Season 4, Episode 7 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 11 March – 1 April 1967 | Writer: Ian Stuart Black | Director: John Davies
Cast
- Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
- Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon
- Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield
- Terence Lodge as Medok
Summary
The TARDIS arrives on a colony planet governed by an unseen and unquestioned authority known only as the Pilot, where the population’s forced cheerfulness masks a sinister truth: giant crab-like Macra secretly control the colony by night, feeding on the toxic gas mined by hypnotised human workers. The Doctor and his companions must break through the colony’s relentless propaganda to expose the Macra’s hidden rule before they too are absorbed into the system.
Interesting Facts
- This serial is entirely missing from the BBC archive, with only a handful of short clips and the complete audio surviving; a full episode was among those never recovered.
- It is notable for its early exploration of mass-media conditioning and manufactured happiness as tools of political control, a theme unusually pointed for the series at the time.
- The story marks one of the last appearances of a fully realised alien monster menace before the Second Doctor era shifted toward more overt “base under siege” formats.
- Writer Ian Stuart Black had already contributed to The War Machines and would go on to write The Savages before this serial.
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