Planet of Fire

Four episodes
Aired between 23rd February 1984 and 2nd March 1984

Written by Peter Grimwade
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Fiona Cumming

Synopsis

Shortly following Tegan's departure, Kamelion screams in pain. The Doctor and Turlough rush to find him on the floor, connected to the TARDIS data core.

As this is happening, the TARDIS picks up on a distress signal and Turlough seems to recognise it and is troubled by it - so much so that he rips out wires on the console to stop the signal.  All for not though, as Kamelion takes control of the TARDIS and heads towards the source of the signal, which happens to be the island of Lanzarote.

On the island, Howard Foster, an archaeologist is returning with his team from bringing their finds up from the sea bed. Amongst the finds is a strange golden object marked with the sign of two triangles.  His step-daughter, Perpugilliam "Perri" Brown shows up and explains she's bored and intends to go backpacking in Morocco with a total stranger.  Howard is angry at first, but then offers to pay for her ticket to make sure retains her return ticket to New York and thereby making sure she's safe. He convinces her that he's left his money on the boat, but when they get there, he strands her on it in order to make her miss the flight.

Not to be deterred, Perri takes the strange artefact with the intent to sell it, changes into a bikini and tries to swim ashore.  For some reason though, she can't swim very well and ends up half-drowning herself until Turlough spots her on the TARDIS monitor and saves her.

Turlough takes Perri to the TARDIS and lays her in bed to recover, and finds the artefact. Again he is disturbed as he happens to have a strange embossed tattoo of the triangle pattern on his arm, the same as the artefact.

The Doctor, having been running all around the island trying to find the source, tracks it back to the TARDIS and uncovers it from Turlough. He asks what the artefact is, but before Turlough can fully explain, the TARDIS doors close and it begins to take off again.  Kamelion is controlling the TARDIS once again and has taken form of Howard from Perri's memories.  The Doctor confronts him, but doesn't get much sense, ultimately figuring out that they're going back to where the artefact originated from - a desert planet known as Sarn.

On Sarn, there is a community of people who have a faith worshipping Logar, god of fire.  That faith is waning as people are starting to question whether he exists at all.  The disciple of the high priest Timanov, is a boy who also bears a mark on his arm similar to Turlough.  Timanov thinks the boy, Malcon, is a chosen one of Logar and he alone can determine if heretics are burned in fire to appease the god and stop the earthquakes that seem to be troubling their village.  The community seem to be ready to overthrow Timanov and Malcon when the TARDIS arrives, and people take it as a sign from Logar.

 As the Doctor and Turlough go out to investigate where they've landed, "Howard" turns into the Master and proclaims that he's got control of the TARDIS now.

Following this, Perri runs all over the fire riddled mountainsides of Sarn, being chased by Kamelion who has taken on the appearance of the Master.

The Doctor and Turlough meanwhile find evidence that people from Trion are living on Sarn (the mark on Turlough's arm is called the Misos triangle and it's a sign of his people).

It seems that Malcon maybe Turlough's brother as he and his father went missing when they were very young (implication is that their ship crashed on Sarn).  Malcon knows of the ship and takes Turlough there who then finds out off of Perri that the Master is involved.  Together, they all race back to the village, but see that the Master has managed to convince Timanov that he is a messenger from Logar and convinces the high priest to try and execute the Doctor by burning him sacrificially.

Turlough finds some technology that disables the flame and then goes to free the Doctor.

Perri is re-captured by Kamelion / The Master and taken into his TARDIS.

The Doctor figures out that the seizmic disturbances are from the volcano that's about to erupt and kill them all. He realises that the fire in the centre of their community is fuelled by Newmismaton gas. which has renown healing properties - he assumes that the Master is after using the gas to rejuvenate himself.

Sure enough, the Master takes Perri in his TARDIS to a central control in the heart of the volcano that was put there long ago and controls the Newmismaton gas flow.  He tries to force Perri to work the controls, but she escapes into his TARDIS and tries to destroy Kamelion's control box, instead finding a miniaturised Master within it.

Like a complete idiot, the Master accidentally shrank himself when trying to upgrade his Tissue Compression Eliminator.  Now he needs the gas to rejuvenate himself.  Perri tries to slap him with her shoe, but he escapes into the innards of his own TARDIS console and is forced to open the doors to free her.

Perri goes and finds the Doctor, takes him to the control room in the heart of the volcano.  The Doctor sets up a trap by altering the system.

The Master arrives and uses Kamelion to try and dispose of the Doctor but the Doctor's trap short circuits Kamelion and he ends up being destroyed by the Tissue Compression Eliminator.

The Master, having been put into the blue flames of the Newmismaton gas is returned to normal and starts to gloat, but the Doctor fiddles with the controls and watches the flames turn yellow and the Master is burned up to nothing.

Even though he doesn't want to (because he was a political prisoner and sentenced to exile on Earth), Turlough contacts Trion and gets them to send out a ship to come pick up all the villagers on Sarn.  They arrive but tell him that times have changed and he's welcome to return home with his newfound brother.

Turlough does so and asks Perri to look after the Doctor.

The Doctor does seem intent to send her back to Earth, but she convinces him that she was wanting to travel the world anyway, and travelling in the TARDIS for three weeks is much better.

Trivia

• If you don't count the guest starring Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in Battlefield, this is the last time a male companion has an adventure with the Doctor until the series re-boot in 2005.

• The destruction of Kamelion and departure of Turlough also marked the end of a nearly 7 year run of non-human companions that travelled with the Doctor.

• According to John Nathan-Turner himself, the last words from the Master of "Won't you show mercy to your own..." would have ended in "brother". This was obviously kept secret as they didn't want to be that explicit.

• The scene where Perri is drowning was interrupted by a Norweigian man from a nudist beach who saw her and dove in, swimming to her to help, but finding out when he got there that she was perfectly fine.  Luckily, the crew got all the shots of Perri before hand.

The Review

As with Terminus, I found The Planet of Fire to be unbelievably boring.  Once again, there are minor aspects of Grimwade's stories, mainly the idea at the core of them that are interesting, and Planet of Fire does have these,  but they've been done before, and much better.

The civilisation based on a space travelling race is old hat for Doctor Who now, and once the TARDIS lands on Sarn, we're left with little of interest beyond a story that looks at the warnings of following blind faith.  That's alright, but it doesn't really focus on that theme, it just has it there in the background whilst we see a lot of messing around by men painted silver. 

Indeed, Kamelion is written out in this, and he's made one of the key elements in this story, which is fair enough, but we've not really seen him since the King's Demons, so no viewer is attached to him at all and it's irrelevant how much pain he's in because he's effectively still a robot to us. 

The running around Lanzarote and Perri's introduction wasn't too bad, and it did hold my attention for a little bit.  I'm not saying I'd like more than one episode of it (like Ark of Infinity), but when this is one of the good bits and it goes away mid-episode 1, then it's going to be missed.

The artefact plot bothers me. I mean, why is it on earth in 1984 anyway?  The Master / Kamelion additionally are a source of amusement and  frustration as they're so over the top on a constant basis that it is a complete turn off.  The less said about the entire shrunken master scenario, the better.

All in all, I would seriously recommend giving this a miss once you've seen Nicola Bryant get her kit off and half-drown.  It's such a sad thing too, as Season 21 has been a real upswing in the quality of stories for Peter Davison's run on the show. 

Dire production and I'm not planning to watch this again any time in the future.

Rating

3 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

2 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

The Time Monster

Death to the Daleks

The Brain of Morbius

Underworld

The Two Doctors

The Fires of Pompeii (Doctor Who, Series 4)

Resurrection of the Daleks

Four Episodes (aired as 2x 45 minute episodes)
Aired between 8th February 1984 and 15th February 1984

Written by Eric Saward
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Matthew Robinson

Synopsis

On a wet, run-down, London street, a bunch of strangely dressed men pile out of a warehouse and run away. London Policemen come out of the warehouse and mercilessly gun down the men, and an innocent bystander with sub-machine guns. 

The Chief Constable then takes a strange device out of his pocket and moves a switch, transporting the dead men and the guns somewhere else. The Policemen then go on their "beat" like nothing had happened.

The TARDIS rather than going to the centre of the universe, instead gets pulled down some form of time corridor.

The Doctor manages to break free of it and lands in a run-down part of the docklands near Tower Bridge.  He, Tegan and Turlough go out and try to find the end of the time corridor to figure out what's happened. As they do, they find one of the scruffy clothed men who managed to escape the murderous Policemen.  He collapses in exhaustion at first, but when he comes around, he tells them that they're in danger and not to go looking for the corridor.

Meanwhile, the Chief Constable and the bodies are beamed aboard a spaceship in the far future.  The Chief, Lytton is working for none other than the Daleks in some kind of scheme that required the men as test subjects. They weren't supposed to be killed, but it's only a temporary setback.  He turns his attentions to their big prize, a prison station in the depths of space.

On this station, a demoralised skeleton crew is present, and newly arrived Lt Mercer complains hopelessly to the stations Doctor, Styles about the poor condition of the crew and the apathy of them.  His case is soon made as the Dalek ship attacks the prison station and the crew scramble to put up a defence.  Their weapons are useless as Daleks blow the airlock and move in, but their mines prove effective and force the Dalek force to withdraw. 

Lytton is scathing to the Supreme Dalek and uses some type of gas that horribly disfigures the crew, allowing them to move in.

Back in the warehouse on earth, the Doctor convinces Stein to come with them back to the upper floor.  Stein tells them that soldiers are nearby, but the Doctor is unconcerned and continues to look for the entrance to the corridor.  Turlough mysteriously disappears and the TARDIS crew's shouting brings up the British soldiers led by Col. Archer.  They begin to question the Doctor, but are soon shaken as a Dalek appears in the warehouse! The Dalek kills several soldiers before the Doctor coordinates their attacks and gets the men to fire at its eyestalk, blinding it enough for them to push it out of the upstairs window and smashing down onto the cobbled street below.

Back on the prison station, the human Dalek Soldiers fight their way to the cryogenic section, where the sole prisoner of this place is held - Davros!  The soldiers manage to kill the security guard as she tried to terminate Davros, and Lytton gives the order to un-thaw the creator of the Daleks.

Dr Styles, Lt Mercer and a few others manage to escape the slaughter and look around for ways to stop the Dalek soldiers, stealing uniforms in the process. Turlough, having been accidentally taken in the time corridor, sneaks out of the Dalek ship and onto the station, running into the surviving crew. Together, they look for a way to blow up the prison station and end the threat of the Daleks.

Once thawed out, Davros is briefed by Lytton. He's told that the Daleks lost the Movellan war because of a weaponised virus.

Davros has been freed to find an antidote for that virus so the Daleks can once again be supreme.  Davros is weary of the Daleks past abuse of him though, and demands to stay on the station, despite a distress call having been sent back to earth.  As Lytton leaves, Davros begins to put his own plans into motion, taking control of the mind of Kiston, the human sent to help ensure he's healthy.

Through conversation, the Doctor finds out that the soldiers are a bomb disposal squad, sent to look at some strange artefacts found in the warehouse.  The Dalek that was pushed out of the window attacks the soldiers in its squid form, ultimately being killed, but it's enough to convince Col. Archer that he's in over his head. 

He agrees to go call for help whilst the Doctor and Stein go to search for Turlough using the TARDIS.  Tegan is left with the soldiers and Professor Laird, the groups scientific advisor.

Archer goes out and comes across the Policemen who murder him. The other soldiers are also murdered, but when Tegan and Prof. Laird try to escape, they encounter the same soldiers, although very cold, and calculating. They're effectively held prisoner.

The Doctor gets to the Dalek ship in the TARDIS, but as soon as they leave, he's captured by Stein who turns out to be a Dalek agent. 

He's taken prisoner and the Daleks try to replicate him, using a duplicate that is brainwashed to serve the Daleks.  The Supreme Dalek gloats that the time corridor and samples of the Movellan Virus (that the soldiers mistook for bombs) were planted on earth to draw the Doctor in so he could be duplicated and sent to Gallifrey to assassinate the High Council.

On Earth, Tegan tries to escape, but after more innocents are gunned down to prove a point, she is re-captured.  Prof. Laird is shot trying to escape and Tegan is shoved towards the time corridor, being taken to the Dalek ship for duplication.

Meanwhile, Davros has discovered that the Doctor is in the area and he sends some of his brainwashed Daleks down the time corridor to capture the Doctor and his TARDIS.

Turlough and the station crew find the station self destruct and whilst they set it up, Lt Mercer agrees to go with Turlough to the Dalek ship to find a way to escape down the time corridor once the self destruct is activated.

Whilst they're gone, Lytton and his men show up and kill Styles and the remaining station crew, stopping the self-destruct process.

Luckily, Stein overcomes his Dalek conditioning after a chat with the Doctor and the duplication process is stopped.  They soon meet up with Tegan and Turlough and the pair are sent back to the TARDIS.  The Doctor goes with Lt Mercer and Stein to confront Davros.  They get there and the Doctor threatens to end Davros' life, but he's ultimately intercepted by Lytton and his men.

In the firefight, the Doctor gets away, but fails to kill Davros and Stein goes off on his own, fearing that the Dalek conditioning is gaining control again.

The Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Lytton and his men all end up at the Warehouse, either trying to escape, or being ordered to stop Davros' Daleks.  The Doctor gets samples of the Movellan virus and drops a canister in the place, taking care of the Daleks.

On the station, the Supreme Dalek abandons all pretence of a plan and orders both Davros and Lytton killed. The Daleks turn up to kill Davros, but he uses his sample of the Movellan virus to destroy them. The joke's on him however as he also suffers from the effects of the virus and begins squirting shaving foam out of every pore.

Back on earth, Lytton realises the cause is lost, and being a hired hand and mercenary for the Daleks anyway, he decides to cut his losses, grabs his Police uniform (from somewhere) and leaves.

The Supreme Dalek contacts the Doctor and tells him they still have conditioned spies across places of authority in human areas.

Stein finally ends it by fighting his conditioning and completing the self-destruct sequence, blowing up the Dalek ship and the prison station in the process and disabling the time corridor.

The Doctor is satisfied that the Dalek threat has ended, with the duplicates ultimately returning to normal now the Daleks are all killed.  Tegan has had enough though and says it's stopped being fun and despite the Doctor's protests, she runs off and leaves them.

The Doctor is saddened at her leaving and remarks that he must change his ways (hinting that he's now too mired in violence).

Back on the cobbled streets of London, Lytton and the two murderous Policemen steadily walk off.

Trivia

• This story was meant to go in the previous season as one of the big monsters returning, but multiple re-writes stopped that happening

• The show was eventually broadcast as two episodes, not four as had been expected.  This was because they needed to free up the slot to show some of the 1984 Winter Olympics.  The production team liked the format so much that they would go on to use it for some of the 6th Doctor story's

• If you didn't know, Kiston was played by Leslie Grantham. This was his first on-screen role, and when the director of this story would go on to help make Eastenders (a popular UK soap opera), Grantham would be cast in the role of the iconic "dirty" Den Watts.  He was recommended the role for this by none other than Leela a.k.a Louise Jameson. She would in turn go on to play a part in the history of Eastenders.

• Micheal Wisher said he was very interested in reprising his role as Davros, but when it came to filming this story, he was unfortunately unavailable. Terry Malloy stepped in to fill his shoes though

• The Dalek trooper helmets were created late in the process, and although most hated them, it was too late to change them before filming began

• There is a rumour that one of the original scripts for this story featured Kamelion in a prominent role, likely that of Stein. It would have followed on from the Kings Demons and would make a lot more sense in the treachery part of it. Obviously, this was changed because the robot was pretty useless. The team would effectively re-hash that plot in the next story

• Janette Fielding had put in her resignation before Peter Davison, and Mark Strickson's contract was coming to an end too.  John Nathan-Turner however thought it better to split up the departures of the cast over multiple stories.

The Review

At first glance, the justifications for this story feel like those given for The Sea Devils or Earthshock.  There's serious issues with some of the plot, but somehow it retains a high score. Well, first I would argue that this story holds up better than the others in that regard. It's much more logical.

The main issue that people can level at this story is the fact that there's too much going on.  The main plot of releasing Davros to find a cure for the Movellan virus is solid. The inclusion of Lytton and the Dalek troopers adds in a humanising sense. What I mean by that is that Maurice Colbourne as Lytton can emote on screen, showing frustration and anger to play very well against Terry Malloy's Davros. 

Speaking of Davros, Terry Malloy is brilliant here, succeeding fantastically in making the character scheming, ruthless and thoroughly convincing.  Yes, he loses some of the subtlety of Michael Wisher's efforts, but this Davros has had 90 years cooped up inside a freezer. He's bound to be a little unhinged now!

A big criticism levelled at this story too is the death toll.  It is one of (if not THEE) largest in all of Doctor  Who for on-screen deaths.  As you'll know from previous stories, I'm fine with that. It's not because of my cold, dead heart either. It's because the death toll in this particular story raises the stakes.  It puts the Dalek's smack bang where they should be.  It gives you a feeling that the Daleks are merciless killers and when partnered with Lytton, pose a very real threat. 

When innocent bystanders are getting shot by Policemen of all people, just because they got in the way...it jump-starts you with a shock to the system that puts you on the edge of your seat and you start to believe that anything bad could happen here.

This is EXACTLY what the Daleks should be. They are frightening, and as a five year old boy watching this, it captivated and scared me in a way that many young people watching Doctor Who hadn't been in a very long time.

The place where this story falls down is the other sub-plots included, namely the duplicates and the assassination of the High Council of Time Lords.  It feels exactly how it looks, padding to fill the time and the acting is put together in such a way as to just make that aspect worse.  These things are small for me and I revel in the fact that this story puts the Daleks and Davros in the position of being scary once more. The lighting, music and effects all play to emphasise this and Tegan's departure sums it up nicely. It forces you to stop and take stock of what's happened here, a lot of people have died and yes, the Doctor won, but at great cost.

Criticise this story all you like, but for me, it will forever be in my top 5.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-Watchability Factor

9 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Day of the Daleks

• Earthshock

• Revelation of the Daleks

Frontios

Four Episodes
Aired between 26th January 1984 and 3rd February 1984

Written by Christopher H. Bidmead
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Ron Jones

Synopsis

The Doctor is doing some re-organising of the TARDIS when it takes them to the far limits of time, long after the destruction of earth. They end up in orbit around a planet called Frontios. 

The Doctor is reluctant to land as he says it's they're messing around somewhere at the limit of Galifreyan influence and he doesn't want to interfere with a struggling human colony they've found there.

Before he can move though, the TARDIS is hit by a meteor shower and they're forced to land on the planet.  They land in the middle of the colony as the meteors crash around them.  The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough immediately begin to help those injured in the shower, and instead of being thanked, are treated with suspicion.

It turns out that the meteors didn't fall by accident, they were sent by some unknown enemy to attack the colonists and Mr Range, the head physician believes they're the vanguard of an invasion.

Naturally, the Doctor bullies them into focusing on healing the wounded, and he sends Tegan and Turlough to get him better equipment and light sources from the TARDIS, but as they go there, they find the interior door stuck fast.  They decide instead to go off with Ranges daughter, Norna, to enter a forbidden part of the colony where the old leader, Captain Revere had a workshop.  They believe that he was working on more equipment that would give light and power.

Turlough, Tegan and Norna get the acid battery,

despite guards looking for them, and get back, but another shower arrives and destroys the TARDIS.

Chief Orderly Brazen meanwhile has spotted Tegan and company, and after sending his men after them, he goes to tell the young leader of the colony, Plantagenet. The ruler is the son of Captain Revere, and is paranoid as Range was about the Doctor being one of the invaders.  He and Brazen confront the Doctor as the meteor shower that destroys the TARDIS comes down.

As the Doctor and co stand around the smoking ruins, Plantagenet gathers a squad of men and orders the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough shot.

Turlough grabs the smoking remains of the TARDIS' hatstand and convinces them it's a weapon enough for the soldiers not to fire.  The Doctor strikes a bargain with Plantagenet to find the answer as to why a mysterious force is bombarding the colony and buys them time.

They work with the reluctant colonists, and Tegan finds in the course of this, a series of records in Mr Range's files showing unexplained deaths of colonists. 

Plantagenet tries to attack the group, but collapses with a wound from the bombardment that he's been trying to conceal.  The Doctor and Turlough get him to the medical facility and help to save his life.  In the wake of this, Turlough questions why the colonists don't dig underground bunkers to escape the bombardment, but Norna tells him that Captain Revere forbade them to do so. This prompts him to check Revere's workshop again and finds a hidden tunnel under the floor.  They go exploring in the caves beneath and Turlough says he feels a familiar fear about that place.

The Doctor and Tegan in the meantime are dealing with their own problems.  Plantagenet is mysteriously sucked underground, creating a problem as he's the only figurehead the colonists will follow. Without him, they will descend into anarchy, and the Doctor finds out that Revere told them to stop digging underground because they found evidence of monsters living in the tunnels.

The Doctor and Range go into the tunnels when they find Norna and Turlough gone and eventually find Turlough going mad - blubbering about "Tractators". 

Turns out that the Tractators are giant woodlice type aliens that live underground.

They have the ability to move things with the waddle of their antennae and are responsible for pulling people underground and indeed for pulling the meteors (and the TARDIS to the planet).

The Doctor enters a long bluffing and negotiation process with their leader, Gravis, and finds out that the Tractators have been stranded on Frontios for centuries.

They waited until the colonists were set up then began "farming" them to use in their organic technology, the most terrifying of which is a mining machine that is powered by a living brain and torso of Captain Revere. 

They plan to use Plantagenet to replace him when he dies.

The mining machine is used to create tunnels that enhance the Tractators telekinetic control and thus pull the meteors to Frontios. The Gravis is very interested in the Doctor's TARDIS as he knows about the Time Lords and wants to use it to get the Tractators off the planet.

They hold the Doctor off and start to put Plantagenet into the mining machine once Revere is dead.

Thankfully, Brazen leads a squad down into the tunnels and creates enough of a diversion for the Doctor to rescue Plantagenet and escape. Brazen is captured and killed by the mining machine in the process.

Whilst trying to get out of the tunnels, Plantagenet explains to the Doctor that he figured out the Tractators plans. They intend to use the tunnels to enhance their abilities to ultimately move the planet and steer it through space, so they can capture other planets. 

After the Gravis is stunned, Turlough remembers from some instinctive race memory he has that the Gravis is the source of the Tractator's power. If they separate him from the rest, they will be mindless and mundane. 

The group discover that the Tractators have pulled bits of the TARDIS underground and used them in tunnel construction.  The Doctor lures the Gravis to where the console room is and manipulates him into restoring the TARDIS so it can take the Tractators off the planet. 

Unfortunately, the Gravis didn't anticipate that once the time machine was put back together, its interior would once again become dimensionally separate from the rest of the world. The Gravis becomes dormant because of this, and the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are able to take it to a different planet and dump it away from the rest of the Tractators.

They return to Frontios to say goodbye to Range, Norna and Plantagenet, and give them a hatstand to remember them by (but warn them not to mention the Doctor's involvement).

With that, they leave again in the TARDIS, but it soon starts to shake and danger looms as the Doctor fights with the controls, saying they're being pulled to the centre of the universe.

Trivia

• This is the last story Christopher Bidmead did for Doctor Who.  It was written like it had a movie budget to go with it, and so a lot of the elements were just too hard to realise on the actual budget.  To the relief of the BBC but the regret of many viewers, the more gruesome elements of the story didn't make it in. The original script called for the entire mining machine to be made of human body parts and the Tractator's translation device was a severed head!

• The practicalities as ever were a problem, and finding themselves short on time and money, the entire story was filmed in studio, rather than outside in real caves and tunnels.  The actors had to be careful how they walked so that their shoes didn't squeak on all the polystyrene

• One sad note was that renowned actor, Peter Arne was due to play Mr Range, but after he returned home from a costume fitting, he was brutally murdered.  The killer was thought to be insane and killed himself a short time later by throwing himself in a canal.

• Whatever you think of John Nathan-Turner, he was very good at publicity.  During Frontios, its believed he started the rumour about possibly doing away with the TARDIS, and the scene where the TARDIS is destroyed sure played into everyone's fear and got viewers. The truth is it destroying the TARDIS was never in question.

• By this time, the press were introduced to Colin Baker and were having a field day anyway.

The Review

The one big thing I remember from watching Frontios as a five year old was Captain Revere in the mining machine.  I remember this story as something dark and interesting. The Tractators were never scary, but the sets and the lighting and the horrible corpse make up left a good impression in my mind. Therefore, I really was looking forwards to watching this.  It could never truly live up to the image I had in my mind, but what I took away from all of this was this:  Frontios, like Snakedance, has a lot of good worldbuilding. It also has some quite good concepts, with the twist of the meteors coming down actually being from a threat under the earth, and the spooky tag line of "the earth buries its dead". 

But Christopher Bidmead loves complex stories and if Doctor who were judged on that, then this and Warriors Gate would be the highest praised stories in all of Doctor Who.  I myself find it too complex for it's own good.  There's intrigue, but it goes so overboard with it that minutes and minutes go by without any real action. It takes so long to explore the back story that it ends up being quite boring in places. 

As with what I remember, the sets, lighting, Blakes 7 helmets and the mining machine are all great.  The acting is far too over the top and cliche with both Plantagenet and Brazen being super annoying (that's part of their characters I guess, but still).

Frontios is a decent watch, once. I'll not be coming back to watch it again for quite a while I dare say, but it's far from being the worst Doctor Who, and in comparison with other Peter Davison stories, it's still up there as one of the better ones.

Rating

6 out of 10 

Re-watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Web Planet

• Doctor Who and the Silurians

• The Mutants

• Full Circle

• The Twin Dilemma

• The Hungry Earth (Doctor Who, Series 5)

The Awakening

Two Episodes
Aired between 19th January 1984 and 20th January 1984

Written by Eric Pringle
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Michael Owen-Morris

Synopsis
Tegan wants the Doctor to take her to the sleepy town of Little Hodcombe where her Grandfather lives - she simply wants to visit him.

As it turns out, Little Hodcombe has a tradition of re-enacting a bloody Civil War battle that occurred there in 1643.  The village regulars split into opposing sides and fight the war game over a weekend and close the village so nobody from the outside gets accidentally hurt.

There's only one person in the village, Mrs Jane Hampden, a local schoolteacher that thinks things have gone too far... well, her and Tegan's Grandfather who has mysteriously gone missing. Jane is captured by Magistrate and temporary leader of the Roundheads George Hutchinson, and forced to remain their prisoner until the wargames are concluded.

The TARDIS arrives in the right time, but because of all the re-enacting, Tegan believes they're in the wrong time.  They see a mysterious figure in 17th century clothing as they emerge from an old church where they landed, but the figure goes out of sight and disappears. They're eventually caught by the Roundheads and taken to see Col Wolsey - Hutchinson's 2nd in command. 

Hutchinson and Wolsey explain the situation and Tegan gets upset when she finds out her Grandfather is missing, running away to be on her own. 

She gets her purse snatched by the mysterious man who rushes into a barn. When she follows him, she finds the ghost of an old man.

The rest are captured but soon escape. The Doctor goes to investigate the place and finds a young man by the name of Will who believes he's a psychic projection from the 1600's. 

They go to the church and see a priest hole and begin to follow it. 

Turlough goes to find Tegan and rescues her from the ghost but they're soon re-captured. Tegan is made to wear an outfit and is told she'll become the "Queen of the May". 

The Doctor meanwhile finds that the priest hole leads from the church where a symbol of a creature known as the Malus resides, and leads down towards a secret entrance in Col. Wolsey's house.  In the tunnels he meets Jane who found a way down from the house and together, they evade the Roundheads looking for them. They also find a small piece of metal that the Doctor identifies as Tinclavic - a material mined by the Terilleptils on the planet Raaga (see The Visitation for more).  This metal is mainly used by the people of Hakol who have harnessed psychic energy.  This all leads the Doctor to believe that the metal is connected to the legend of the Malus. 

They go back to the church and are confronted by the evil entity as a giant stone face of the Malus appears from behind an old wall.

It summons a psychic projection of a Cavalier Solider, but the group escape and run off. 

This encounter makes the Doctor think that the Malus is controlling Hutchinson to re-create the chaos of the Civil War - the period in time when it first landed on Earth and is trying to harness the psychic energy of the horrified people being slaughtered to regain its strength.

The Doctor and Jane go to Hutchinson and try to convince him to stop, telling him that the staged final battle will actually be real, but he doesn't listen and actually orders Wolsey to kill them. He leaves the room and the act to Wolsey, but he believes the Doctor and switches sides. Together, they rescue Tegan and put the May Queen clothes on a straw dummy. Wolsey takes the dummy and parades it through the streets before it's supposed to get burned at the stake - buying the rest time to escape.

When Hutchinson figures out what's going on, he orders Wolsey shot, but Will turns up with a flaming torch and provides enough of a distraction so that Wolsey can get away and they all reach the TARDIS.

Turlough meanwhile has been imprisoned with Tegan's Grandfather. They too escape and make it back to the TARDIS in time to find out that the Doctor has found a way to use the TARDIS to cut off the Malus' psychic feed.

They are attacked by ghosts in the church, but Hutchinson's men enter at the wrong time and one of them ends up getting decapitated.

Hutchinson himself turns up as the Malus desperately controls him and tries to stop the Doctor and his companions. 

Will throws himself at Hutchinson and they have a fight, resulting in Hutchinson being thrown into the mouth of the Malus as it dies. 

The church begins to blow up and the Doctor gets them all to safety in the TARDIS. 

It turns out when the Malus is dead that Will is still with them. He was brought through in a time rift unlike the psychic projections of the rest.  The Doctor promises to take him home, but at the request of Tegan, not until they've spent a few days as guests of her Grandfather, which was after all, the entire point of going to Little Hodcombe.

Trivia

• There was many a laugh in the outtakes as the horse and cart the Doctor and co. escape on ended up going through a prop of a gatehouse and demolishing it

• The reason why Will is not a psychic projection in this story is because there was a discussion about him becoming a companion (much like Jamie in The Highlanders). Ultimately, Eric Saward and John Nathan-Turner dismissed it as they thought the character would become tedious as he went to more mundane locations but would be forced to ask far too many questions

• There is a deleted scene from this story that shows Kamelion connecting to the TARDIS data banks. Tegan confronts him but he acts smarmy, like Turlough did. It was cut because the episode overran. 

The Review
This is a story to be enjoyed for the feeling it provides, as opposed to the actions is displays.  Like the Daemons, this is a story about an ancient, malevolent force that's been trapped in a sleepy little village. It strikes the vein of the Wicker Man and folk tales of things buried in hills.

There's a nice touch at the start where you assume it's the 1600's, but it's actually the 1980's and the sets are on the whole quite well done.

The biggest problem it has is that it's a two part episode, so everything feels rushed.  The purse snatching ghost and the old man are just there- there's no real reason.  There's not much character development or reasoning behind a lot of it. I guess you're just expected to take everything as said, don't question anything and just enjoy.

And that's the problem.  The Malus looks amazing, but let's face it. It's inept. It summons the odd ghost but the Doctor kills it very easily.  It controls Hutchinson, but he's never pro-active enough to kill anyone.  Some of his men fight on his side, but as soon as the Malus is defeated, everyone's ready to say "oh don't worry that you tried to burn Tegan at the stake, I'm sure you didn't mean to".

In summary, this is a very atmospheric story with great props, but a bit lackluster in execution.


Rating 

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

7 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Highlanders 

• The War Games

• The Daemons

• The Android Invasion

• The Visitation