YMMV / Doctor Who S16 E5 "The Power of Kroll"

• Ass Pull: The glass-shattering scream that Gallifreyans are capable of, which resolved a cliffhanger but was never mentioned before and will probably never be used again.
• Complete Monster: Thawn, the greedy head of a methane refinery on a satellite to which the native population have already been relocated by human settlers, treats the native Swampy population as though they're mere animals. Thawn's desire to see the operation expand results in him planning genocide against the Swampies so he can expand onto their settlement. To this end, Thawn pays a gunrunner to supply them with faulty weapons, so they're not actually a threat but he can use the weapons as an excuse to slaughter them and then claim self-defense. When his plans get disrupted by the arrival of swamp monster Kroll, Thawn then decides to take advantage of the situation by launching a bombardment against Kroll, while also wiping out the Swampies as "collateral damage". When one of his crew objects and tries to stop the bombardment, Thawn, without a moment's hesitation, shoots him In the Back.
• Critic-Proof: Despite often being seen as the worst story in the Key to Time arc and one of the worst stories overall from Tom Baker's era, it actually ended up getting the highest viewing figures of Season 16.
• Harsher in Hindsight: At one point, the Doctor criticises the decor of the Swampies' execution chamber and recommends its architect be fired. In a grim case of Life Imitates Art, The BBC's Head of Serials, Graeme MacDonald, was so unimpressed by the set designs in this story that he ordered that designer Don Giles was never to work on the series again.
• Padding: A blatant example at the end of Episode Four, when, after having defeated Kroll and retrieved the key segment, there is a second climax where Doctor has to stop the refinery from blowing up. Even with this tacked on and an extra-long reprise at the start, Episode Four still falls short of 22 minutes.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Kroll is often remembered as the absolute worst special effect in the show's entire history. The model Kroll itself is actually decent enough; the real problem was that the location cameraman had no idea how to achieve the intended matte and split-screen effects, and resorted to only exposing the lower half of the film in any shot featuring Kroll, meaning that the visual effects guys were forced to use shots that had parts of the landscape and even the actors' heads cut off.
  • The refinery also had problems, as a result of the model being broken on its way to the studio and being given very hasty repairs. This meant that they could only film the model from long distances, resulting in it looking less like a large industrial installation and more like a children's toy sitting in a bathtub.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Philip Madoc as Fenner. Being a fairly small role doesn’t stop him giving his all - he has clearly decided he's going to do the best damn thing in the story despite what boring part they put him in, and plays him with a charisma and repressed, seething anger that's bizarre to see coming from a generic Doctor Who Mook Lieutenant Bit Character.

---