The Claws of Axos by: Bob Baker and Dave Martin and directed by: Michael Ferguson

 

The Claws of Axos stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Roger Delgado as the Master with Richard Franklin as Captain Yates and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.  It was written by: Bob Baker and Dave Martin and directed by: Michael Ferguson with Terrance Dicks as Script Editor and Barry Letts as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 13 March to 3 April 1971 on BBC1.

 

Terrance Dicks took over the position of Doctor Who’s script editor with 1968’s The Invasion and one script that made it’s way to his desk was from a new writing pair from Bristol, Bob Baker and Dave Martin.  A Man’s Life was a surprising script to end up with Dicks as it was a pilot for a sitcom and not at all what Doctor Who needed, but Dicks actually read the script and was impressed with the talent so called for a meeting with Baker and Martin early in 1969 where he commissioned a storyline for a seven episode serial entitled “The Gift” for Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, and Wendy Padbury, potentially to be used near the end of the sixth production block or held over for the seventh.  When it was apparent that Troughton would be leaving and Jon Pertwee would be taking up the role “The Gift” would be commissioned as a six episode story, however, Barry Letts disliked the draft for the first episode and the title.  “The Friendly Invasion” was used with Baker and Martin closely working with Terrance Dicks to adapt for a slot in Season Eight as a four part adventure, later titled “The Axons”.  The scripts would be commissioned in October 1970 the title being changed another time to the much more Doctor Who like title, “The Vampire from Space”.  Filming would begin in December under that title and only after the filming of Episode Two, during rehearsals for the final two episodes The Claws of Axos would come about because “The Vampire from Space” gave the game away about what Axos and the Axons are too early and there was some discomfort with vampire being in the title.

 

The Claws of Axos could easily be described as the quintessential Jon Pertwee four-parter.  It ticks a lot of the boxes which define the era: an alien invasion, a Conservative civil servant in the slot of a human villain, UNIT attempting to solve the problem.  And this is all with essentially the first Doctor Who script, Baker and Martin open with a tense sequence of the alien Axos sending a distress signal to Earth and crash landing causing freak weather conditions (in reality the weather wasn’t cooperating on the location shoot).  Axos promises the Earth an unlimited energy source and solution to the world hunger crisis in Axonite, and in return they simply want help with power so they can leave.  It almost immediately comes out to the viewer that they’ve captured the Master and American official Bill Filer and wish to drain the Earth dry.  That’s the central thrust, with Axos being an allegory for human greed as well as Mr. Chinn, our Conservative civil servant, being the representative of human selfishness.  Now unlike The Mind of Evil’s in depth exploration of the Cold War and xenophobia, The Claws of Axos suffers from not doing enough to fully explore its themes.  This isn’t that large of a problem as Baker and Martin do enough to make Axos a threat that mounts and grows, the Axons starting out as almost golden wingless angels before gradually becoming monstrous creatures leading to several action sequences.  The second half of the story shifts to accommodate the action and play around with the Doctor and the Master teaming up to escape a doomed Earth, although it doesn’t ever feel like the Doctor is going to abandon the Earth.

 

The Doctor is on edge through most of The Claws of Axos as this is the seventh story since Pertwee took the role set on Earth, and indeed the next story would be the first respite.  It’s not Pertwee being mean but the writing reflecting the Doctor needing to get away by this point, the story ending with an explosion at a nuclear power station and the TARDIS being dragged back to Earth while Axos is defeated.  Pertwee’s charm bleeds through whenever he’s with Jo or the Master, but with the Brigadier (and even more with Mr. Chinn) there is this anger that he’s being surrounded by bureaucrats.  Chinn, played by Peter Bathurst, is the one who takes ire from the Doctor and the Brigadier, with Nicholas Courtney showing that he can run circles around the bureaucracy, shutting Chinn off while he and UNIT get on with dealing with the situation.  The UNIT characters are very much support for the story, filing out the action sequences while the Doctor gets to be a scientist testing the Axonite to understand what it does.  Terror of the Autons and The Mind of Evil had confrontations between the Doctor and the Master, but this is the first story where Delgado and Pertwee have an extended period of screentime together with the banter sparking right off each other.  The relationship isn’t one built on hate, as this is the first time where the idea comes across that the Doctor and the Master are old friends, and the Doctor is much more intelligent than the Master ever would be.

 

Bernard Holley voices the Axons and Axos throughout the entire story and his performance is this incredibly eerie turn bolstered by the quick paced direction of Michael Ferguson.  Holley isn’t quite pitching his voice up, but is almost faking an up pitch while simultaneously slowing it down to give it this ethereal quality to make the viewer believe it’s an alien being.  It helps that Axos seems to appear out of every corner building the idea that it could be anywhere and the claws are making their way to the center of the Earth.  Michael Ferguson’s direction is unique for Doctor Who as like the other stories he directs, it is shot and edited not like a television serial, but as a film, at least whenever the multi camera setup would allow it.  There are several scenes which start right with the dialogue, no time lingering on establishment, and those scenes only start to pop up right when the tension needs it the most.  Episode One has the most establishing shots and lengthy pieces of model work to establish the spaceship and the threat, while Episode Four quickly cuts from scene to scene to keep the viewer engaged with the threat that Axos is close to winning, and eventually there’s going to be a massive explosion.

 

Overall, The Claws of Axos is a classic, but not a perfect classic.  It has all the elements that make the Jon Pertwee era of the show work wonderfully, though is lacking some of the textual depth as well as Katy Manning not being used nearly as much as she could, being in the standard ask questions companion role (probably due to the fact that this was originally written for Troughton and the writers didn’t know what the companion would be).  The performances from Pertwee, Delgado, and Nicholas Courtney are of special interest and it is incredibly odd that this wasn’t the serial to represent the Jon Pertwee years during the 50^th anniversary celebrations (they went with Spearhead from Space).  This may be overlooked in the modern day, but shouldn’t be for being a great gateway into the era and probably the classic series as a whole.  8/10.