3.17: Frontier in Space
In which Jon Pertwee attempts the world record for “most consecutive episodes of Doctor Who spent in assorted cells”.
Broadcast: February-March 1973
Watched: April 2020
Frontier in Space, Episode One
“Lock them in the hold!” Eight minutes in. As I recall the Doctor will be locked up in some capacity until halfway through episode 6.
Anyway, this is the best world building in ages. The whining pilots, the female president, plus the newscast which offers so many lovely hints of what the universe we’re in now is like.
More vaguely Japanese aliens. Had [producer and script editor] Barry and Tel been on holiday or something?
The way Jo hallucinates a drashig parallels the Ogron in the miniscope. Swapping stuff between stories to create the sense of a shared universe.
The thought occurs that this season especially is a big influence on RTD Who. For the first time the core cast is the Doctor and his bird... but there’s a semi regular cast who appear in a few episodes, and also some of the stories link.
Oh look, Pertwee is unconscious again, there’s a shock. The way he chucks one of the pilots at an Ogron is a bit harsh though.
Frontier in Space, Episode Two
“The ways of the Earth men are devious. They are an inscrutable species.”
The fact the Doctor is dragged before the president of the *entire Earth* is almost as hilarious as the fact she lives in the South Bank Centre.
Still loving this, but the memory doesn’t cheat, it really is just an endless succession of capture-escape loops.
Also the “in Space” suffix was a lazy way of telling the audience “The TARDIS is working, this one involves spaceships!” Isn’t it.
Frontier in Space, Episode Three
The Ogron escape loop is the silliest yet. Lasts under a minute.
The “Here we are on the moon!” bit still annoys me. [The Doctor is arrested on Earth and arrives in the lunar penal colony in *consecutive scenes*]. At least give us some model work. The penal colony inevitably if ahistorically reminds me of Blake’s 7. Pleasingly multicultural, though.
“Dominion status”. The Master is pretending to be from Space Canada. Lol.
It is sort of amazing how much worldbuilding [writer Malcoln] Hulke gets into a story in which the Doctor is in a cell almost literally the entire time.
Frontier in Space, Episode Four
The way the Master basically frames the Doctor for hot wiring cars is funny. So is the bit where he’s genuinely trying to rescue the Doctor and Jo and they’re having none of it.
Love the Master’s choice of book. And the escape sequence, with the Doctor’s spacewalk etc, is brilliant. Can’t make any sense of the cliffhanger.
Frontier in Space, Episode Five
All Ogrons look like Mel Smith in blackface, it’s very unfortunate. And how they ever developed space travel is a mystery.
There’s a good 10 minutes in this in which neither of the regulars are prisoners before Jo gets captured again. Huh.
The fact the misunderstanding which led to war is undone in thirty seconds of chat is *hilarious*. As is the Master’s absolute and immediate fury at not being able to hypnotise Jo.
Frontier in Space, Episode Six
“Thanks, cheerful.”
Not massively clear on the stakes here tbh. There might be a war if we’re not careful but I’m not sure how. The Master wants to defeat the Doctor but it’s not clear how. Also there’s a monster that looks like a bollock? Bit of a mess by Hulke’s standards.
Oh the Daleks have shown up that’s quite exciting, at least. Except… they don’t really do anything? The bollock monster is never explained. And the last we see of Delgado is him shooting the Doctor by accident. This might work if the story was going to be properly concluded but unfortunately I’ve seen Planet of the Daleks so I know that’s kind of it.
It just... fizzles out. We assume the war is prevented. But we aren’t shown, and Delgado is done with. But of a shame really. [Roger Delgado, the first actor to play the Master, died in a car crash not long after this story, so never gets a proper swansong.]
Love that the only anti-Draconian protester we see is a redneck American. Also that Jo is terrified of Sea Devils.
I think I knew what a Draconian was before I knew what draconian meant, btw.
RTD was 9-10 when this season was transmitted, so pretty much the prime age to be influenced by a set of stories. (I do hope he brings back the Draconians (and does something interesting with them).
The error that caused the Earth-Draconia war is pretty much the same as the one that later caused the Earth-Minbari war in Babylon 5. Does this mistake have a classical origin?