JJ3 - The Macra Terror 3

In which poor Medok, the rebel of the society who The Doctor was so fond in helping at the beginning of the story, meets his end at the end of a Macra claw. This turns out to be a noteworthy development, as we will see by the end of the story. Medok is the only person, at the beginning, who speaks out about what is going on in the Colony. Once he dies, it's now only left to the strangers (The Doctor and co.) to rise up against all that is wrong.

Ben continues his gradual conversion back to his normal self. I like that he has been coerced by words, and not by drugs. It is only his lack of free will that is preventing him from joining his friends in rebelling against the Macra. This story, like its spiritual cousin The Prisoner, is about the suppression of free will and the damaging effects that this approach has on society. It is also a surprisingly infrequent theme that is brought up in Doctor Who; or, at least, infrequent when dealt with as explicitly as it is here.

The final five minutes of this episode consist of a long and tedious buildup to the inevitable and unsurprising cliffhanger. It's almost as bad as the end of the new series episode Aliens of London in how it is all drawn out. Those last five minutes end as they began - Jamie is being threatened by two giant crabs. Still, it's interesting to see Jamie thrust into the spotlight for the first time since he joined the series. It's become more obvious that this story was written with a lot more advance warning of Jamie's inclusion in the series than the previous stories to follow The Highlanders.