The Claws of Axos

057 – The Claws of Axos
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor is held prisoner by Axon Claws.
Cast
Doctor Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor)
Companion Katy Manning (Jo Grant)
Others Nicholas Courtney — Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart Richard Franklin — Captain Mike Yates John Levene — Sergeant Benton Roger Delgado — The Master Fernanda Marlowe — Corporal Bell Peter Bathurst — Chinn Paul Grist — Bill Filer Donald Hewlett — George Hardiman David Savile — Winser Tim Pigott-Smith — Captain Harker Kenneth Benda — The Minister Derek Ware — Pigbin Josh Michael Walker, David G. March — Radar Operators Royston Farrell — Technician Bernard Holley, Patricia Gordino, John Hicks, Debbie Lee London — Axons
Production
Directed by	Michael Ferguson
Written by	Bob Baker Dave Martin
Script editor	Terrance Dicks
Produced by	Barry Letts
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Dudley Simpson
Production code	GGG
Series	Season 8
Length	4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast	13 March – 3 April 1971
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Mind of Evil Colony in Space

Doctor Who and the Claws of Axos

Author	Terrance Dicks
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	10
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	21 April 1977
ISBN

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 from 13 March to 3 April 1971.

The Axons land on Earth, desperately in need of fuel. They propose to exchange the miracle substance they call Axonite for some much needed energy. Axonite is a "thinking" molecule that can replicate any substance... or so they claim. As it turns out, the ship is a single organism called Axos whose purpose is to feed itself by draining all energy through the Axonite (which is just a part of itself), including the energy of every life form on Earth. The deception about the Axonite's beneficial properties was to facilitate the distribution of Axonite across the globe.

Meanwhile, the Master, who was captured by Axos and used his knowledge of Earth as a bargaining chip for his life and freedom, escapes Axos and makes his way to the Doctor's TARDIS — his own having been seized by Axos. He plans to repair it to escape from Earth.

Axos itself becomes interested in the Doctor's knowledge of time travel. It now plans to broaden its feeding base by travelling through time as well as space. The Doctor, realising this, plans to trick Axos into linking up its drive unit to his TARDIS so that he can send Axos into a perpetual time loop. After tricking the Master into completing the repairs on his TARDIS, the Doctor does just that. This results in every part of Axos dematerialising from Earth, including the Axon automatons and the Axonite.

At the end, with the Master having escaped in his own TARDIS during the confusion aboard Axos, the Doctor returns to Earth, but not of his own volition. 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!".

The Tenth Doctor lists the Axons among his encounters with the Master as the Master dies in his arms during the TV episode "Last of the Time Lords". The Feast of Axos, a Big Finish audio play with the Sixth Doctor, tells the subsequent story of astronauts visiting Axos, still imprisoned in the time loop. The Axons reappear in the Eleventh Doctor Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "The Golden Ones", beginning in issue #425. In this story they are behind a brain-enhancing drink and associated anime show in Tokyo. The drink transforms children into Axons by "increasing the links between neurons in the brain" - in other words, the axons. An Axon is seen imprisoned in The Department's Alien Prison in Liberation, the second episode of Series 1 of the unaffiliated spin-off K-9.