Doctor Who (1963) 8.03.02

The Claws of Axos - Part Two

The Doctor is reunited with Jo. She tells them that she could have sworn that she heard Bill Filer's voice and that she was looking for him when they found her. The Axon leader insists that she must have been hallucinating.

Chinn get authorization from the Ministry of Defense and with some help from the British Army takes charge of the situation. He makes a deal with the Axons and gets a big chunk of Axonite. He hands it over to Winser. The Brigadier, the Doctor, and Jo are arrested for trying to interfere with Chinn's plans for the Axonite.

The Master and Bill Filer escape temporarily from the grips of the Axons but are quickly recaptured. The Axons make a duplicate of Filer and send him after the Doctor who they have figured out is a Time Lord, just like the Master.

The Master talks the Axons into giving him back his gun. They hold on to his TARDIS while he goes on a mission to help them conquer the Earth.

Real Filer escapes from the Axon spaceship. He heads to the NUTON Power Complex where he finds the Doctor who is being attacked by phony Filer. The Doctor was performing an experiment on the Axonite. It has caused things to bubble up. The Doctor and real Filer defeat the doppelganger.

Winser returns to the lab. He is astonished and angry at what the Doctor has done with the Axonite. He tries to open the chamber where the Axonite is but he gets fried and turns into an Axon type monster.

Thoughts

Barry Letts (producer), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), and Richard Franklin (Captain Mike Yates) were on the commentary track for this episode.

The leader of the army unit that is supporting Chinn is led by Captain Harker who is played by Tim Piggott-Smith. This is the first of two Doctor Who stories in which Piggott-Smith appeared. The other one was The Masque of Mandragora.

This story is flowing way too fast. There are too many moving pieces. It feels like they have written a story that is supposed to take place over six episodes and squeezed it into four episodes. Things keep happening without much in the way of transitional moments to explain how things got from here to there. It also feels like they are relying very heavily on the special effects.