The point at which episode three should have ended.
The Doctor and Jo fight their way through every bit of SFX that Axos can throw at them (a lot) until they get out.
Axos tries to fight back by sending the power back to the laboratory. Sir George has to disconnect the cables as the Master explains to the Brigadier (and us) what is going on, in the absence of the Doctor who would normally do that if he were here. Sir George succeeds, but gets electriced and does a massive jumping stunt for no reason.
The Master tries to run away but the Doctor arrives just in time to help Filer capture him. He says
"The claws of Axos are already deeply embedded in the Earth's carcass."Clang!
The Doctor tells Filer he "must have the Master's help" to defeat Axos.
This makes it three out of three for the number of stories the Doctor and Master have teamed up in since the Master's introduction. The exchange of dialogue they have together in the TARDIS, where none of the other characters can hear them, is so delicious it bears quoting in full:
"Well, Doctor, I'm still waiting to hear this marvellous scheme of yours."
"Actually, there isn't one."
"Well, then why..."
"Because if you mend the TARDIS, we can both escape."
"Both? Tell me, Doctor, are you suggesting an alliance?"
"Why not? I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a heap of dust on second rate planet to a third rate star. Do you?"
"Do you mean to say that you are actually prepared to abandon your beloved Earth to the Axon's tender mercies?"
"Certainly. After all, we are both Time Lords."
"Maybe. Look, why should I help you?"
"Because if you don't I shall hand you over to UNIT and you'll become a prisoner on a doomed planet."
"Yes, well, you'll be doomed along with me."
"Exactly. We either escape together, or we die together."
"Oh, very generous! But look, why not just hand me over to UNIT and make your escape by yourself?"
"Because the Time Lords have put a block on my knowledge of dematerialisation theory, that's why."
"Oh, I see."
"Yes, well, we haven't got much time. What's your decision?"
"Alright, I accept."
Axos rises out of the ground.
It sends some Axons to chase Yates and Benton in their jeep for a gratuitous action sequence, which ends with them blowing up their own jeep just for the lols.
Filer is suspicious of the Doctor's teaming up with the Master, and he quickly appears to be proved right when it seems as though the Doctor has betrayed them.
Quicker on the draw than Blake was, the Doctor shoots Filer's gun out of his hand using the Master's pewpewpew gun and says
"Goodbye, Brigadier, Mr Chin."If we didn't already know there was a character in this called Mr Chin, it would seem here as though the Doctor was calling the Brigadier "Mr Chin" lol.
"Goodbye, Bill. Goodbye, Jo. I shall miss you."This latter goodbye is said in a very similar manner to how he said goodbye to Liz in the last part of Inferno - is this a hint that he will, like then, soon be coming back?
The Doctor and the Master leave in the TARDIS just as the Axons begin an attack on the laboratory. The TARDIS materialises in Axos, where the Doctor says he has a proposition for Axos:
"You may have conquered this tiny speck in space but you've yet to conquer time. We are prepared to give you this power on one condition - that we join forces against the High Council of the Time Lords."
The Master tries to leave in his own TARDIS, but he is blocked by an invisible barrier. Such is Roger Delgado's skill that he even looks cool doing this mime.
The Master is once again forced to help the Doctor, and as he is doing so he realises the Doctor's plan:
The Axons break into the laboratory where the UNIT soldiers continue to shoot at them long past the point where it should be obvious even to Benton that bullets don't have any effect on them. They are saved when the Axos model dematerialises, and so do all the Axons attacking the laboratory.
Axos is caught in the Doctor's time loop trap, but says the Doctor is trapped there with it, and two Axons pin him down on the TARDIS console so that it looks like he's the one about to "take the load!" Lol, I am a naughty cat.
The Doctor manages to reach a switch and the TARDIS returns to the laboratory, just after it had been evacuated by all the other characters. The power complex blows up, but the Doctor manages to dematerialise the TARDIS in time (because it is indestructible only when it remembers to be), and then it rematerialises just outside the ruins.
The final scene is a komedy one, where the Doctor tries to explain what a time loop is to the Brigadier, and has to admit that the Master "could have got away" and that "the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS always to return to Earth."
What's so good about The Claws of Axos?
Well, at the risk of sounding like a broken DVD, it's the Master again.
Terror of the Autons introduced him, and The Mind of Evil showed what he was capable of, but here he goes one step further and takes over the show from under the Doctor's nose. With the Doctor spending most of part three and the start of part four (altogether about a third of the whole story) as a prisoner of Axos, the Master fills the hole he leaves in the narrative - to the extent of acting as temporary scientific advisor to UNIT (or at least the Brigadier, which is more-or-less the same thing so far as the show is concerned) when he saves the power complex from being blown up and helps them fight back against Axos.
The Doctor then gets his own back when he appears to take the Master's role, when he pretends to abandon Earth to save himself. While the Doctor has pretended to join the baddys in plenty of stories that don't have the Master in them, it is made all the more effective here by his fooling the Master as well as his own friends. The second layer to the Doctor's deception that is then used to defeat Axos gives this story a satisfying resolution, for all that it had several missteps along the way.
"You've got it set in a time loop!"The Master flees to his own TARDIS (invisible barrier now gone) as the Doctor sets off his trap for Axos, saying
"Come on, come on! You must take the load! You must!"Naughty Doctor, I can't believe this is a U-rated DVD!
The Axons break into the laboratory where the UNIT soldiers continue to shoot at them long past the point where it should be obvious even to Benton that bullets don't have any effect on them. They are saved when the Axos model dematerialises, and so do all the Axons attacking the laboratory.
Axos is caught in the Doctor's time loop trap, but says the Doctor is trapped there with it, and two Axons pin him down on the TARDIS console so that it looks like he's the one about to "take the load!" Lol, I am a naughty cat.
The Doctor manages to reach a switch and the TARDIS returns to the laboratory, just after it had been evacuated by all the other characters. The power complex blows up, but the Doctor manages to dematerialise the TARDIS in time (because it is indestructible only when it remembers to be), and then it rematerialises just outside the ruins.
The final scene is a komedy one, where the Doctor tries to explain what a time loop is to the Brigadier, and has to admit that the Master "could have got away" and that "the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS always to return to Earth."
"It seems that I'm some kind of a galactic yo-yo!"Well, there were only three TV channels in those days, the bar for komedy to clear was lower back then.
What's so good about The Claws of Axos?
Well, at the risk of sounding like a broken DVD, it's the Master again.
Terror of the Autons introduced him, and The Mind of Evil showed what he was capable of, but here he goes one step further and takes over the show from under the Doctor's nose. With the Doctor spending most of part three and the start of part four (altogether about a third of the whole story) as a prisoner of Axos, the Master fills the hole he leaves in the narrative - to the extent of acting as temporary scientific advisor to UNIT (or at least the Brigadier, which is more-or-less the same thing so far as the show is concerned) when he saves the power complex from being blown up and helps them fight back against Axos.
The Doctor then gets his own back when he appears to take the Master's role, when he pretends to abandon Earth to save himself. While the Doctor has pretended to join the baddys in plenty of stories that don't have the Master in them, it is made all the more effective here by his fooling the Master as well as his own friends. The second layer to the Doctor's deception that is then used to defeat Axos gives this story a satisfying resolution, for all that it had several missteps along the way.
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