Frontier in Space: Episode Six

I watched this one many years ago and thought it was great. I hadn't seen it for a long time when I decided to watch it recently, and I found it somewhat disappointing. I got the sense that many scenes were stretched out just to lengthen the running time. The most obvious one is Jo and the Doctor talking in the cage in the prison ship flown by The Master. That whole section of the episode was three times longer than it needed to be. There were many other instances where it felt like they just held the camera on a shot longer than necessary, or dialogue was said slower or repeated to lengthen things out. It makes what could have been an intense story into one with uneven pacing and tone. It was a set up for the next story, The Planet of the Daleks, which also was poorly done.

I am a huge classic Dr WHO fan. I always thought Roger Delgado passed away during the filming of this show so gave it a pass, but only to discover he did months afterwards and his final scenes were passed over due to lack of studio time, yet somehow Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts were able to reshoot the end scene. Uhhh, why not Roger Delgado then? In any case overall the whole story and plot was great but became repetitive and drawn out. Back and forth with we don't believe the Doctor's story and let's lock him up. In the end all the proof to collaborate the Doctor's account was lost sooo...How was it resolved? It wasn't. Let's move on to the next episode and leave it at that. Poor execution in my opinion.

Unlike some of the other comments here, I feel Frontier in Space is one of the six part serials from the Pertwee era, that doesn't suffer from pacing, I think it moves along really well. Considering you do indeed class it as a six, or a twelve, events throughout Frontier in Space link it incredibly closely to Planet of the Daleks, giving it one big story feel, not quite, but along the lines of Masterplan.

It's a big moment when The Master finally reveals that it's the Ogron Masters that are behind events, great also to see The Master teaming up with The Daleks.

Pertwee and Manning were terrific here, as indeed was Delgado. For me it's a shame that the events of this story are pretty much cut dead, apart from the Dalek direction. Still it's a fine conclusion to a very strong Pertwee story. 9/10

Review of all 6 episodes:

Frontier in Space succeeds where The Space Pirates failed, it is a very good adventure in 'space opera' epic style. There is decent model work in both stories but unlike its predecessor the model work is more than matched by almost all other aspects in this story being of a very high standard.

Proceedings begin with The Doctor finding himself in the middle of a very tense situation between two powerful empires in the galaxy on the brink of war. Earth's empire and the Draconian empire both believe the other is attacking them but The Doctor and Jo find there is another power orchestrating events to bring about a huge war. The Ogrons, under orders from an unknown superior, are in fact carrying out the attacks with hypnotic signals causing them to be wrongly identified.

Spoiler alert - There are a couple of wonderful surprises as the story develops as first The Master is revealed to be behind the scheme to provoke war and finally it is also revealed that he is working with The Daleks. These revelations and the excitement of seeing two of The Doctor's greatest enemies working together provide huge enjoyment.

The Draconians are famous for being Jon Pertwee's favourite aliens and are well thought of by most reviewers ever since. This is well deserved as they are truly excellent alien creations. The make up and costuming is brilliant and convincing and their acting lives up to the excellent presentation on screen. The writing of them as a sympathetic alien race with some depth just adds even further and makes them one of the best created races in the series history.

The plot meanders a bit too much with too many captures and imprisonments but that is the only real flaw until a slightly dodgy space walk in episode 4 which drops that otherwise excellent episode down a little in my ratings and then a tragically chaotic final scene for The Master which detracts a little from episode 6. Chaotic because it is badly edited and shambolic leaving you wondering why the Ogrons and The Master disappear in such a rapid and unconvincingly feeble way. Tragic because this is the last scene ever with Roger Delgado as The Master. Delgado was very sadly killed in a car accident meaning that when The Master eventually returns to face the 4th Doctor he is played by another actor.

Although his final few seconds on screen are somewhat ruined this is a fitting story for Delgado to finish on. It is an excellent, well written by the great Malcolm Hulke and excitingly presented adventure with good twists and great aliens.

My ratings: Part 1 - 9/10, Part 2 - 9.5/10, Part 3 - 9/10, Part 4 - 8/10, Part 5 - 9.5/10, Part 6 - 9/10.

I've always loved this story since I was a kid and I've never really understood the hate/moaning it used to nearly always get. Which has thankfully died down a little today. While it's fair to say I enjoyed this for different reasons as a child, I now utterly love the politics and people drama its about. Doctor who apparently has never been political which is more laughable the ogron monster in part 6, yes some are more subtle than others but some in the Pertwee era are so not subtle they'd be hated today, such as "Inferno" or "The green death". Pertwee often walked into a room and stated the obvious theme of said episode.

The big reveal to this story is that Master with the help of the Daleks have manupluted a war between earth and draconia. I love when the Daleks do this and any villain that does this. You don't always need a big invasion plan just mess with the enemies head and they'll start a war between themselves. Which what they do by using a fear image enhancer to make both sides think the other is attacking them when in reality it's the ogrons. The entire story until episode 4 is all about power play and fear mongering and it's great drama.

We get to see both sides of this war starting. Humanity who believe the Draconians are wanting a war. We get some great side characters in madam president who is on the edge of bringing humanity to war/firing the first or last shot. But we see her struggles to keep her people save and her morals intact. She wants to avoid it at all costs. We later hear a little about the outside world/people. Two sides. One in which is against the war and so uses the presidents face as symbol of hate/war. The other who want to start fighting against the Draconians and use the face of the president as a symbol of we are coming to get you enemies of earth. It's just brilliant world building to this story and probably one of the most realistic who stories. It was definitely reflecting fears and riots at the time and with today's eyes feels like there are some parallels to Margaret Thatcher which it is spookily similar to her and the day she decided to sink the belgrano.

We then also see the Draconians side to this, as they also think the humans are trying to attack them and start a war. However as we later discover, General William once attacked an innocent Draconian ship that came on a peace mission. So naturally they all fear/believe this why the humans want a war and finish them off. We also get to see great parallels to the Draconian prince who isn't sure about firing first or last. Which considering the sexist ways of Draconians not allowing woman in places really adds to the theme of how two different cultures could be easily manupluted to go to war. The make up/design of the Draconians is absolutely brilliant and could easily work today and I'm shocked they haven't come back yet. I totally understand why Pertwee loved them.

While alot of this story is a runaround and the main cast getting constantly locked up or called spy's for both sides etc it's still good fun and hearts back to the olds days. But there's so much to enjoy here both dialogue and action scenes. Such as the Dr. on the ships, ogrons smashing into places and an awesome shots of the master on the cliff. Especially when the Daleks appear. What a great surprise that was.

Jo gets some excellent moments here too, really setting up the theme of how her character is growing up. There's some great comical moments in the cell as she tries to come with an escape and says what the Dr and her must do and goes oh what I'm I worrying for? It's great. She also finally gets to defeat the master this time. Whereas in her first episode she got hypnotized here she sings riddles and stops the master from getting into her head. It's a great moment for her character and shows how far she's come from her first episode and showing how she's becoming much more independent. She also gives the ogron an banana which always makes me laugh.

The biggest problem this story has that even fans of this story agree on is the disappointing rushed ending, while it was great and a nice full arc of having General Williams team up a Draconian and then try and make peace together, the master/drs escape is very clumsy. It's a messy scene of the Dr gets shot and ogrons run away and somehow the master has escaped. Its not the production teams fault but it's such a horrible turn of fate that this is Roger Delgados last appearance. An actor who was both passionate, dedicated and very talented and was taken from us far too soon. I cried my eyes out as a child learning of this, but I always liked the idea of Roger as the master in the sky reading his war of the world's book. For me hell always be the definitive Master.

Infact when the Blu-ray collection set came I really wanted to see a scene which fixes this story, yes I know comics etc have but just a short scene with some look alike and brilliant impressionists to add a scene into the original story. So much so I had two ideas for said scene. One I can't find the other is this : The Dr and Jo after tricking the ogrons run away to find the TARDIS. The master and ogrons corner him as he mentioned he signed for some Daleks to return. The Daleks know the Dr will try to find there home base in "Planet" so a Dalek back to the master. If we keep the theme of these Daleks being the last three from "Evil" they need to protect the planet at all cost.

As the master confronts them the Dalek emerge. The altercation/panic happens, the dr gets shot and falls to the ground everybody runs away, we get the reveal it was the Dalek who fired the shot. The master is seen limbing away and cursing them. We hear a voice from another master. It's revealed that the master saved the dr from getting a full blast of the Daleks gun and let himself get the hit. Refusing to regenerate because of the dr, he stumbles to his tardis. It's revealed from the voice that master made sure this happens as he saw an alternative timeline were the Daleks rule and keep him as a Prisoner. So he must let the Dr find and destroy there base in "Planet". He hoped he could trap the Dr there with the Daleks too, or at least have the Daleks destroyed and deal with the Dr next. Using all his strength he tries to stop the timelords getting to the Dr and it causes the TARDIS to start exploding and causes him serious burns. He gives the Dr a message in his had in is tardis about were he's sending him. The Dr thanks him and eventually will forget this and why he's on the planet. The timelords also want to get in contact with the dr to get him back to Gallifrey and work out a way to stop the master and bring him on trial. The master contacts the timelords and agrees to make a bargain. I'll return to Gallifrey to be allowed a regeneration and be isolated if you let me make the Dr go to the planet to stop the Daleks. They agree. The master slowly regenerates in his buring tardis laughing.

Maybe one day I'll get some fans together and we'll try and film it. Who knows?

Rating 3/5 8/10.