I Welcome You, Kroll

The Power of Kroll is generally considered a weak serial from the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who but I found myself in the mood for it. I think it's mainly just weaker by default, since all the other serials in that season are terrific.

Its writer, Robert Holmes, was apparently dissatisfied with the gigantic swamp squid monster. Sometimes I wonder if it's a character defect that the special effects in old Doctor Who serials don't bother me but I complain about weak cgi in new MCU movies. Maybe the old effects have a nostalgic charm, maybe I can appreciate the effort that went into them instead of the cost-cutting, generic and rushed cgi in Quantumania. Though actually what I was thinking of was Avatar while I was watching Kroll.

The Power of Kroll is an excellent thing to watch after Avatar, or just about any simple-minded, ham-fisted, preachy environmentalist film. The set-up is there--colonising humans there to exploit the planet's resources and an indigenous people they regard with indifference whose religion is tied to that lucrative swamp.

But these natives spend most of their time trying to sacrifice the Doctor and Romana or arguing about whether or not their god, Kroll, is real. And then Kroll shows up like Cthulhu or Moby Dick to indiscriminately kill everybody. Kroll doesn't give a damn that he's a wobbly optical effect. Thank you, Kroll.

Tom Baker is in particularly fine form in this serial, too. I love his tweed frock coat with the ducks on the lapels.

Classic Doctor Who is available on Britbox in the U.S.

Twitter Sonnet #1691

Betwixt the blood and bone a woman lived.
We find her trace in tiny coats and shoes.
This samples drawn with little ladles give.
The find was heard on sev'ral planets' news.
A yellow button jams the flow of blood.
Her lemon pie was cool beside the door.
Her home's aglow, the tube was playing Hud.
She dreamed the eyes of Newman watched her more.
Beyond the porch, a face's sphere enlarged.
The woman piled chairs before the hut.
Her eyes beheld the skull begin to charge.
Its rapid lashes wooden planks would cut.
A spinach crawls across the blighted land.
She grabs a fork and makes a hungry stand.