Day 297: Colony in Space Episode 5

There's a paradox at the heart of Colony in Space. Not the story, but the way in which it can be read as a viewer. Things happen in each episode. More than that, somewhat interesting things happen in each episode. We view trials, people being captured for illegitimate reasons, revolutions and people being put to death sentences for just living on a planet that happens to have minerals on it. We've also got ancient civilisations, the return of the Master and the Doctor being put on a mysterious mission by the Time Lords. And yet, none of this is interesting enough to talk about.

The start of this episode featued the colonists attempting to fight back against their oppressors. The end of this episode features them being put on trial for their actions (the second time that this has happened this serial) and being forced to leave (another thing that has been dealt with earlier in this serial). And over the course of this episode, the Doctor is forced to lead the master to an ancient city, however the Master reveals nothing of his master plan. There's something very clear here, and that's that this episode does not actually need to exist. Every plot development that takes place in this episode has been dealt with before. It makes the story seem ridiculously dull.

But the problem is that this story shouldn't be dull. The characters are somewhat interesting, the plot being slowly revealed to us is a strategy that worked in The War Games and to be perfectly honest, I would easily watch an entire story just focusing on the character of Caldwell. But through virtue of the story being overlong, one feels boredom when watching this otherwise fairly good story. Hopefully things will pick up as we reach the climax of Colony in Space.