Hulke plays an interesting trick here. The colonists are being forced onto a derelict spaceship which is certain to explode the moment it leaves the ground. Which then happens, meaning that we see a spaceship exploding and we are shocked to realise that all of the colonists have died (save for one whom was previously seen engaging in a fight with an IMC member of staff). Hulke then wisely decides to move on from this and treat it as a fact, meaning that the audience is left in a severe amount of doubt as to whether the colonists did survive or not. Hulke knows that by placing the explosion at the start of the episode, he then has maximum time to eke out the audience's belief that they all perished. By doing this, it makes the fact that they all inevitably survived more of a welcome sigh of relief as the audience realises that they were safe all along. But it's more than that, because this is such a common trope that it's expected the moment when the spaceship explodes, meaning that when it's revealed that the colonists survived, there's not only a sigh of relief that they survived, there's also a sigh of relief that the audience was right in their original supposition all along.
So by manipulating the audience in such a way, Hulke is able to create a somewhat memorable story. And whilst it's clearly not as strong as his previous efforts, it still shows that he is a capable writer. It's interesting that he's been placed directly after Bob Baker and Dave Martin in the transmission order, as it draws both of their strength to the fore. Baker and Martin are writers of ideas, whereas Hulke is a writer of character. The ideas in Axos are instantly memorable, however it is quite clear that the characters in Colony in Space are far more interesting. And we'll see tomorrow what new writing talents a certain Guy Leopold will bring to Doctor Who...
No comments:
Post a Comment