If I recall correctly, there was one First Doctor story from an Annual that was good. Troughton is going to have at least 2. First was the bizarre "The Celestial Toy-Shop" that evoked the uncanny in a way completely unexpected in a story meant for 10 year-olds and now we get this one, "The Singing Crystals".
As the story opens, the TARDIS crew are locked in and held tight by stalactites and stalagmites made of various minerals. You can bash and break them but they grow back at an astonishing speed unlike their brethren that channel healing energies for New Agers and keep our digital watches running on time. They've even somehow penetrated the TARDIS. The Doctor discovers that loud noises such as screaming hold the crystals at bay. This enables him and his companions to get back into the ship and banish the mineral invaders. Unfortunately, the crystals are crafty and they manage to abscond with Zoe when the Doctor and Jamie aren't looking.
The Doctor makes his way to what is described as a red room, I believe, which I really hope doesn't have a floor done in a chevron pattern. (She's my cousin...but doesn't she look almost exactly like Zoe Heriot?) There he retrieves a reel-to-reel player that allows Jamie to head back outside to attempt to rescue Zoe.
As the Doctor waits in the TARDIS, the crystals carry it away. Meanwhile, Jamie hears the cries for help of his friend and he finds her on the other side of a red wall of flame that luckily (and ominously) doesn't burn. Zoe is being accosted by a group of these featureless humanoid creatures that appear to be made out of dough. The reel-to-reel is useless against them so he he instead lashes out with the wrench that he also brought for just such an occasion and manages to free Zoe.
The Doctor realizes that the ship has been moved to a cave. He walks out and finds himself confronting the Big Cheese - the Grand Crystal. It sings to him and the Doctor recognizes mathematical equations in the notes followed by symbols for various elements such as phosphorous and iron. He has a eureka moment and comprehends that the crystalline intelligence intends to extract minerals from their bodies so that it can grow. He yells for Jamie who comes in hacking away at the crystals with his wrench like Dr. Livingstone in Zambia slashing at the jungle and they all retreat to the TARDIS and make an escape.
Again, Jamie and Zoe look nothing like the actors who portrayed them on TV and the Doctor is written as William Hartnell, but these things can be overlooked as this is a rather weird and ominous tale. I liked how the story begins in media res with our heroes trapped and the shelter of the TARDIS only a dream. That the baddie here is an intelligent crystal is rather neat. The scene where Zoe is being dragged away by villainous Pillsbury Doughboys was simply bizarre with its curtain of mystical flame. Where the hell did that come from? And the scene where the Doctor hears the Grand Crystal singing out the constituent minerals of the human body was rather surreal.
There's little light-hearted Doctor Who fun here and instead we get a lot of desperation. And strangeness. It gets high marks for me for sheer oddity alone.
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