Day 151 — May 31st 2021
Colony in Space Episodes Five and Six
Colony in Space — Episode Five
I’m a bit torn with this episode. On the one hand we’ve shifted away from the rubber-suited extras (indeed they feature less in this episode than any of the previous four, despite being brought to the fore yesterday), but we’ve not put the focus back on the human conflict. Instead, this episode is largely about Doctor Who and the Master doing battle — often when they’re in totally separate locations.
There’s a lengthy sequence of Doctor Who and Jo breaking into the Master’s TARDIS and it feels like something more from a spy series than fitting in with the rest of Colony in Space. Having deduced that there’s a laser beam security system, our heroes are forced to slide under the door to break in… only for Jo to absent mindedly step directly into the beam a few minutes later.
And once we’re inside the Master’s TARDIS… well, it’s not exactly impressive is it? They largely reused parts from the regular TARDIS set — which is absolutely fine, and will become something of a staple of the series — but then they’ve added in such exciting additions as… a row of filing cabinets. Ooh, edgy. Doctor Who suggests that this TARDIS is more modern than his own (‘A slightly more advanced model, actually’), but there’s nothing here that really suggests that to be the case. And there’s something oddly disappointing about the IMC guards being able to break in and rescue Jo because the key has been dropped next to the door.
It sounds like I’m just having a good old moan about this one, but there is plenty in here to enjoy still. I’m a big fan of pretty much anything involving the human guest characters, and really enjoy the IMC crew managing to sneak back into the colony and take control. I’ve been looking at photographs from the story this morning, and I think the main hall of the colony looks much better in photos — you get a sense of what they’re trying to do with the window at the top of the stairs which I don’t think really comes across on screen.
An interesting new fact has come to light recently regarding the photography for this story, and it’s entirely in relation to this episode. For years fandom wondered about the Graham Harper incarnation of the ‘Morbius Doctor Whos’ — those faces which appear on the screen during the mental duel in The Brain of Morbius. We had pictures of all the other incarnations (in varying quality), but the Harper photos had always eluded attempts at discovery.
It’s only relatively recently that it’s been noticed that the Graham Harper photo isn’t from the same source as all the others — indeed it was taken during the production of this story to serve as a photo of the ‘real’ Adjudicator! The images shows up twice in this episode — most clearly as a print out on the IMC ship.
This episode is also home to plenty of really lovely model shots, which have been prevalent in earlier episodes too, but really come into their own here. I’m especially fond of the shot of Uxarieus from space, with the IMC rocket hanging in orbit. It feels like ages since we had proper spaceships in Doctor Who, so it’s nice to see them return and be done so well.
A 6/10 for this one.
Colony in Space — Episode Six
Bloody hell, talk about a quick resolution! In this episode the Master reveals his plan — the rubber men of Uxarieus have access to a super weapon capable of switching off the sun and he plans to use it. They discover the weapon five minutes after entering the lost city, and following a few carefully chosen words from Doctor Who the rubber men decide to destroy the weapon — and themselves — right away.
I can’t help feeling as though the superweapon could have been introduced a little earlier in the story, so there’s time for the rubber people to decide what to do. We get the briefest of mentions of a ‘Doomsday Weapon’ in the opening scene when the Time Lords decide to send Doctor Who on a mission, but that was six weeks ago. I’ve no issue in principal with them deciding that the time has come for their civilisation to end, but I’d have expected them to agonise about it for slightly more than thirty seconds!
In the story’s defence we do at least get a few lovely scenes between Doctor Who and the Master — having them confined together here allows for some nice dialogue between the two;
The Master: ‘You must see reason, Doctor.’
Doctor Who: ‘No, I will not join you in your absurd dreams of a galactic conquest.’
The Master: ‘Why? Why? Look at this. Look at all those planetary systems, Doctor. We could rule them all!’
Doctor Who: ‘What for? What is the point?’
The Master: ‘The point is that one must rule or serve. That’s a basic law of life. Why do you hesitate, Doctor? Surely it’s not loyalty to the Time Lords, who exiled you on one insignificant planet?’
Doctor Who: ‘You’ll never understand, will you? I want to see the universe, not rule it.’
There’s a few other places that this final episode has come as a bit of a let down. There’s a fantastic moment where the Colonist’s spaceship takes off successfully… only to explode moments later. It was proper edge-of-the-seat stuff, and I was genuinely shocked to see them all killed off so casually. But it was incredibly effective, and felt utterly in keeping with the rather bleak picture of the future Hulke had been painting elsewhere in the story. I didn’t expect that IMC were going to win — I assumed they’d get some comeuppance too — but it felt somehow right, if terrible, that the colonists didn’t make it.
So you can imagine my feeling of disappointment a few minutes later when it’s revealed that almost everyone has survived and end up winning back the planet. We get some lovely material discussing the sacrifice Ashe has made to save his people, but it feels a bit like a cop out to me.
On the whole I think Colony in Space would have benefitted by being a tight four-parter, without the Master or the rubber aliens. This story is at its best when it’s focussing on the humans and their struggles, and I wish it had kept that focus in the last few episodes as tightly as it did in the beginning. We’re ending on a 5/10.
