The Claws of Axos is the third serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 13 March to 3 April 1971.
In the serial, set in Britain, the alien organism Axos spreads its Axonite particles across the Earth to allow itself to feed on all life on the planet.
The Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS to always return to Earth, making the Doctor, as he notes, "some kind of a galactic yo-yo!".
After offering the duo a seven-part story in November 1969 for Doctor Who's eighth season, Baker and Martin submitted some various storylines they had.
[3] During the location shooting of the scenes with the tramp, an overnight snow storm necessitated the creation of a line of dialogue in the programme to explain that the variations of weather from shot to shot in these scenes (filmed on various days but supposedly taking place within minutes of each other) are "freak weather conditions" as a result of Axos' arrival.
[4] In some of the car interior scenes the colour-separation overlay (CSO) backgrounds were omitted, leaving the blue screen behind the characters.
[10] David J Howe and Stephen James Walker, in their 1998 book Doctor Who: The Television Companion, described The Claws of Axos as "a story that manages to combine an effective alien menace with some excellent location work to present a seamless tale of invasion by stealth".
[13] In 2009, Mark Braxton of Radio Times praised the action, production values, and Delgado's Master, though he noted that there were some "lapses of judgement and quality", and that he was not a fan of Dudley Simpson's electronic score.
[15] DVD Talk's John Sinnott gave the serial four out of five stars, highlighting the "tight" four-part structure and the rapport between Pertwee and Delgado.
[16] Russell Lewin of SFX gave The Claws of Axos three out of five stars, describing the script as "choppy" and with production that struggled to realise its ideas.
The novel restored material deleted from the TV version, including a "meet-cute" for Jo and Bill Filer, and a suggestion that the Doctor may be attempting to steal Axonite to repair the TARDIS.
In episode two, PAL footage from the studio recording was inserted where possible, although this does result in some noticeable shifts in picture sharpness between scenes.
The serial has been included for sale on iTunes since October 2008 and was also released as part of the Doctor Who DVD Files (issue 97) in September 2012.
The quality of the NTSC material was improved by combining colour from the Reverse Standards Conversion with geometrically-corrected picture information from the remastered black-and-white film recordings, and then applying VidFIRE to restore the smooth 'video look'.