WHO AT 60: CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO — Peter Davison / ‘Frontios’ (1984)
‘As an invasion weapon, you’d have to agree that it’s about as offensive as a chicken vol-au-vent.’
Frontios was written by Christopher H. Bidmead and transmitted in four episodes, between 26 January and 3 February 1984, and was the third story in the twenty-first season of Doctor Who, starring Peter Davison.
Former actor and graduate of RADA, Christopher Hamilton Bidmead had turned to writing radio plays while performing as a member of the BBC Repertory Drama Company. He had also written for television, including episodes of Thames’ daytime dramas Harriet’s Back in Town (1972–73) and Rooms (1974–77) on which , coincidentally, writer-producer Robert Banks Stewart had worked as a story editor and associate producer. Banks Stewart contributed scripts to many drama series during the 1960s and 1970s, including the Doctor Who stories Terror of the Zygons (1975) and The Seeds of Doom (1976), devised and contributed to, among others, Undermind (1965), Shoestring (1979–80) and Bergerac (1981–91), produced the first season of Lovejoy (1986–94), and episodes of The Darling Buds of May (1991–93).
Bidmead was writing scripts for industrial films and contributing pieces to New Scientist when he wrote to Banks Stewart, praising his much loved private eye series Shoestring and seeking out writing opportunities. It seems Banks Stewart endorsed him to the Doctor Who production office and Bidmead was subsequently invited to interview by new producer John Nathan-Turner and his executive producer Barry Letts when they were seeking a replacement for Douglas Adams, who had vacated the script editor post towards the end of 1979. Bidmead went on to help Nathan-Turner reshape the series for Season 18, Tom Baker’s last year in the role, working to reshape many of the scripts and contributing its final story Logopolis (1981) before he also left the show. He wrote 1982’s Castrovalva to introduce the Fifth Doctor, as played by Peter Davison, after Eric Saward was appointed as his successor.
Saward was still keen to commission Bidmead and duly contacted him in August 1982 and not only wanted the kind of science fiction he felt he couldn’t write but also a ‘monster’ story. This was something beyond Bidmead’s usual predilection for philosophical science fiction. Given a briefing to include new companion Turlough, he started working on a storyline called The Wanderers, with an apocalyptic setting influenced both by the June 1982 Lebanon War, with constant reports about the siege of Beirut after the Israel Defence Forces invaded southern Lebanon, and his minor domestic problems in Hampstead with an infestation of woodlice, insects that would inspire the creation of his monsters, the Tractators.
Bidmead’s response to the increasingly cynical universe that Eric Saward was creating…
Bidmead also set out to create a story that highlighted the Doctor’s vulnerability, a character trait that he and Nathan-Turner had focused on when they were beginning the process to replace Tom Baker and create the Fifth Doctor. In Frontios, he plonks the Doctor and his companions into a harsh, unforgiving environment at the end of history, where the remnants of humankind struggle with an onslaught of meteorites, the disappearance of their leader, the ‘rets’ — retrograde deserters who have given up on the colony — and “deaths unaccountable.” Beneath them, burrowing away, are the Tractators (they were named from an anagram of ‘attractors’), large insect creatures capable of manipulating gravity and matter.
As Elizabeth Sandifer concludes: “This is a society where the barbarians aren’t just at the gate, the people inside the gate are giving up and joining the barbarians. This is the endpoint of humanity — what the whole of human history is leading inexorably towards. And, of course, it’s a very Sawardian society as well — full of dour military men.” In many ways this was Bidmead’s response not only to the increasingly cynical universe that Saward was creating on Doctor Who but also to the politics of the time. He also removes the Doctor and his companions from seeking the safety of the TARDIS by seemingly destroying it. This may well have played into Nathan-Turner’s publicity about ridding the series of the TARDIS.
Commissioned in November 1982 and retitled Frontios (there were several mis-spellings along the way) when Bidmead delivered his scripts in February 1983, there were substantial alterations to remove concepts that were deemed unsavoury. He had his creatures building a burrowing machine from human body parts and the Gravis, their leader, using “a severed head with a pendulum as a translator device.” Bidmead partially restored these later in his Target book adaptation of the story. Turlough’s race memory of the creatures invading his home planet was allegedly Bidmead’s homage to Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit serial of 1958.
The Tractators, looking like large silver spheres, could fold and unfold their bodies, “killing their victims by encircling and smothering them.” This was attempted in the costume design and by hiring several dancers, from the Maasai troupe, whose abilities would enhance these movements. Unfortunately, an outside contractor made the costumes and were found to be not flexible enough for their occupants when delivered shortly before the studio dates. This left the dancers very little time to rehearse in them and able only to shuffle about in their scenes. An attempt to complete one shot showing the curling up effect left the performer unable to get back up off the floor.
The problems with the Tractator costumes and John Summers’ lengthy lighting set ups ate into the studio time of the first block. A number of shots were delayed or had to be remounted and there was a dispute about the amount of time Summers was taking. Summers was keen to emphasise the green glow of the hand held lamps used to explore the tunnels carved out by the Tractators and catch the glowing veins on the front of the creatures made with front-axial projection paint. Designed by Dave Harvard and made by outside contractor Any Effects, the Tractators’ excavating machine originally featured the remains of Revere and three other occupants but was considered both too graphic a concept to use and such a disappointing prop that director Ron Jones decided to minimise its appearance on screen. Shots of the other occupants were cut and, as a result, Tegan’s dialogue was altered. The block also had further delays due to some effects problems and a faulty camera and it and the second block incurred expensive overruns to complete the episodes.
When episodes were found to be too long in the edit, several cuts were made. The development of Cockerill (Maurice O’Connell), a rebellious retrograde, had some material removed that showed his increasing sense of insolence. A cut scene, where Tegan and Turlough return to the TARDIS, “surrounded by curious colonists”, removed the sense from Turlough’s later comment that they and the TARDIS had lost their ‘news value’. Part Three lost an explanation that “the voices of the Doctor and Tegan have echoed through the Tractators’ tunnels” had brought them to the attention of the Gravis. The final episode also cut out exchanges between the Doctor and the Gravis about the Time Lords and Gallifrey and a significant conversation between the Doctor and Tegan to explain his plan to her about her ‘android’ status, where “if the Tractators suspect she is human, they will ‘dismantle’ her and use her in the mining machine.”
… gravitational forces unleashed by some overgrown woodlice
In 1984, it felt like the production team had suddenly remembered and understood the series’ late 1970s roots, particularly its penchant for Gothic tinged horror. In a season that had just started with the fairly decent Cold War analogy of Warriors of the Deep, somewhat compromised by Ingrid Pitt drop-kicking a green pantomime horse standing in for the Myrka creature, Frontios momentarily reminded us that Doctor Who could still be scary, witty and a bit grim in the early 1980s. It’s certainly the strongest story of the season alongside The Caves Of Androzani. Overall, it excels at those elements that Doctor Who always seems to do well — namely scripts that attempt to build a credible world and characters and also gleefully bring the ‘terror in the dark’ atmosphere to the fore. With some good design elements and studio lighting, witty dialogue and uniformly excellent performances, atmospheric music and a central reaffirmation of the Fifth Doctor’s character, Frontios overcomes the somewhat disappointing depiction of the Tractators. The latter was an aspect of the story that Bidmead also felt hadn’t been realised particularly well.
With a suitably doom laden atmosphere, the story still reflects Bidmead’s obsessions with science, in his use of gravitic waveguides that the Tractators intend to use to pilot the planet, and his fascination with the TARDIS. In Logopolis and Castrovalva, he fixated on the transdimensional states of the machine, including the Escher motifs of the Möbius strip TARDIS within a TARDIS and the jettisoning of various rooms. Here, in part one, he blows up the ship in a cliffhanger suggesting that the time machine has bought it and the crew are marooned at the end of the universe. With Nathan-Turner threatening to replace the TARDIS, there was briefly a sense he had delivered on the publicity he had whipped up.
The Doctor takes this calamity in his stride and is nonchalant about the demise of his transport. Gradually emerging as less of a publicity stunt, it is perhaps better understood as Bidmead’s tongue in cheek exploration of the Doctor’s unspoken confidence that the machine remains indestructible. It seems so despite the TARDIS being ripped asunder by the gravitational forces unleashed by some overgrown woodlice. With Frontios, Bidmead not only showcases how effectively he could write the qualities of the Fifth Doctor’s character, something many other writers struggled with, but he also clearly positions the Doctor’s ongoing role in relation to the TARDIS. This is something Piers Britton refers to in TARDISbound, where the sanctity of the Doctor’s narcissistic authority is connected with the TARDIS and is symbolic of “a nice continuing metaphor for the Doctor’s self-contained wholeness.” The TARDIS disintegrates and the Doctor must recombine the pieces if he is to remain the viable hero of the story.
Disintegration of the TARDIS, the erosion of the human colony and their failed technology, the Tractators using human bodies to pilot their mining machines are all thematic extensions of a particular dystopianism found in British science fiction. Produced in 1984, it suggests a further connection to that dystopian year in the title of Orwell’s novel and underlines the mood and attitudes in the story. Not only does it reflect the dominant tribalism of the Thatcherite project but it also harkens back to the Cold War paranoia of 1950s SF (the colonists believe they are being bombarded from outer space when in fact the war is raging from within, physically and psychologically) as well as the motifs of retro, Atomic age designs seen in the crashed ship, extended through a Heath Robinson form of existence where the medical bay’s lighting is powered by cumbersome acid batteries, and the glassy environments of the Tractators lair is littered with strange oversized atoms. It is a mash-up of This Island Earth (1955), Forbidden Planet (1956), the dirty future of Alien (1979), and Orwell’s 1984 itself (Revere’s image and reputation is very Big Brother).
“they look to you”
As it was all rather grim in 1984, this tale of the remnants of humankind struggling to maintain a colony after crashing their ship was not only akin to what Bidmead saw as the conflict in Beirut but also suggested the growing discontent in the UK between government and industry, resulting in particularly volatile industrial action that Thatcher would delineate as a struggle where “the rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob”. One of the subplots in Frontios, so cackhandedly depicted through lack of time and editing that it becomes an afterthought, is the breakdown of the colony and the attempted ‘coup’ by the retrogrades, those citizens rejecting the stoic belief in their weakened leader Plantagenet (Jeff Rawle) or those whom the colony has itself rejected. Interestingly, Plantagenet as a title is a particularly apropos, and rather English, emblem of power. It suggests that 12th century era of English history that ushered in social and cultural changes — constitutional law, Gothic architecture and the poetry of Chaucer — overseen by inexperienced ‘boy kings’.
Along with the themes of how the power to hold communities together is generated by figureheads — the colony’s Revere (an appropriate name for a almost messianic leader) and Plantagenet (“they look to you”) and the Gravis (John Gillett) directing the Tractators — this also seems to rehearse the debate about the individual and society that Thatcher ignited with her now infamous claim that there was no such thing as society. It’s a pity this subtext gets so little room amongst the shuffling, flapping Tractators. Perhaps also an indication of Bidmead dragging the series into the realms of the logical philosophy of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, it’s interesting to note that Wittgenstein’s work has had an influence on ideas of social therapy and emotional growth in the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. Frontios illustrates how societies and communities dissolve and grow, how groups within it self-heal and self-destruct. Certainly, the upbeat conclusion would seem to suggest some kind of deep therapy has taken place, with the Tractators pacified once the Gravis has been removed and the human colony restored with the return of Plantagenet.
This dovetails quite elegantly with the theme of race memory, with Turlough’s reawakened fears of the Tractators, reflecting those ideas of societal purges in Kneale’s Quatermass serial, and his dumb state of psychosis picking up on that classic scene at the beginning of another slice of 1950s pulp SF cinema, Them! (1954). Mark Strickson’s startling performance is definitely a case of grabbing a script that offers him a fair crack of the whip. His recall of a previous encounter with the Tractators is full of manic intensity and fuels the charged atmosphere regarding the appearance of said beasts. When they are revealed, it’s as plain as the nose on your face, or should that be as plain as the one on the Gravis’ face, that a major problem with Frontios is that the Tractators disappoint. Unable to achieve the desired effect of these creatures wrapping themselves around their victims, we instead get a rather unflattering result where the creatures shuffle along, waggle their antennae and their arms a lot. And the nose on the Gravis is somewhat unintentionally comedic.
The idea of childhood nightmares revisited is also echoed in the recall by Norna (Lesley Dunlop), daughter of the colony’s medical officer, when she wistfully remembers that Captain Revere warned her as a young girl that they couldn’t go underground anymore because the “the earth was hungry.” The resulting attempts to depict this particular curse of Frontios are a slightly disappointing meld of physical effects and video effects, although the idea of being sucked into the ground is a wonderfully macabre one. Certainly The Hungry Earth, shown in Matt Smith’s first season in 2010, returns to and partly replicates this idea. It’s a symbolic fear of the underworld, of being buried alive, that propels the narrative into areas not explored since the Hinchcliffe era. The body horror of Revere strapped into the Tractators mining machine is also an indelible image, a concept that Bidmead relished expanding upon in his Target novelisation. Images so strong it prompted a letter of complaint to the Radio Times suggesting they “were not suitable viewing for children of any age.”
The supporting cast features a bullish, grouchy turn from the ever reliable Peter Gilmore as Brazen, who seems to be recreating James Onedin, in space and sans the sideburns, and a subtle, thoughtful portrait from William Lucas of duty bound medical officer Range. He was a last minute replacement for Peter Arne, tragically murdered just days after he had attended his costume fitting for the production. Lesley Dunlop gives a naturalistic and appealing performance as Norna. There are great little character moments too. Range’s comment of “it failed”, in response to the Doctor’s enquiry about the colony’s so-called failure-proof technology, and the Doctor’s attempt to convince the Gravis that Tegan is a shop-soiled android are both particularly deft touches in the script. The story is also held together by a central performance from Davison that suggests he’s actually worked out how to play the part now he’s half way through his last season. If anything, Frontios offers us the quintessential appearance of the Fifth Doctor and if Davison hadn’t felt he’d had an underwhelming second year in the part he might have stayed put and given us more of what we see here. If you want to ‘know’ the Fifth Doctor then Frontios is a good place to start.
The icing on the cake is a memorably lyrical, almost melancholic score — very 1980s listening to it again now — from Paddy Kingsland and director Ron Jones showing us many visual flourishes, unusual angles and compositions that add a German Expressionist feel to the proceedings that, coupled with the set design, lighting and a basic red, black and white colour scheme, offer a mood and scope too often abandoned by the series at the time.
Sources:
Elizabeth Sandifer, ‘The Ground’s Attacking Us’ Frontios, Eruditorum Press.
Laurence Miles and Tat Wood, About Time — The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1980–1984, Seasons 18–21.
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, Frontios, A Brief History of Time Travel.
‘Frontios’, Doctor Who — The Complete History, Volume 38 (Stories 130–132).
Piers D. Britton, TARDISbound: Navigating the Universes of Doctor Who.
This review was originally of a pre-release check disc supplied to the writer prior to the release of the Frontios DVD in May 2011. The following added material was included across the DVD set.
Special features:
- Commentary
Peter Davison, Jeff Rawle, Dick Mills and Eric Saward. For a Davison DVD commentary this is rather sedate compared to the usual mayhem unleashed between Davison and Janet Fielding. Although Saward sighs his way through it all, he does provide some pertinent background to the development of Bidmead’s script and Rawle is also rather candid about how the supporting actors were treated back in the day. Mills offers a few contributions about the creation of sound effects but is a tad quiet through most if it. - Driven To Distractation
A half hour on what a fairly thankless task making Doctor Who was in the mid-1980s. It opens with Bidmead’s script editorship amusingly summed up with the alliterative “sobering series of scientific sorties” and with his replacement Saward admitting that he looked to Bidmead to supply the kind of science fiction story that he had no affinity with. Cue woodlice anecdotes and him realising that there was never going to be enough time or money to do the costumes well or rectify the obvious mistake of putting dancers into what turned out to be strait-jackets. This also covers the hectic studio production, with David Buckingham discussing how he built the exteriors of Frontios itself with sets and glass shots. and casting difficulties, including the last minute replacement of the tragically murdered Peter Arne with William Lucas as Range. - Extended / Deleted Scenes
15 minutes or so of footage with some little nuggets here that surely should have been kept in. The glasses scene is lovely as is some nice business between Davison and Fielding that expands the amusing moment when the Doctor explains to the Gravis that Tegan is a faulty android. It also reveals a continuity problem, as the Doctor uncovers his plan here to Tegan, and yet in the finished serial she seems aware of it without being told. - Coming Soon Trailer
Earthstory, featuring Hartnell’s Doctor looking for a dentist in Tombstone but faced instead with The Gunfighters, and the Fifth Doctor battling the Malus, Civil War re-enactments and the Queen of the May in The Awakening. - Photo Gallery
Production, design and publicity photos from the story. - Isolated Music
Option to watch the episodes with Kingsland’s isolated music score. - Radio Times Listings
- Programme subtitles & Subtitle Production Notes
Great collection of trivia and facts about the making of the story.
Doctor Who: Frontios
2 | entertain / Released 30 May 2011 / BBCDVD3004 / Cert: PG
4 episodes / Broadcast: 26 January to 3 February 1984
Running time: 100 mins approx.
Originally published at https://www.cathoderaytube.co.uk. Revised for the 60th Anniversary, 2023. All written material by Frank Collins (the author) is © 2007–2023 and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Please seek permission from the author if you would like to quote or re-use any of the author’s own written material.
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