Day 174 — June 23rd 2021

Frontier in Space Episodes Five and Six

Frontier in Space — Episode Five

I’ve not discussed the Draconians yet in this story, but since we spend a chunk of this episode in their palace I reckon this is probably the best opportunity to do so. Let’s be honest; they’re the best monster make up the series has ever given us. You could stick a Draconian on screen in the new series, with the exact same make up and design as we get here and no one would bat an eyelid — I don’t think they could do any better 50 years later.

Jon Pertwee was a fan of them — in the introduction to Episode Six which is included on the Blu-ray he singles them out as a favourite alien. And it seems baffling to me that we never saw them come back during Old Testament Who, knowing how successful they were. Frontier in Space is the first story for which John Friedlander is credited as providing the masks. He’ll be with the programme on and off for the next couple of years, and based on this story I’m really excited to see more of his work. I was thinking today that it’s strange he never came back to Doctor Who, but looking at his IMDB profile he doesn’t seem to have any credits past around 1976 for anything.

As brilliant as the prosthetics are they’re not the only thing which makes the design so effective. This story is the first to have costumes designed by Barbara Kidd, and her work on the Draconians is beautiful. It also feels incredibly unique in Doctor Who monsters so far, and I don’t think we’ll go on to have all that many more who look so regal either. Kidd will also be dipping in and out of Doctor Who until 1975 but she did return to the series for Kinda and a run of episodes in 2010/2011.

I thought it seemed strange that so many new people were starting their association with the programme in the third story of the season, but in looking it up Season Ten had the most complex production schedule we’ve seen up to this point. For the first eight years stories were broadcast in the order they were recorded. Season Nine broke this tradition by flipping the broadcast of The Curse of Peladon and The Sea Devils, but this season takes things to a whole new level.

Carnival of Monsters was actually filmed at the end of Season Nine, before the cast took a summer break. They returned to produce this story, moving onto The Three Doctors afterwards owing to Troughton’s availability. As far as I can see that makes the season opener the quickest turnaround from recording to broadcast in the entire 1970s. They went onto Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death afterwards and rounded out the production block with The Time Warrior before the next break. Production details like this are something I’ve enjoyed discovering this time around. Just when you think there’s nothing new to learn about Doctor Who, I remember how little I actually know!

Elsewhere I’m really sorry to say that the story still isn’t grabbing me. I was hoping that the arrival of the Master into proceedings would liven things up a bit, but I’m still sitting through the episodes and coming out the other side bored. His presence does at least give us some nice dialogue, especially when paired with Doctor Who;

The Master: ‘I welcome your wisdom, your Majesty. Nobody could be more devoted to the cause of peace than I. 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.’
Doctor Who: ‘You feeling all right, old chap?’

I think I’m dropping down to a 3/10 for this one, partly because the story is utterly failing to engage me.

Frontier in Space — Episode Six

The other day I listed all the things I thought I knew about Frontier in Space, but I missed off a point;

• It’s technically the first half of a 12-part serial, but it doesn’t link up very much with Planet of the Daleks.

In my head I had the ending of this story being the Daleks rocking up on the Ogron planet and taking our heroes off to Spiradon, never to see the guest cast again. Imagine my surprise then when the Daleks get their surprise reveal about half way through the episode! It’s the first time something in Frontier in Space has felt genuinely exciting, and it’s helped by some gorgeous direction and a nice reveal;

The Master: ‘Unarmed maybe, but not unaccompanied. I’ve brought some old friends along to meet you. Quite a touching little reunion. You don’t seem very pleased.’

I’m also pleased to see that there is at least a bit more of a connection between the two stories than I’d realised. The Master has been stoking the fires of war so that Earth and Draconia will wipe each other out, leaving the way clear for the Daleks to seize power in the aftermath. The gold Daleks says that ‘we shall now return to our base and prepare the army of the Daleks’, which I’m presuming will be the Dalek army on Spiradon in the next story.

That said, you have to wonder why the Daleks have had to rely on the Master to do their dirty work. They’ve had stooges do their bidding before now, but it feels a bit underwhelming to me that they’re having to sit around and wait for him to provoke a war before they can make their move. They’re the Daleks! They should just swan in and exterminate everyone themselves.

Still, it is exciting to see them teaming up with the Master, and they do look brilliantly formidable lined up at the top of the cliffs, with Doctor Who trapped in the valley below them. It feels right that Delgado should get to team up with the Doctor Who villains in his final appearance, given that he’s been the iconic bad guy throughout this era.

It’s a shame to see his final moments on screen so confused, though. He disappears while Doctor Who and Jo make their escape, knocked out of the way by a bunch of panicking Ogrons. I know the production team intended him to return for a proper farewell the following season, but it’s sad to think that after eight stories he just sort of gets shuffled off screen. I’ve never been a huge fan of the character, and I can’t claim that watching through this time around has changed that. He appears in some great stories — The Claws of Axos and The Sea Devils both make my top ten, though he’s only really at his best in the latter — but I’m not sure I’m ever going to be a huge fan of the Master.

That said, Roger Delgado has been brilliant in the part. He’s always considered the definitive incarnation of the character and I have to admit that it never really felt that way to me. Because the Pertwee era was my least favourite for so long I hadn’t seen many of his stories before my last marathon, but I’d seen all of Anthony Ainley’s adventures. Watching through this time around I can really appreciate how great Delgado is, and I wonder how much of an impact that’ll have on the later incarnations.

Something I praised in yesterday’s entry was the way Frontier in Space kept things fresh by changing up the location every episode. That’s continued in these final two, with Episode Five set largely in the Draconian Palace and a space ship, and this final episode almost entirely on the Ogron’s home world. I’m torn because on the one hand it keeps the story feeling fresh, but on the other I feel like none of the locations are as well defined as I’d expect from a Malcolm Hulke script.

Doctor Who and the Silurians and Colony in Space were both great because they felt like really rich settings that I completely understood, populated by rounded characters with clear motivations. By contrast this story changes up the setting so often that there’s no time to really develop beyond the surface. It means moments like General Williams’ change of heart regarding the Draconians feel knee-jerk and lack impact; they happen because the plot needs them to, rather than because they’ve been earned.

I wonder if that’s one of the reasons Frontier in Space hasn’t really clicked for me? One of the real strengths in this era so far has been how richly drawn all the stories are, and this is a rare example of everything being so close to the surface. I’d love to see a version of the story that really focusses in on things more, and I wonder if the Target novel helps with that? It’s certainly something I’d be tempted to check out once the marathon is over.

There’s one final thing I want to touch on with this episode, and that’s to reiterate the comparison I made the other day between this story and The Space Pirates. Obviously there’s some surface level similarities — while there were a couple of rocket ships in Colony in Space this is the first time we’ve really done a spaceships story since 1969 — but this episode really feels like a throwback. Doctor Who has to do another dangerous space walk to make alterations to a ship, and it feels like a lot of padding.

The wires are more obvious here than they were in Episode Four, and while Iwas just about able to overlook them on that occasion this feels more slapdash and really did affect the enjoyment. On top of that there’s lengthy sequences of the hull of spaceships accompanied by music that might as well have been deliberately lifted from The Space Pirates. I’m all for some callbacks now and then, but not to my lowest-rated story!

It’s another 3/10 for this one, I’m afraid. Fingers crossed the second half of the story can turn things around for me.

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