Doctor Who/Recap/S4/E07 The Macra Terror
This is an emergency! Control must be believed and obeyed! No-one in the colony believes in Macra! There is no such thing as Macra! Macra do not exist! There are no Macra!—Control protests too much.
The TARDIS arrives at a human colony that seems happy enough but, as it turns out, the colonists are being mind-controlled by a race of giant crabs called the Macra. The Macra are using the humans to mine the toxic gases they need to survive.
Ben is affected by the Macra mind-control and starts to turn against the others, but the Doctor succeeds in breaking their hold and Ben destroys the gas-mining equipment, killing the Macra and freeing the colonists.
The Macra had a slightly surprising cameo four decades later in the Tenth Doctor episode "Gridlock".
Tropes
- Deadly Gas
- Extra-Strength Masquerade: The Macra so brainwashed the human colonists that an Extra-Strength Masquerade was relatively easy—until the Doctor turned up.
- Giant Enemy Crab: The Macra
- Muck Monster
- Puppeteer Parasite
- Security Cling: See the page picture.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: The quote above.
- Take That:
Ben: They got that bloke all over the place like a blinking politician.
Pete: He is our controller. We are always pleased to see him. He brings us encouragement.
Ben: Oh, he's not a politician then!
- Title Sequence Replacement: The first one in the series debuts here. It's also the first to use the Doctor's face.