Random TV Serial Review - Doctor Who: The Macra Terror (Season 4, Serial 7)

 

It's been a long time since I last reviewed individual episodes of a show (excluding one off specials of course), but with Doctor Who, you can kind of get away with reviewing each story. I mean apart from the revival where every story is self-contained (unless split into two or more parts), the classic series is different. You see every story was split into parts and most of those stories in their entirety were each released on home media as opposed to having a complete season released that would've had all the stories together. A bit complicated I know, but there is probably a good reason for this. I mean some were released as a compilation and others did in fact make it into a complete season boxset. Of course most of them have been released on DVD, but there is something quite special about having anything to do with Doctor Who on Blu-Ray. Of course the quality is better, but you also get some additional bonus features that you would otherwise not get on DVD. It's also great for those missing stories where parts have been recovered because it lets the BBC re-create the story in a new medium such as radio and animation. In the case of The Macra Terror, the entire story was re-created with animation in the place of what would've been the filmed portions to go with the surviving audio and that's what we will be reviewing today. The Macra are perhaps not the most well known of the Doctor's adversaries, but anyone who has watched or read the adventures of the Tenth and Twelfth Doctors who have heard of them at least once. So let's take a look:

In this story, the Doctor (voiced by the late Patrick Troughton) alongside companions Ben (voiced by the late Michael Craze), Polly (voiced by Anneke Wills) and Jamie (voiced by Frazer Hines) visit a human colony in what looks like the future and off Earth. At first, the place appears to be a truly happy place until they learn of how the colony's so-called "Controller" (voiced by the late Denis Goacher) uses ways to get people to do as "he" sees fit. It's up to The Doctor and company to figure out what's going on and free the people from the terror that lurks within.

The first time I saw the Macra in the Tenth Doctor episode "Gridlock", I didn't think much of them. But this classic serial shows how dangerous they are even if they have had fewer appearances than the more well known and equally terrifying Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels and so on. I don't agree with manipulation personally and this serial shows the consequences of that. It's also not the first Second Doctor story that I have seen, but it is a good one. However, if you plan to buy the animated version, make sure to keep the sound down as it can get quite loud in places. 8/10