290 The Claws of Axos: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Claws of Axos: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 290
STORY NUMBER: 057
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 20 March 1971
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - the Claws of Axos - Special Edition
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"All over, Brigadier. No further concern of yours. Agreement has been reached. Britain has the world rights to Axonite!"

The Axons attempt to convince Jo she suffered a hallucination due to being near their power source. Chinn negotiates with Axos for worldwide distribution rights for Axonite and then, using emergency powers granted to him by the minister, has all Unit staff arrested. The Doctor is released to aid Windsor in his testing of the Axonite. The Axons duplicate Bill Filer and send him to fetch the Doctor. The Master negotiates his release, but Axos retains his Tardis. He journeys to London to bring the Doctor's Tardis back with him. Filer escapes and saves the Doctor from the fake Filer but in doing so is arrested and locked up with Unit. The Doctor runs an experiment on the Axonite which Windsor interferes with and is killed, setting off an alarm that allows the Brigadier, Jo & Filer to escape. The Doctor realises Axos, the Axons & Axonite are all one being. The Axonite sample is absorbing all the energy from the nuclear power plant and duplicating itself. The Doctor & Jo are surrounded by tentacled Axon monsters.

Must resist urge to punch Chinn..... Deary me one self seeking idiot seemingly fouling everything up.

There's every indication his superiors think the same thing of him too:

CHINN: Minister? Will you scramble, or shall I, sir?
MINISTER: Just your report, Chinn. I'm sure that will be quite garbled enough.
CHINN: Yes, sir. Well, as I anticipated, we are having a certain amount of trouble with these UNIT people, sir.
MINISTER: We, Chinn? We?
CHINN: Well, I am, sir.
MINISTER: Are you quite sure you can handle this matter, Chinn?
CHINN: Oh, yes, sir, yes, of course! Er, about the special powers, sir?
MINISTER: Because if you are not, just remember, it's your head on the block, Chinn, not mine. CHINN: Er, about my request, sir?
MINISTER: Special powers have already been granted. Do your best to keep me informed, old chap. After all, you are our man on the spot, Chinn, in more ways than one!

Chinn then tries to keep as much as the pie as possible for Britain:

CHINN: All we ask is your guarantee that the sole distribution right to all Axonite materials be vested in the British government.
AXON MAN: To bring the greatest possible benefit to all Earth peoples, Axonite distribution must be worldwide.
CHINN: I think I can give you that assurance.
AXON MAN: In that case, all that remains is for me to hand over samples of Axonite for your investigation to begin.
CHINN: Thank you.

And, having been annoyed by the Brigadier last episode looks to sideline him, initially with little effect:

BRIGADIER: Mister Chinn? What's been going on here? I warn you, you have no authority.
CHINN: All over, Brigadier. No further concern of yours. Agreement has been reached. Britain has the world rights to Axonite.
BRIGADIER: Not as far as I'm concerned.
CHINN: I'm warning you, Brigadier.
BRIGADIER: I'll take that, please. Thank you. Right, shall we go? Doctor, Miss Grant. After you, Mister Chinn.

Unfortunately Chinn's taken very drastic measure to ensure UNIT is put out the picture here:

BRIGADIER: What's going on here, Yates?

YATES: Regulars suddenly took over, sir.
BRIGADIER: Took over?
YATES: We couldn't very well open fire on them, could we, sir?
BRIGADIER: What about the rest of the men?
CHINN: They've all been arrested, and so, Brigadier, have you. If you will excuse me.
(Chinn takes back the Axonite from the Brigadier.)
BRIGADIER: You have no right.
CHINN: On the contrary, I have every right. You're all under security arrest under the Emergency Powers Act.
BRIGADIER: Captain, this is an illegal act.
HARKER: I have my orders, Brigadier.
BRIGADIER: I must tell you, Mister Chinn, I shall make every possible attempt to warn the UN.
CHINN: Captain, I want all these men put under twenty four hour armed guard. They are to see no one, no one at all. Do you understand? If you need me, I shall be with Sir George.

The real irony, as we'll see, is that in the overall scheme of things Chinn's actions probably help save the world!

Windsor's a bit of an idiot too for someone who's supposedly the chief scientist at a power point as the manner of his death demonstrates!

We liked the Axon eye on a stem that talks to the Master, a decent effect unfortunately flawed by some dodgy CSO that causes the background to be seen through it occasionally.

Lots of the cast in this story are familiar to us from Doctor Who and other television programs. Donald Hewlett,playing Hardiman, becomes a regular player in David Croft & Jimmy Perry sitcoms appearing as Colonel Charles Reynolds in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Lord Meldrum in You Rang, M'Lord? However he also has a regular role in the David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd sitcom Come Back Mrs. Noah, which isn't so fondly remembered, where he plays Carstairs.

David Savile previously played Lt Carstairs in The War Games: of all the guest cast in that story he's in the most episodes of this story appearing in the first nine. He later returns as Colonel Charles Crichton in The Five Doctors. Before Doctor Who he's had some experience with science fiction appearing in the first season Out of the Unknown episode The Counterfeit Man as Gerry. This episode survives and can be seen as part of the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He also appeared in the film version of Quatermass and the Pit as an Army Officer and plays a hospital doctor in the UFO episode The Man Who Came Back.

This is the television debut for Tim Piggott-Smith, playing Captain Harker, who'll return as Marco in The Masque of Mandragora. He's been in a large number of prominent TV and film productions.

Bill Filer is played by Paul Grist who's also been in genre shows such as Blake's 7: Gambit as Cevedic and Survivors. An online acquaintance of mine believes they've spotted him in Space 1999 as an Eagle Pilot.

Actually what function is Filer playing in this story that couldn't have been filled by giving his part to Captain Yates?

Easy to spot a couple of the show's regular stuntmen in this episode: the UNIT Soldier guarding Axos, and falling foul of the master is Stuart Fell.

Meanwhile the driver that fall's under the Master's influence is Nick Hobbs.

The Master hijacks the UNIT lorry at St Martins Plains Camp, an MOD site near Folkstone. The bridge he jumps from onto the truck carries the railway into Folkstone.

A quick bit of prop spotting: In Windsor's lab is our friend a the panel from the ICT 1300.

We've previously seen it this season in the Satellite Dish Control Room in Terror of the Autons, controlling the Keller Machine in Mind of Evil and then as part of the control system for the Thunderbolt missile later in that story!

289 The Claws of Axos: Episode One

EPISODE: The Claws of Axos: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 289
STORY NUMBER: 057
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 13 March 1971
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - the Claws of Axos - Special Edition
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Axos calling Earth. Fuel systems exhausted. Request immediate assistance. Immediate assistance. Axos calling Earth, Axos calling Earth!"

UNIT has been joined by Horatio Chinn, MP, who is conducting an enquiry into the organisation, and Bill Filer, an American agent pursuing the Master. A spacecraft is sighted entering Earth's atmosphere, which Chinn orders destroyed. The Spacecraft teleports itself out of harm's way and buries itself in a beach close to the Nuton power complex. A local tramp is passing by the ship and investigates, being seized by it and drawn in. Chinn takes charge of the situation, sending Filer away. However he drives to Nuton and investigates, being captured by the ship and imprisoned with the Master. Unit arrives, and joined by Sir George Hardiman and Professor Winser from Nuton they investigate entering the ship and encountering the gold skinned Axons who wish to trade their miracle replicating Axonite for fuel. The Doctor is suspicious that they didn't use the Axonite to make more fuel. Benton & Yates find the rapidly decomposing body of the tramp near the spaceship. Jo, who has entered the ship by herself, is confronted by a tentacled alien emerging from a wall.

Oh look, it's the Master, what a surprise!

Now I've got some previous history with Claws of Axos: I never liked the book and was never grabbed by watching it on video and DVD. But watching this first episode there's a lot to like. Both aliens, the gold skinned Axons and tentacled monsters look fab, and there's some great design work inside Axos, the Axon ship, combining studio set and CSO.

No my problems with this story mainly spring from the inclusion of the most annoying character in Doctor Who - Horatio Chinn played by Peter Bathurst. Chinn's the sort of annoying and officious character that belongs more in a sitcom than in Doctor Who, I look at him and think "how did you get to such a position of power?" As a throw away character like the tramp, and I'll get onto him in a second, he might have been OK but Chinn's visible right the way through the story. I didn't realise it but I'd seen Peter Bathurst before: he was Governor Hensell in The Power of the Daleks and he's completely different here which proves he could act. In fact discovering that Bathurst was Chinn too put me right off Hensell in Power of the Daleks for a bit!

Outside of Doctor Who Bathurst had previously previously played Barnaby in the Out of the Unknown episode Andover and the Android, sadly one of the two missing episodes from the show's first season, and would appear in three episodes of Terrance Dicks & Barry Letts' Moonbase 3 as the Director General: Departure and Arrival, Achilles Heel and Castor and Pollux.

Then there's the tramp, Pigbin Josh, played by regular stunt man and leader of the HAVOC stunt team Derek Ware. Exhibit A in any "Doctor Who does bad Yokel characters" enquiry. Fortunately he's swiftly dispatched, though the initial version of his body decaying was a little longer and more graphic before a white out was used to excise the end of the effect.

The full scene can be found on the DVD along with the extended versions of many other scenes, several of which involve Ware's character.

Bernard Holley is the golden Axon Man and he was previously Peter Haydon in The Tomb of the Cybermen. He'd already been in the now missing Out of the Unknown episode 1+1=1.5 as a TV Announcer and would later appear in the second series of The Tripods as The Power Master. From my childhood I can recall him in the Children's educational series Eureka produced by former Doctor Who vision mixer Clive Doig and alongside future Doctor Who actor Sylvester McCoy. More recently you may have seen him as the Chief Constable in A Touch of Frost who has a liking for the rogue Inspector. You can hear him interviewed by Toby Hadoke in Who's Round 41.

As to the rest rest of the Axon Family, the Axon Boy, John Hicks, was a Quark in The Dominators, Patricia Gordino in the Axon Woman and Debbie Lee London the Axon Girl.

Making her second and final appearance as Corporal Bell is Fernanda Marlowe .

One of the Radar operators, Michael Walker will return as Miseus in The Time Monster.

The other David March can be seen in Survivors as Bates in Garland's War and can be heard in the Captain Zep - Space Detective episode The Lodestone of Space.

I'm pretty certain the sequence of the missiles launching shown on the monitor is the same footage used ad nauseam in the Invasion.

As with most third Doctor stories a fair amount of location work was involved. In fact there's only two Pertwee stories without any location work... Filming for this story took place in Kent near to the Dungeness Power Station. Unfortunately filming in early January proved to be subject to interference from the weather and a snow shower intervened, ruining the continuity between consecutive scenes on location, Terrance Dicks was forced to deploy for the first time a future Doctor Who staple: Episode one features the d�but of the all purpose get out "Freak Weather Conditions". Now in January you'd expect snow to be a risk. But April? Come back for The Dæmons in a month and a half to see more snow in the 1971 Doctor Who season.

The scenes of Pigbin Josh on his bike were filmed at Dengemarsh Road on 4th January 1971.

The next day the film crew were on Dungeness Beach for the scene with Josh wandering through the boats.

The day after they moved to nearby Dungeness Road for the scenes involving the entrance to the spaceship and the UNIT vehicles arriving.

Two day after this episode was broadcast Public Enemy, the 13th & final episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1.

288 The Mind of Evil: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Mind of Evil: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 288
STORY NUMBER: 056
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 06 March 1971
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mind of Evil
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using chroma dot recovery

"Don't forget he's got that rocket full of nerve gas. He can point it at any city in Europe!"

The Brigadier shoots Mailer saving the Doctor. The Keller machine breaks it's bonds but is restrained by the presence of Barnham, who has no negative impulses left in him. The Master escapes during the fighting and returns to the aircraft hanger ready to launch the Thunderbolt missile. The Doctor bargains with the Master offering him his dematerialisation circuit back in return for the Master leaving. The Doctor takes Barnham and the machine with him as an insurance policy, but Barnham is killed by the escaping Master. The machine is destroyed when Unit detonates the missile on the ground. The Master phones the Doctor to confirm his survival and gloat.

MASTER: Ah, Doctor. I was afraid you'd be worried about me, so I thought I'd let you know that I'm alive and well.
DOCTOR: I'm extremely sorry to hear that.
MASTER: I made the safety of my Tardis which, thanks to your generosity, is in perfect working order.
DOCTOR: So, we won't be seeing you for quite some time.
MASTER: Not for quite some time. But one day, I will destroy this miserable planet and you along with it. Goodbye, Doctor. Oh, by the way, enjoy your exile.
JO: What did he say?
DOCTOR: His usual threats.
JO: Never mind, Doctor. You've beaten him.
DOCTOR: Have I, Jo? He's got his Tardis back. He's free to come and go where he pleases, while I'm stuck here on Earth ..... with you, Brigadier!

The start of this episode is a long, LONG reprise of the action sequence from the previous episode with Unit storming the prison, omitting how Mailer took Doctor hostage and jumping to Jo's escape attempt which allows us to see that the shot wasn't fired by Mailer, it was the Brigadier killing him.

We're then treated to the joy that is acting prison governor Benton (what happened to the real Governor?)

BRIGADIER: Right, Sergeant Benton. You'll be in charge of the prison. You can consider yourself Acting Governor.
BENTON: Thank you, sir.
BRIGADIER: Oh, Benton?
BENTON: Yes, sir?
BRIGADIER: Don't get any delusions of grandeur, will you?

It genuinely throws The Master when he rings to talk to the Doctor:

BENTON: Acting Governor Benton here.
MASTER: Who?
BENTON: Stangmoor Prison - Acting Governor Sergeant Benton here.
MASTER: I see. Er, would the Doctor be there by any chance?
BENTON: I'll see, sir. Who's calling, please?
MASTER: Er, just say it's an old friend.

Then there's the bargaining between the Doctor and the Master.

MASTER: Oh, Doctor, do I gather that the tables have turned somewhat at Stangmoor?
DOCTOR: You have gathered correctly. In spite of what I've said, do you still intend to fire that rocket on London?
MASTER: I most certainly do!
DOCTOR: Well, that would start a world war.
MASTER: Exactly! And then later when this planet is in ruins, I shall take over.
DOCTOR: I see. Aren't you forgetting something?
MASTER: Am I, Doctor? What?
DOCTOR: The dematerialisation circuit from your own Tardis. You can't leave Earth without that, can you.
MASTER: Are you offering me a deal?
DOCTOR: I am. Hand me back that rocket and I'll return your circuit.
MASTER: That's very generous of you.
DOCTOR: Leave Earth. Stop bothering us. Go somewhere else and be a nuisance elsewhere. Well, what do you say? Well?
MASTER: Right! But you will bring that circuit to me here at the hanger. You and you alone. At the first sign of treachery, the first sign of interference from your UNIT friends and I launch the missile immediately.

As we were watching the sequence, the Master sunk to the floor in thrall to the Machine, Liz said "Don't let Barnham walk by the machine" at which point he promptly did, weakening it's control and allowing the Master to escape.

To then see Barnham mown down by the escaping Master is quite horrible.

You see little of his previous self in episode one so for the most of this story he's been presented as an innocent. Somehow for him to die, purely because he has the power somehow to restrain the Keller machine and is persuaded by the Doctor into using it to help him, seems really rather wrong.

The missile used in this story is a real missile: a Thunderbird 2 SAGW missile from the 36th Heavy Air Defence Regiment who were based Horseshoe Barracks in Shoeburyness, Essex. Soldiers from the regiment appear as The Masters mercenaries and assist in the storming of the prison scenes.

The helicopter meanwhile looks very familiar. There's similar models in The Invasion, The Silurians and Ambassadors of Death but at least one of these has a different registration, G-AWFL, whereas the one here is G-AWLC! Looking them up online both registrations are for the SA-318C Alouette II Astazou model.

The end of the episode treats us to a nice big explosion, out first in quite a while, when the missile goes up taking the hanger with it. It's a nice piece of special effects but a more memorable explosion will follow later in the season.

Like the Silurians, Ambassadors of Death, Terror of the Autons & The Dæmons this story was shown in colour in the USA and recorded onto domestic video tape. Unfortunately the person who recorded it taped over it, allegedly with an American Football match, so that only three brief colour clips from the start of this episode survive: The storming of the prison through to the Brigadier rescuing the Doctor, in he Governor's office and the Master returning to the hanger. These are found on the end of the BBC video release of this story.

I loved Mind of Evil as a book, released in 1985 & adapted by Terrance Dicks. It was one of the last Pertwee stories to be released as book with just Ambassadors of Death & Time Monster following it. It's also the latest released Doctor Who book that I borrowed from my local library. I've enjoyed it on previous viewings as a black & white recording from UK Gold and the BBC Video. However it didn't grab me so much when I watched this for the An Episode A Day Blog, Perhaps I was expecting it to be just like Inferno, the writer's previous Doctor Who story which I now find is hanging like a shadow over those that follow it. Somehow that time it didn't push the right buttons for me which worried me somewhat as I didn't have either of the next two stories down as ones I liked which meant this was looking like a particularly down patch of stories.

Since then of course the DVD was released on 3rd June 2013 and I can finally see the story in full colour. I probably saw it twice on release, once as a story with Liz and once by myself with the commentary on - Mrs Ayres does not like commentaries - but haven't returned to it since until now. I'm struggling to see what was wrong with it last time I watched and wrote about it! I'm not watching it just four days after Inferno, which helps a lot as anything is going to pale by comparison after that, but thematically Mind of Evil feels more like one of the season 7 stories than the later Pertwee seasons, and feels a bit more realistic too.

Doctor Who Season 8, containing this story, is due to be released on Blu Ray on March 8th.

Two day after this episode was broadcast The Logicians, the 12th episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1.