434 – Doctor Who – The Macra Terror

Another exciting missing episode of Doctor Who is returned to the back catalog via animation.  Simon and Eugene discuss the Second Doctor adventure, the Macra Terror. Episode Synopsis:  On an Earth colony world a man, Medok, causes a scene during practice for a celebration. He’s seen creatures in the colony at night. His cries are branded as hallucinations but he runs away before they can restrain him. He is inadvertently captured by the Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben who are thanked for capturing the dangerous man and taken back to the colony as guests. Everyone there is very cheerful and works very hard. But the Doctor has his suspicions and wants to talk to Medok. He releases him from captivity. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] That night, the Doctor finds Medok outside after curfew, the encounter the Macra, giant crab-like creatures. They are recaptured and Medok naively believes they’ll have to believe him now. The leader of the colony is the Pilot, but he is overseen by “Control” an unmoving photo of a face on view screen. Rather than get the Doctor in trouble, Medok lies to the Pilot, telling him that the Doctor was trying to convince him to surrender. Medok is sent for rehabilitation. Control orders the Doctor and gang to be subjected to hi-power adaptation while they sleep. Only Ben is weak-willed enough to be overcome by the insidious brainwashing and turns the Doctor in for sabotaging the equipment. Polly leaves, trying to get away from the traitorous Ben, but she encounters the Macra. Ben finds her and helps her escape, but when they return to the pilot and try to corroborate the Doctor’s tale that there are Macra, Ben denies the Macra exist.  They convince the pilot to show them the “real” controller, not just a photograph on the screen. When Control allows it, it is the same man, but ancient. A broken wreck of a man willing to do anything his unseen captors tell him. The Doctor,Polly and Jamie are sentenced to working in the gas mines, and the voice of Control makes everyone else forget what they saw. The meet up with Medok, who is also in the mines. He protects the Doctor by getting him assigned above-ground work in the control room. The Doctor agrees so that he can find a way to cause mischief. In the mine, Jamie escapes down a forbidden tunnel. Medok attempts to follow him but is killed by the Macra. When Ben betrays Jamie again, gas is pumped into the tunnels to incapacitate Jamie. The gas also serves some other, sinister purpose. The Doctor reverses the gas flow, just in time to save Jamie, but he and Polly must escape down another forbidden tunnel, where they find the Control room – filled with Macra running the colony. The Macra needs the poisonous gas to survive. Gosh, if they’d needed poisonous gas to survive, we could have just given them all our car pollution! Escaping and then returning to see the Pilot again, the Doctor convinces him to go see what he’s discovered. Control go crazy, deposing the Pilot and demanding their capture. After the Pilot sees the truth, they are trapped in a tunnel, with the gas being pumped in. Ben regains his senses when his friends are in danger and, with the Doctor’s coaching, causes a gas explosion, killing the Macra. The colony is saved. The Gang escape the planet before the Doctor can be named the new Pilot.  [/expand]