10 Things Doctor Who Should Never Have Got Away With
6. The Long Awaited Return Of... Oh.
The first year of the revived Doctor Who brought back the Daleks. In its second year, the Cybermen made their comeback. So, naturally, the third series saw the reintroduction of... the Macra! Wait a minute... Who?! Way back in 1967, Patrick Troughton played the Doctor in a four-part serial called The Macra Terror about some giant gas eating crabs who had infiltrated a holiday camp-style colony world and brainwashed the humans into serving them. Its fair to say that this chapter in the shows history sits at the pinnacle of very few fans Top 10 lists. All four episodes were scrapped by the BBC in their legendary assault on the TV archives and general common sense, so theres hardly anyone around now who even remembers seeing it. Also, re-read the description above, then imagine how the 1960s production team might have realised alien crab monsters, and its not surprising that the Macra never made a comeback. Cut to 2007s Gridlock which contains the unexpected revelation that the various alien colonists trapped in a sealed motorway are unintentionally feeding a certain batch of gas addicted crab creatures with their exhaust fumes. To the fans, an utterly bonkers callback, but, to everyone else, just the latest in a series of imaginative monsters. Best of all, theyre not even key to the plot. They didnt cause New New York civilisation to collapse, they merely took advantage of it. The Doctor doesnt even bother to defeat them, either. He just opens the motorway. In the end, the fact that the monsters in the dark happen to be the Macra is a fun in-joke for those in the know, without affecting the casual viewer at all. With that in mind, surely it's time for the Krotons to return?
I teach literature of all types but when I write, it tends to involve "Doctor Who". My fiction can be found in unofficial anthology "Seasons of War"; my non-fiction in the "You and Who" books as well as the forthcoming "Hating to Love" and "Blake's Heaven".
