Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Power of Kroll (Story 102, The Key to Time Series Part 5) (Special Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Power of Kroll, Horns of Nimon, and Meglos... The most underrated shows in Dr. Who. I am reviewing the three of them here as Meglos and Nimon aren't on DVD -or!!- VHS. Sure, the special effects are paper mashe' monsters that stand still for five minutes doing nothing, but if one had half an imagination one could suspend thier disbelief. Dr. Who is not to be watched as a Box Office movie or a deep emotional TV series with heavy serious issues. No, these stories are simply fun to watch. And the stories interesting because they are unique and sometimes surreal. And the enjoyment they bring is the bottom line, isn't it...
Think of the sets as a play. That is how this is done. The opratic costume designs of Nimon and Meglos. Ignor the fact that Kroll looks like a paper mashe'. If you see a play the sets aren't there to be 'realistic' they are there as a simbol of what they represent. I think the monster is quiet good in Kroll if you ignor the fact that special effects are better now than then. People are too spoiled by special effects in shows that I find pale in comparison to Dr. Who as far a story and characters. Star Trek Next Gen, Farscape, Lexx, all a bunch of over-glorified soap opra filler with mush and sex and special FX.
Dr. Who, an entertaining story with beautiful sets, even if they aren't 'realistic' or 'believable'. Surreal is what outer space is all about.

And on a final note: PLEASE RELEASE MEGLOS AND HORNS OF NIMON ON DVD(or at the very least VHS.) Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, and K-9(John Leason) are in both of them. Thank you!

What are you guys talking about? This was the greatest episode ever! Tom Baker's wit powers this episode from beginig to end. If you say that you didn't know that the squid was the fifth segment until the end, then you are a liar! And what do you mean that wasn't a real oil offshore rig (no models here)? Anyway, I recomend this video to everyone--it is essential for any Who collection! GRAHAM WILLIAMS WAS THE BEST PRODUCER THE SHOW EVER HAD!

I'm going to admit to something that may not make me very popular in Doctor Who circles. But here goes anyway. I like THE POWER OF KROLL. Go ahead; call me a sick man, a twisted fan, a Swampie-Lover and a reject from the Sons Of Earth. I don't care what you think. Yes, KROLL may be a outrageously silly adventure featuring some of the most awful special effects imaginable, but it's a story that I have fond memories of. The biggest flaw, and I mean this in all seriousness, is that Kroll completely fails to breathe fire, stomp through downtown Tokyo, or fire laser beams out of his eyes. If only he had, we would have been looking at a near perfect adventure.

Okay, I don't know how anyone on the production team ever thought that they could possibly get away with attempting to realize a sea-monster that's supposed to about a mile across. Doctor Who could rarely even get human-sized creatures looking right, and the result that appears onscreen here is both far better and far far worse than one would expect. Better, because the Kroll monster itself actually looks quite alien and strange. Worse, because whenever this surprisingly good alien creature has to interact with the rest of the story, it does so on the wrong side of a horribly obvious special effect line. The DVD production notes go into detail about what went wrong on the production side, but the long and short of it is that it looks absolutely terrible. It's a pity they didn't realize how flimsy and shoddy the creature effects would being and go completely over to the side of making this a comedy. One imagines that if the production team had tried this a season later, the monster and the Swampies makeup would have looked even more pathetic, but would have been infinitely more entertaining.

Still, while the Kroll monster is a particularly poor effect, one can never watch Doctor Who for its production values. What I like about this one is it's effective use of the Base Under Siege mentality. When I first saw this story, I was a young fanbaby and had no idea that this sort of thing was supposedly a worn-out Doctor Who cliché. I liked it then, and that enjoyment has stayed with me. The few sets and small cast help convey the feeling of claustrophobia. KROLL is just a pure adventure. Running around, avoiding the giant monster, getting captured by aliens, escaping from aliens, etc. It's just simple fun. The only downside to this sort of silly/fun adventure is that Kroll doesn't eat nearly as many innocent bystanders as he could have. Oh well.

POWER OF KROLL works well as a simple children's adventure. Sure, some aspects of the plot carry all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but one shouldn't really expect subtlety in a television program featuring a gigantic, evil, angry squid as the main villain. KROLL appealed to the part of me that enjoys Godzilla films. So what if I'm laughing at it rather than with it? At least I'm laughing.

The DVD commentary lacks the behind the scenes know-how that had been displayed on other discs. Tom Baker and John Leeson don't really remember much about anything to do with POWER OF KROLL, though to their credit they do manage to make an amusing performance. I enjoyed listening to them once, but I doubt that I'd go out of my way to listen again. It's a pity that there are no production staff members on this commentary track; perhaps they could have jogged the actors' memories. Still, even without any actual recollections of the story, Tom Baker manages to bring a laugh, although he did seem to get a little too excited during each of Kroll's onscreen appearances.

THE POWER OF KROLL is a story about a giant squid that made it big and decided to eat a lot of people. Treat it like a cheap monster flick and you can have a fun time with this one. This is pure silly entertainment, and while Doctor Who on TV could often do far more, it's important to consider that entertainment was one of its most important priorities. But just remember what it says on that box. If you know the adventure is featuring a giant, enraged octopus and you go in expecting a detailed, textural, tear-jerking story about Kroll seeking therapy and anger-management classes, then I'm afraid that you're going to be profoundly disappointed. Just break out the popcorn, take a drink every time Kroll eats somebody, and you'll be fine, just fine.

This story is from the age when the Tom Baker era was going downhill, but I'd say it's the best I've seen of the Key to Time season. Okay, so the special effects aren't all that awe-inspiring, but who watches Dr Who for the special effects? The story, involving tribal worshipping of a god who turns out to be an outsized squid-like beast and the invasion of a primative culture, is well-written and entertaining. Tom Baker is at his best, and the final episode is a blast.

Well, with "The Power of Kroll" the Doctor and Romana's quest for the Key to Time segments progresses apace, although some might say this storyline is a step backwards for "Doctor Who" as a whole. Okay, well, it's not perfect, but in some ways it's one of the stronger stories in the Key to Time sequence, and typifies much of what I like in this show.

First off, to address the giant octopus in the room, the special effects used to represent Kroll are, well, less than convincing, true. That said, it's a bit beyond me why this particular effect draws so much flak, when the show as a whole has never been famous for dazzling effects. Clearly the folks responsible for this one got a bit ambitious, sure; still, the Kroll model itself is pretty good, it just doesn't integrate well with the rest of the scene. Today, CGI would fix that right away, of course, but in 1978 that option wasn't available. So it goes, but to blame "Power of Kroll" for the fact that SFX has progressed way beyond it seems a bit unfair.

But why do we really watch "Doctor Who" anyway? For imaginative, thought-provoking, and interesting science fiction stories that are also extremely fun and entertaining, that's what--and "The Power of Kroll" fits this bill nicely. First of all, it demonstrates that key "Doctor Who" strength of suggesting an entire complex environment with historical and cultural depth mainly through deftly crafted dialogue. You get a very real sense of a vast span of different human colonies in space complete with interstellar corporations, resistance movements ("The Sons of Earth") and displaced natives with their own mythologies. Second of all, a key theme running throughout the whole series is very much integral to the plot here, that of science vs. superstition (to put it rather bluntly)--is Kroll a great god demanding sacrifice, or just a big hungry animal? This contrast in worldviews is not just handled through juxtaposing the technologically backwards culture of the Swampies (clearly modeled somewhat on Native Americans and Pacific Islanders) with the mechanistic civilization of the humans, though, but also explored within Swampie culture itself, as tensions increase between the tribe's high priest Ranquin, who can somehow manage to justify any act by Kroll according to his theology, and the younger Swampies who come to increasingly doubt Kroll's divinity and keep asking naggingly inconvenient empirical questions. Indeed, another key strength of this storyline is its underlying moral focus on the problems and issues of colonialism and imperialism in a balanced manner that is insistently ethical without being cloyingly preachy.

Finally, this storyline succeeds admirably as a "Key to Time" installment in ways that the prior two didn't. In both "Stones of Blood" and "Androids of Tara" the whole Key to Time element seemed extraneous, tacked on at the very end or else the very beginning almost as an afterthought. Here, though, it's an integral part of the story, responsible indirectly for the presence of the human colonists and directly for the power of Kroll, and finding it coincides neatly and seamlessly with the climax of the tale.

All of this sounds pretty heavy, but it's great fun, too, with cheesy human sacrifice scenes straight from B movies and paranoid, prejudiced refinery directors you love to hate. Tom Baker is in top form as the Doctor, full of delightfully witty lines (some a bit more sarcastic than usual) and the usual refined silliness, and Mary Tamm has finally hit her pace well as Romana with a few good one-liners of her own (what, are all Time Lords insufferable smart-alecks?). The location shots are fine, too, and it's good to see we've finally moved beyond the gravel pit in this season. All in all, then, this is a very well-written and enjoyable "Doctor Who" adventure, excelling where the show usually does well while dropping the ball where the show usually and understandably stumbles.

P.S. Since "The Power of Kroll" is the fifth storyline in the six-part "Key to Time" saga of the sixteenth season, this DVD is also included with five other DVDs in a box set, Doctor Who - The Key to Time Collection, so unless you have a particular interest just in this one storyline, that may be the better option both in terms of economics and convenience.

Kolner is right! This is one of the greatest Who episodes ever! The Doctor and Romana definitely post some great one-liners throughout the episode. Besides, special effects are no worse than any of the other Who episodes. Another thing, what is everyone's problem with Graham Williams? Alomost all of my favorite episodes(this being one of them) come from his tenure! Anyway this video is a must for any Who collection and I recomend it to everyone!

I can not believe that people will put this episode down, but rate "Robots of Death" at five stars! The special effects in this episode are on par with the other episodes(with the exception of the "The Deadly Assassin"). Furthermore, the Doctor and Romana have some excellent dialog throughout the story. I whole heartedly agree with some of the other more favorable reviews-- this episode belongs in any Who collection! Likewise, I can find no fault with Robert Holmes script nor Graham Williams producing. Anyone who tears down this episode, but still praises one like "Robots of Death" or "The Talons of Weng Chiang" is,in my opinion a hypocrite!

Funny how this episode raises so much like and dislike. Nothing in this episode, however bad, can compare to the candy coated amaturism of the late eighties Doctor Who because Douglas Adams always wrote the best one liners in the show during his stay as script editor. Large rubber tentacles, green stupid aboriginess, an oil rig on a swamp planet and wandering adventures without proper focus....thats all I saw. I agree with the earlier reviewer who said this would be extremely entertaining if it weren't so boring.

This story is worth buying if only for the witty dialogue. Tom Baker's brilliant portrayal of the Doctor makes up for whatever is lacking in production values, and that makes this episode very much worthwhile. The Swampies are a collective metaphor for any race of people that were removed from their native land and placed in reservations or used as slaves. I found it to be a fairly powerful moment when Ranquin the High Priest of the Swampies was destroyed by Kroll, the god upon whom his entire faith was based. And in the first episode, Tom Baker breaks off a reed near the water's edge and procedes to play the final movement to a Bach flute concerto on it!

I'd rather watch "The Power of Kroll" than any of the miserable late 1980's episodes starring Sylvester McCoy.

I can't believe I used to watch such camp. But of course, it was because the weirdness of Tom Baker that made him the most popular Dr. Who to me (David Tennant coming in second).

The dude at the controls of the processing plant flipping switches in no particular order, must have been SOP in TV shows and movies when an actor was placed in front of a myriad of switches. "Just flip a few switches here and a few switches there. Make it look as if you know what you're doing" - must have been the direction given to the actor(s) at a time when computers weren't readily available (or understood) in Hollywood or BBC TV series. Bottom of the barrel "Low Tech"

Those green "Swampies" doing their uncoordinated dance and chanting to Kroll; once again proves that "White Men Can't Dance" (he said tongue-in-cheek). I was waiting for Rick James to pop out of the swamp with a rousing "She's Supah Freekaaay!" The guns that Rohm-Dutt supplied to the Swampies looked like over-sized blow dryers used on "Afro's." I still enjoy watching the old series with Tom Baker (love Romana). Great stuff.