The Claws of Axos
review

Holistic Review: A great race of monsters and a well-portrayed moral manage to keep it afloat, but this story suffers from many of the common Pertwee-era problems.

The Claws of Axos is another of the few Pertwee stories that I liked as a child. I'm not really sure why I liked this one, in particular, although I strongly suspect that Axos in its various forms was a big part of the reason. If that really was the case, then the same holds true today. The Claws of Axos has some pretty big flaws, but the entertaining and thought-provoking menace of Axos almost solely rescues it.

There's a lot to like about Axos. The notion of a living organism that wriggles through space, burrows into suitable host planets, infects it and then sucks it dry is very appealing. It makes Axos seem like a cross between a tapeworm, a puffball and a vampire, three things I would not want to have close encounters with. If Axos merely hunted on instinct, it would be scary enough, a sort of unstoppable biological menace. What makes it clever, rather than just scary, is that it's intelligent, and it propagates by tapping into the greedy nature of its hosts. Axos counts on the fact that the natives of its target planet will be so enthralled by axonite that they will willingly spread it around the world, in time for Axos to strike and drain the life out of everything the axonite touches. This also introduces a great moral message, which is depicted very effectively in this story: if a gift horse seems too good to be true, maybe you should look it in the mouth, rather than letting your greed overwhelm your common sense. The really nice twist in this story is that the humans turn out to be so greedy that they nearly scupper Axos' plans, by keeping the axonite all to themselves and not spreading it around the world fast enough for Axos' purposes.

Aside from its vampiric nature, Axos is also portrayed in a very creative way. I really like the idea of a shapeshifting organism that can manifest itself in numerous forms: the inert "mineral" axonite, the humanoid Axons, their reverted monstrous tentacled forms, and the spaceship as a whole. It's a nice concept that they (it?) can merge or split off at will. This story also takes full advantage of Doctor Who's recent transition to color, by turning the Axon ship into a riotous hippy-dippy orgy of color, as the warm oranges and yellows and reds of Axos' interior are combined with crazy whirling overlays and flashing colorful lights to signify everything from Axos' telepathic communication to Axos aging someone to death. Thank goodness those NTSC color recordings were found, because a black-and-white Axos would have been a much less interesting place. Every scene inside Axos itself is at least visually interesting, even when nothing much is happening.

The script is very clever to keep us guessing at first about whether Axos is genuinely friendly, or a hostile menace in disguise. Given that this is Doctor Who, it doesn't take much guesswork to figure out what the correct answer will be, but we get lots of red herrings (Axos asking for help, welcoming the humans aboard, offering axonite...) in addition to the real clues (the Axon monster lurching around the ship in a very early reveal that gives the game away, and the fact that Axos seems to eat Pigbin Josh). But Axos' request that it be allowed to refuel in exchange for something the humans want seems perfectly reasonable, and you can envision them building a story around the humans' misuse of this well-meaning gift. Had the production team instead gone with one of the other working titles (The Friendly Invasion or The Vampire from Space, in particular), we would have been immediately sure that the Axons were evil, so changing the title was a smart move. (Besides, "The Claws of Axos" is one of my favorite Doctor Who story titles... and I would have felt so cheated if The Vampire from Space turned out not to have any actual vampires in it.)

In terms of making Axos unique and interesting, I love the idea of a ship that doesn't just land on the ground, it buries itself into the ground (we'll get a similar ship in Destiny of the Daleks in about another eight years). Maybe it gives me creepy Invaders from Mars vibes. That movie freaked me out. The design of the door is also interesting, the way it unfolds like the petals of a flower (but I do wonder how Pigbin Josh manages not to be impaled on one of the sharp points, as Axos drags him in on his stomach!). The tentacle that emerges to snatch people also looks really creepy, even though the tendrils on the end don't seem to be holding on very tight (maybe they're more powerful than they look). Their ability to convert energy from one form to another probably could have been utilized more, but we do get scenes of Axos absorbing power, the dire warning that it will soon convert all life on Earth into fuel, and apparently they can use this technology to clone people, which is pretty cool if perhaps a bit mystifying.

As monsters, the Axons seem pretty scary, and the scenes of them rampaging and attacking people are definitely effective (although, more on this when I discuss UNIT below). They seem a little inconsistent, though — sometimes their touch puts you into a coma, sometimes it discharges energy like a small explosion, and sometimes it blows you to smithereens. Does it depend on how much they like you personally? But I love the fact that they can launch their tendrils at things, to attack you long-range.

It's a good thing that Axos really is at the heart of this story, because unfortunately it's about the only part of this adventure that really works. Beyond the inventive story idea, the plot itself is a little on the thin side and, as usual in the Pertwee era, even a four-parter like this gets stuffed with padding. Off the top of my head, there are three issues that really hurt the story, two of which are common almost to the point of ubiquitous in the Pertwee era, and the third of which is just inexplicable and rather unforgiveable.

No prizes for guessing that my first issue with this story is UNIT. I think my general feeling about plot elements is that they really should be essential to the story, and if they're not essential, they at least have to be fun or otherwise atmospheric. UNIT usually manages to be neither, in my opinion. All it is, is an excuse to write lots of boring scenes involving military protocol and orders being given, and — most especially — an excuse for staging lots of long fight sequences. Which are okay in theory, but you know what I've decided? Monsters are scary when the characters are running away from them. Monsters are much less scary when the characters grab a weapon to defend themselves. Why is that? I think it subtly shifts the emphasis of the scene. If you're just trying to survive and escape, the emotion is much more raw, and the only thing you have to be terrified of is what the monster can do to you. If you're armed and dangerous, then it's more a question of: can you get the monster before it gets you? what if you miss? what if you injure yourself with the weapon? what if the monster gets the weapon and injures you with it? And, in what cool way will the fight scene be staged? For example: Ace struggling with haemovores on a church roof is more viscerally scary than Ace brandishing a slingshot at Cybermen. In either case, she could be killed. But on the roof, we're thinking "how will Ace escape?" and with the slingshot, we're thinking "look how clever she is, and how cool will this fight be?" This situation gets even worse when it's not just companion-versus-monster(s) but rather group-of-armed-soldiers-versus-monster(s). In that scenario, you've got a whole bunch of armed people, which lessens the chance that the monster will successfully attack anybody, and if it does, then it's probably going to be someone we don't care about and maybe have never even seen before. To take another example, for my fellow Buffy fans who may be reading, what was Joss Whedon's mantra during the first season? If you want the audience to get involved, put Willow in danger. Why? Because Buffy can handle herself, with or without weapons. Monsters may be scary, but we're generally pretty sure that Buffy (or Ace, or Leela...) will vanquish them. Willow, on the other hand, is defenseless (at least during the first season), so when her life is threatened, it's scary, and if she manages to get out of the situation, it's either because she's been rescued or done something terribly clever that will make us whoop with joy.

So, for me, UNIT at its best is usually nothing more than "let's watch a really cool gunfight that will fill out the running time of this episode". I guess these battle scenes just happen so often that it feels like a rut. Now, UNIT has tons of potential; as an organization outside the government that investigates alien incursions, it could have been a really cool cross between The X-Files and Torchwood. Or, another way to put it: Torchwood is UNIT done (mostly) right, except that Torchwood is a much smaller and less military organization. But if UNIT would apply themselves to investigating and defeating alien menaces, instead of just charging them with guns, I think it would be a lot more interesting. Maybe the reason UNIT only ever goes in guns a-blazing is because the Doctor is taking care of all the investigation/defeat stuff, so what else do they have to do? What we get here is lots of Axons on the rampage, annihilating some UNIT redshirts and otherwise stoically enduring a hail of bullets. If we even had some scenes of the Axons attacking innocent people, or stalking the Doctor and Jo, it might have been more effective.

And you really get no prizes for guessing that my second beef is with the Master, Mr. Ubiquitous himself. What possible purpose does he have in this story? He spends practically the entire time as a prisoner of Axos or skulking about behind the scenes. It seems to me that he does three things. First, he brings Axos to Earth, which is utterly unnecessary as a tiny rewrite could have had Axos targeting Earth all by its little self. Second, he comes up with the plan to cripple Axos, which could have been important except that they had to write the Doctor out for an entire episode, being interrogated by Axos, to give the Master the chance to come up with this plan and implement it. Third, the Doctor uses the Master to trick Axos, but the Master ends up actually being a liability, because once he finds out what the Doctor's really up to, he goes straight to warn Axos. So why did we need him in this story? Answer: as usual, we didn't. Actually, I take that back. The one thing he contributes is the ability to pilot the TARDIS to Axos; without him, the Doctor most likely would have been stranded on Earth, so tricking the Master in order to reach Axos was actually a pretty clever plot development that almost justifies the Master's presence in the entire plot. But not entirely, because surely they could have come up with another way to defeat Axos besides a time loop (which seems pretty severe).

But the worst misstep of the story is the fact that poor Jo need not have been in it at all, for all the good she does. It is a fact that in the entire course of the story, Jo does not one single useful thing. She's so underused that she hardly even gets any lines at all; most of the scenes that she's in just involve her standing in the background looking interested, or possibly screaming at something. Let's break it down by episode, and look at how many lines she got, and in how many scenes she was allowed to speak (note that I've only included the number of scenes in which she actually says something, not all the scenes in which she only appears in the background):

episode # lines # scenes lines per scene story arc
1 11 7 1.6 Meet Bill. Get left behind. Sneak out anyway. Look for Bill.
2 20 6 3.3 Worry about Bill.
3 6 3 2.0 Get captured and taken to Axos. Get aged nearly to death. Escape.
4 28 8 3.5 Watch people doing things. Get attacked and scream. Worry about the Doctor.

Is this not amazing? Jo is allowed to speak in between 3 to 8 scenes per episode, and she averages 1.6 to 3.5 lines in each scene, which is practically nothing. In part 1, Jo gets several opportunities to speak up, like when the Doctor leaves her behind with "Jo, I'm sorry, not this time.", but she never opens her mouth; apparently she does speak her mind to Yates, but we come into the scene too late to hear any of it except Yates' response: "It's no good going on at me, Jo." To reach her total of 11 lines (and one meaningful glance with Bill Filer), she had to essentially repeat "Bill? Bill, where are you?" three times. In part 2, most of her lines are frontloaded, and concern her insistence that Bill Filer is aboard Axos. Part 3 is even worse than part 1; although she gets a slightly more central role (being aged nearly to death), the whole rest of the episode she's in captivity offscreen. Her only lines come at the very beginning (4 of them) and the very end (2 of them, which happen to be "Doctor!" and "What's happening?"). She does a bit better in part 4, thanks in part to a friendly chat with Filer, but it is worth noting that 8 of her 28 lines are answers to the math questions that the Doctor throws at her at the start of the episode. And on top of everything, the Doctor has to slap her out of her hysteria. It's a wonder that Katy Manning liked this story at all.

But the cast problems aren't limited to Katy Manning. As with the rest of the story, we've got positives and negatives. It's not that any of the other actors are bad; it's just that it feels like there are so many of them, and so few of them stand out, for one reason or another. They generally shake down into six groups: UNIT, the UNIT hangers-on, the Master, the Axons, the scientists, and the others.

In the UNIT group, we've got our regulars — the Brigadier, Yates and Benton — as well as Corporal Bell and the two radar operators. Of this entire group, only the Brigadier really gets anything to do, and that's his usual repertoire of barking out orders and, in this case, dealing with Chinn. It's certainly nice to see one of Fernanda Marlowe's rare appearances as Corporal Bell, proving that UNIT isn't just a boys' club, and of course I always enjoy John Levene as Benton, but these two are just as underused as Jo, and I find it difficult to even remember anything specific that they did. Oh, Yates gets to catch the Master's laser gun. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's not much, but Franklin does it flawlessly!

Now, UNIT's associates in this story are actually pretty good. Peter Bathurst is one of the story's most memorable characters as Chinn, and in a good way; he plays the role perfectly. As with my feelings on UNIT, guest characters must at least be interesting if they're not vital to the plot, and to me, Chinn is. Chinn actually seems pretty reasonable and likeable at first, although he's clearly not supposed to be, given the way the Brigadier treats him, and the hilarious moment in which the Doctor actually sideswipes him with a swinging door as he enters the room. His desire for information on the Doctor seems perfectly understandable, from a bureaucratic point of view. But once he starts bossing the Brigadier around, and threatening to have Filer arrested, then he seems less likeable and more drunk on power. Actually, "drunk" isn't the right word... it's not that power excites him, it's more that he just believes he should have it, and is quite secure in his position of dominance, and doesn't seem to be thinking about anybody other than himself. What's great is that the audience knows full well that Chinn is only going to cause trouble by trying to shoot down Axos and drooling all over himself to get axonite for Britain, and the Brigadier is not far behind us in realizing that Chinn means trouble. Before long, we find out that Chinn seems to be alone in his quest for glory... his many bad decisions don't reflect poorly on the British government because even the British government isn't fully behind him, so with each mistake, he only drags himself down. It makes an interesting change from the usual conspiracy-theory viewpoint of "us versus the government", because in this case, the government is not taking responsibility for what Chinn does. Although it does make you wonder why they even trusted him with this assignment, if they were so worried that he was going to slip up... and why did they give him so much power, when doing so, in this case, could have resulted in the destruction of the whole planet, if the Doctor hadn't been around? Chinn does seem to realize, at least, that his position is threatened, so he wastes no time trying to pass the buck to get the Doctor blamed for any problems that might occur. I love the fact that his pompous ego is soon played for laughs instead of as a threat, as we watch everyone — particularly including the Minister — subtly mock him to his face while he remains blindly unaware, and falsely confident in the fact that he is not only useful, but vital.

Also affiliating himself with UNIT is American operative Bill Filer, played by Paul Grist. Filer seems to be here as the square-jawed action hero who provides backup for the Doctor and UNIT, and a possible romantic interest for Jo, but I have to say that I just find him annoying. I think it's because Grist plays him as a macho cowboy type, who struts around and postures and says things like "Would one of you Florence Nightingales kindly get my clothes?" It's not that he's unlikeable, he's just putting on such a tough-guy act that it makes me want to roll my eyes. I expect him to start calling Jo "little lady" at any moment. I'm not entirely convinced that his performance is otherwise great, either. For example, when the Master tells Filer who he is, Filer just looks kind of vacuous, not shocked or "I found the man I've been looking for!" or anything like that. And as for that long shaggy 70s haircut, which seems to incorporate a combover... well, I think he may win awards for Worst Haircut Ever in Doctor Who.

Then there's the welcome sight of Tim Piggot-Smith as Captain Harker. Always lovely to see him in Doctor Who (although I don't know why I say that, since he only gets to be in it twice... which is kind of a small number for "always") even though Harker is not a thoroughly likeable man. I'm guessing that Harker isn't affiliated with UNIT, since he seems to report to Chinn, who uses him to keep UNIT at bay. He doesn't get a lot to do, but at least he has a defined and useful role in the plot. Likewise the unnamed driver, who definitely gets a line in part two but nevertheless doesn't seem to be credited anywhere. I like his slack-jawed "hypnotized" look once the Master exerts control over him.

I've already talked about the Master's mosty-needless presence in the plot, but as long as we've got him, Roger Delgado is really good in this story. In particular, the Master's collaboration with UNIT is a highlight. He almost seems to enjoy substituting for the Doctor, unless he's simply happy to be striking back at Axos. Did Delgado really do that shot riding atop a moving truck? If so, I'm very impressed. But, why does the Master want Axos to destroy the Earth? Just to get back at the Doctor? Or so that the Doctor will be consumed as well, since he can't escape? His use of a "laser gun" also strikes me as a bit odd, and funny. It seems so prosaic for someone with as much style as the Master. Delgado does seem to get a bit tongue-tied on the world "temporarily", though (it comes out sounding more like "temporally").

We're introduced to four Axons in this story, but three of them — Patricia Gordino, John Hicks, and Debbie Lee London, as Axon Woman, Boy and Girl, respectively — get nothing to do but stand around looking pretty and golden. That's fine (although a shame for them), because the designated Voice of the Axons is the Axon Man, played by Bernard Holley, and he's fantastic. It's suddenly hit me that what he reminds me of is a 50s infomercial announcer (you know, "Kitchen of the Future!" and that sort of thing), if the 50s announcer were a little bit condescending toward you from time to time. This is awesome because it makes the Axon Man sound pretty trustworthy, and knowledgeable, but when Holley brings out the evil side of the Axon Man, that trustworthy voice starts to sound icy and villainous.

The scientist group consists of Sir George Hardiman (Donald Hewlett) and Professor Winser (David Savile), two employees of the Nuton Power Complex who tag along on the trip into Axos to see axonite being unveiled. These two actually do have a good reason to be in the plot, given that they're "the face of Nuton", they can provide some extra scientific analysis, and they provide a base of operations for the latter part of the story. Unfortunately, they're both pretty thoroughly forgettable. Hardiman gets a bit more to do in part three, but still neither of them really stands out as characters. It's because of this and the large UNIT cast that I feel like this story was full of superfluous characters, even though I don't think the cast list is especially large; it's just that this particular story probably could have got by with a lot fewer characters. Maybe there were some plotlines discarded when the story was cut from six episodes to four, in which case the script just needed some extra editing.

Finally, we have the "other" group, which is mostly dear old Pigbin Josh, played by stalwart Derek Ware in a rare comedy turn. I don't know what the production team were thinking (or smoking) when they dreamed him up, but he's a really funny character. The sad thing is, he seems to be an old homeless man who either speaks a very thick dialect or, more likely, has some mental illness, because all he does is roam around scavenging in trash heaps and muttering unintelligibly to himself. (I kept hoping I would be able to transcribe one of his utterances for this review, but literally the only one I could make out was him quacking "Wha? Wha? Wha? Whaa?" upon seeing Axos.) So I probably shouldn't be laughing at him, but Ware's over-the-top performance is undeniably (and perhaps unintentionally) hilarious. Kenneth Benda's Minister probably also falls into this "other" group, and his is a welcome contribution as well, because it's thanks to his conversation with Chinn that we realize that the government is keeping a close eye on Chinn and willing to give him enough rope to hang himself. It's great watching the Minister make fun of Chinn to his face (and of course Chinn is mostly oblivious), and he sounds so exasperated with the man!

And of course we have our regulars. I've already discussed poor Katy above, and her lack of screen time means that there's not much I can say about her performance in this story, although she does great "frightened" acting as the Axons attack in the particle accelerator room in part four. She does get one really good line, though, and Katy acts her socks off: "As far as you're concerned, Mr Chinn, nothing exists except this contemptible underhanded deal!" I still haven't spotted the infamoush flash-of-the-purple-knickers... one of these days I'm going to have to watch specifically for it, just to say that I've seen it.

Pertwee, though, is quite good. I love that the Doctor alone is not so blinded by axonite that he thinks to wonder why the Axons couldn't use it to convert solar radiation into energy, and why they ran out of fuel despite having tons of axonite on board. He handles Chinn and the scientists really well; I love that his response to Winser's suspicious "Who leads the investigation?" is a wide-eyed obsequious "Why, you do, of course!" His extravagant hand-waving as he tries futilely to explain a time loop to the Brigadier is also very funny.

In costuming, the Doctor sports a great purple-lined cloak at the start of episode 1, which is sadly traded out later for a less-appealing red-lined one. Jo, meanwhile, gets some rad purple boots, but her pink-and-chartreuse-diamond jacket is pretty horrific, and poor thing, her hairstyle almost matches Bill Filer's at first glance. The Axons themselves are totally successful, in both forms. The humanoid Axons have cool gold skin, curly gold hair and huge blank gold eyes, along with swirly golden bodysuits that actually complement their overall look really well. In their monstery form, the tentacled body is very unique and very icky.

I also want to single out the set design for this story; the particle accelerator room set is really very good, with lots of interesting angles for filming. The design of Axos itself is great, too — it looks very organic, particularly the thing that seems to be a loudspeaker, with its webbed membranous covering, the chair that Axos has the Doctor sit in, and the floor that starts to convulse at the beginning of part four. I also like the "futuristic" videophone that Chinn uses, with its little keypad.

The Claws of Axos is a pretty effects-heavy story, and happily, most of them are pretty good. We do get a couple of CSO clunkers, though: the incredible shrinking frog with its grainy CSO shadow, and the wobbly TARDIS scanner. In their favor, they actually make a good CSO monitor, when Chinn communicates with the Minister. The model Axon ship isn't too bad when it's flying through space (although the close-up shots do look terribly fake), and there are lots of interesting overlays inside the Axon ship, like when Axos is examining Pigbin Josh and Filer. The CSO interior is variable; on one hand, it's usually terribly obvious (as in the shots in which the Doctor et al. are first greeted by the Axons), but on the other hand, they do some interesting things with it, like using bubbles as part of the backdrop.

Aside from CSO, there are a couple of effects that don't quite go according to plan. We have a man in an orange cloth bag crawling menacingly after the Doctor and Jo; it was a nice try to slow the footage down, but unfortunately it doesn't help that much. In the shots of Benton and Yates fighting Axons in their truck, why do they put a blush-grey backdrop behind the windows? It doesn't match the color of the sky, and there are a few shots in which we ought to be able to see landscape features out the windows. In the long shots when Yates is fighting the Axons, for example, there are trees and a hillside behind the jeep that should be visible, and later we see some blank shots out the front windshield as an Axon flails on it, even though the jeep is headed downhill toward the treeline.

Among the great effects: Pigbin Josh briefly freezing in the light of the landing ship, the reabsorption effect with flashing green lights and melted lumpy Axon faces, Winser's face swelling up after his impact with the particle accelerator, the monstrous Axons turning humanoid again, the Axon Man's face rotating like a hologram as he communicates with the Doctor and Jo over a viewscreen, the walls of Axos seeming to breathe as it activates its nutrition cycle, the Axon ship unearthing itself and rising into the sky, the Axons melting the door to the particle accelerator room, and the explosion at the power complex (although why doesn't that start a nuclear chain reaction?). There's a simple but effective graphic on the TARDIS scanner, used to represent the time loop. I really like the effect of Jo aging, too, and while Mildred Brown does bear a striking resemblance to Jo, she looks nothing like Katy Manning does now, hee! (at least partially because she isn't allowed to show off a thousand-watt smile like Katy's!) I wish, though, that they hadn't whited-out the effect of... well, whatever happened to Pigbin Josh's body. I suppose it looked too horrific for the kiddies?

This story is also blessed with some great sound effects, notably the sound when Axos analyzes people. Dudley Simpson's incidental music is okay, but nothing to write home about.

Michael Ferguson gets a fun story to direct, and you can tell he's enjoying himself. Among his great shots: the Axon starting to emerge from a wall in the ship just before we cut away, the Master hypnotizing the truck driver via the side mirror, the TARDIS materializing amid the smoke, and the framing of the Doctor between the metal struts as he exits the TARDIS. I love the shot of Pigbin Josh biking through the snow-covered landscape... that overnight snowstorm was a fortuitous act of God, because the contrast between the bare fields in one shot and the snowy fields in the next is really cool. The one shot that I don't think works very well is when the Master reveals his identity, and the camera rockets forward in a wobbly zoom to Filer's face, but before the frame really settles on him, we cut away. Kudos also to the excellent stuntwork by Havoc, for the shot in which Hardiman gets flung over the railing by the particle accelerator.

Minor points:

On the positive side: the basic idea is superb, the monsters are very cool, Pertwee gets some great moments, Delgado is as suavely entertaining as ever, and some of the guest cast are fun. On the negative side: a surfeit of unimportant characters (including the Master) means that Jo gets nothing whatsoever to do, and also results in the story feeling padded. But Axos and the idea at the heart of the story are entertaining enough that, overall, I still consider this to be one of the better Pertwee stories. If nothing else, it looks pretty and it makes you think.

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