal that he knows is dead dodgy. With such dumbness on display and a thoroughly unbaited and blunted hook, it’s tough to feel totally engaged in proceedings but the story (aside from some oddly laboured scenes with a ridiculous tramp who talks like a Wurzel) does crack along like a particularly colourful comic-strip.
There’s a laudable inventiveness in the design department and the interior of Axos, while short of actually credible because of all the foam rubber puppet-claws (some actors behind the scenes must have had fun groping most of the cast with those), is exceedingly alien and I love the rather leech-like ship that breathes. The HAVOC action versus the Axons is typical UNIT fare and the betentacled monsters are pretty gruesome and scary, especially unpleasant I imagine if you’re sitting down to a spag bol at tea-time. Production-wise, the stand-out flaw – the major wart, as it were – has to be the flat grey backdrop used for episode four’s sequences of Benton and Yates in a Land Rover. It’s like they used CSO but didn’t bother to put any actual background in at all. There’s also a pesky bit of flare on the giant alien eye as it bobs about and causes a bit of bother with the CSO. Stuff that would amount to tiny niggles in an immersive and engaging adventure, but here magnified because of the story’s failings.
Delgado continues to be supreme as the Master and once again we see the Doctor being perfectly horrible towards the man from the ministry, although in this case you do feel Chinn deserves it. But you also get the feeling the show has a bit of a fixation with civil service bureaucrats and ministers at this point. And again there’s a focus on the energy situation, with the UK apparently operating a highly centralised power grid – all through one complex.
Filer from the CIA is a nice addition in that he hints of the international effort to track down the Master, but he is bargain-basement American and his delirious monologue when in hospital is some of the worst exposition ever. Hats off and salutes to the Brigadier, who is particularly great when facing the Master, and I will say the villain’s change of allegiance in this is better handled and more convincing than his eleventh hour switch of sides in Terror Of The Autons.
Overall a bit of a technilurid fairground ride, but like the poor guy flailing inside the orange blob suit on the reactor floor, you can’t help thinking there’s something better in there struggling to get out.
