Day 291: The Claws of Axos Episode 3

Bill Filer. He's an American agent tasked with tracking down the Master. In principle, he represents a fantastic idea. It's exploiting the fact that the Master is becoming more well known and allows for his menace to grow exponentially. However, there is one small problem. American action heroes can come across as a little dull. Filer comes across as nothing too special, a carbon copy of every other American action hero that we've seen. He'll occasionally get into tussles, crack a few jokes here and there, and come across as a remarkably cool guy. (I should stress that this is all the character as written. In truth, the actor playing Filer is not really that cool and creates a highlight of the serial as we see just how poor some of the casting decisions can be). But the point of Filer is to represent the other side of action heroes, a foreign body in the UNIT family. We don't like him because he lacks the certain something that makes up the ragtag group of UNIT people, whether it's the eccentric Doctor who can often find himself arguing morally with the Brigadier, despite both fighting on the same side or Jo who isn't the best character in terms of strength but more than makes up for it in enthusiasm. In essence then, Filer represents the very sort of character that we don't normally want in Doctor Who, just because they're just too dull, with no real character behind some tussles and some wisecracks.