When I watched Frontier in Space the first time around, I was absolutely livid that UK Gold did not then show Planet of the Daleks afterwards. And for years that was my main memory of it – being angry and feeling cheated of the story’s conclusion. I never managed to get around to seeing Planet of the Daleks.
It would be a few years before I learned that issues with the Terry Nation estate prevented UK Gold from broadcasting Dalek stories for a while. In fact, they possibly shouldn’t have screened Frontier in Space (they didn’t show The Five Doctors a few months earlier), but the lack of the word ‘Daleks’ in the title must have enabled it to be missed.
Before sitting down for my first rewatch of it, my memories of Frontier in Space amounted to the Ogrons, some sort of underground base and a quarry. I couldn’t quite remember whether or not the Master featured or not. This is actually quite substantial compared to my recollections of other Third Doctor stories! I didn’t have any preconceptions of a fan consensus on it, so unlike a few other stories I’d yet to see – like Invasion of the Dinosaurs or Underworld – I wasn’t going in with much knowledge.
Bye, bye UNIT
Jo gets locked up 5 times in Frontier in Space, which must be some sort of record for any character in any story (any other answers on a digital postcard please). She’s locked up twice on the first spaceship, again on Earth, then on the Master’s ship, and once more on the planet. Even across a six episode story, that’s a lot. Between all the political wrangling, it does feel like Malcolm Hulke struggled a tad with what to do with Jo at times. However, there’s great stuff with her rambling on from her cell in Episode 4, pretending to still talk to the Doctor after he’s escaped.
Jo references getting back to UNIT and being court martialled because she’s been gone so long, which reminds us that we haven’t seen the Brigadier and co. since the end of The Three Doctors. It’s only a couple of stories back, but with Planet of the Daleks to follow, it seems likely that the Doctor and Jo won’t get back to present-day Earth until the end of that story. After three seasons of the Doctor being largely Earth-bound, it feels a relatively big break.
I’m sure for some it’s wonderful to get away to other times and places. But it’s reminded me that there is less and less of UNIT to come now, which is rather sad. I’ve enjoyed the UNIT family atmosphere, along with all the guns and action, while escapes to the likes of Peladon haven’t always entertained me quite as much. I’ll relish every future adventure with UNIT because I really am fond of them, and especially the Brigadier.
Penal colony
I would happily have spent more time in the Lunar Penal Colony, which is not something everyone can say. It’s grim and grey but I’d have liked a whole story out of this. I want a greater backstory to Professor Dale and Patel, I want them to drag out more with Cross, and I want to meet more of the Peace Party.
I can see why some viewers might not enjoy Frontier in Space (and why Malcolm Hulke retitled his Target novelisation Doctor Who and the Space War). There is a lot of time spent on spaceships, places that look like spaceships, various bare prison cells, and the production is limited in its model effects. It would be marvellous to watch huge battles taking place, with spaceships exploding gloriously, but instead we watch people disagreeing inside the spaceships and/or talking politics. And yet it’s still entertaining, the plot moves along and there is so much great dialogue.
The Doctor: Now that’s stealing, you know?
Cross: That’s what I’m in for. Got a trouble maker, have we?
The Doctor: That’s what I’m in for.
Cross: I’ll remember you.
The Doctor: Good, I’m glad to hear it.
The Master
As the Master doesn’t turn up until several episodes in, I was beginning to think he wouldn’t turn up at all. But when he does appear, Roger Delgado is wearing the most stonkingly wonderful futuristic space-y villain’s costume. I thoroughly enjoy his performance: the laid-back line delivery and the casualness of his villainy. I love him relaxing with The War of the Worlds and turning down the volume every time he gets bored of listening to the Doctor and Jo chatting in their cell.
By Episode 5, it’s great seeing him trying to suck up to the Draconian emperor, and I’m so glad the Doctor and Jo don’t interrupt.
The Master: As a commissioner of Earth’s interplanetary police, I have devoted my life to the cause of law and order. And law and order can only exist in a time of peace.
The Doctor: You feeling alright, old chap?
The Ogrons burst in and truly muck up the Master’s plans, with one knocked down by an exceptional bit of Venusian karate. He’s marvellously exasperated by these “Great lumbering idiots!” on their spaceship and seems moments away from crying out, “I am surrounded by fools!” Instead, it’s more scheming to get to the ship the Doctor has ended up on. We get a great close up as the Master ponders killing the Doctor: “I don’t know – rocket fire at long range, it’s… I don’t know, somehow it lacks that personal touch!”
Six parters
It’s a long story and once we’ve had an establishing episode Jo does sum up why it’s going to take us six episodes:
“All we’ve got to do is find out what’s going on, who’s behind the Ogrons, where they’ve taken the TARDIS, go and get it back, and then we can all go home.”
It’s often easy to argue that six-parters could have been done within four (and four within three). Even when I was enjoying Frontier in Space, I realised the production certainly could have nipped through the story a tad faster if they really needed to. Nonetheless, I was perfectly happy to sit through these six episodes as there was plenty to enjoy.
It works rather well that the story is refreshed at various points, with the Master’s appearance and then the Daleks’, as well as moving between so many locations. Even if some are a bit samey visually, there are new characters that intrigue, adding layers to the plot and moving things forward.
Frontier in Quarry
We don’t see a great deal of the Daleks – it’s just as well because moving them across a quarry must have been a nightmare. I recalled Frontier in Space ending with the sudden appearance of the Daleks in the quarry. I now know it doesn’t, but the story does end on a cliffhanger – something I hadn’t really experienced with the classic series’ stories. We are, inevitably, left wanting more from the Daleks.
After many years of not getting around to it, I would finally see Planet of the Daleks.
Comments
I was watching this last week on my episode-a-day DW rewatch. I was really taken with the first episode this time (before the incarcerations have got too repetitive). The way the characters’ subjective false visions of who they are seeing is achieved is quite ingenious, and clear enough for an imaginative child to understand. Its something that might not have been attempted since The Keys Of Marinus.