Day 343: Frontier In Space Episode 6

As we reach the conclusion of this story a few things begin to become clear. Firstly, the major theme behind this story shows itself, being one of fear. Fear is a theme that we have seen throughout the Jon Pertwee era, whether through the Keller Machine using fear as a weapon in The Mind of Evil or the fear of the mutants in The Mutants drawing the worst out of people, several stories have built on the idea of fear being used as a dangerous thing. Frontier In Space continues that trend by showing the two alien races: Humans and Draconians, at war with each other because they both fear the other. The Master capitalises on this by using a machine to imitate their greatest fear and using this to convince each side that the other is attacking them, thus strengthening the fear that each side has over the other, with the intention of leading to all out war.

Of course, this fails because both sides are able to see reason. Both decide to overcome their fears and to engage in conversation with the other, as they learn from their mistakes and try to be better as a result of this. The outgoing message of Frontier in Space one of peace. That whilst fear might instigate hostility and could cause war, it could all be based on misunderstandings, and that we must truly understand the situation at hand before engaging in any rash decisions such as all out war.

Not that my nine year old self paid attention to any of that. Instead, I was far more concerned with the fact that the story suddenly goes off in a new direction at the end. The Master stands at the top of an alien mountain and proclaims to the Doctor that he has some old friends that would like to see him again. Three Daleks suddenly appear out of nowhere and begin to attack them. When I was a kid, I sort of knew what the Daleks were. And by sort of, I mean that my parents had mentioned them in passing when they were telling me about this strange television series. But this took me completely left of field, as these evil metal creatures came forth and began to attack. Instantly, they became the coolest things that I had ever seen before in my life, and laying the kindling for my obsession with Doctor Who.

And this, I should add, really was a surprise. I am possibly the only person to see the VHS cover for Frontier in Space, observe the Dalek, and then be surprised when they turned up at the end, mainly because I assumed that they were just on there for no reason whatsoever aside from they looked kind of cool. There was one more surprise though waiting for me. The conclusion of Frontier In Space features the Master cornering the Doctor, before shooting him and escaping off into the distance. The Doctor gets up, and with the help of Jo goes into the TARDIS and activates the TARDIS's telepathic circuits to send a message to the Time Lords. And then the story ends. I waited to see what would happen next. I waited for a good five minutes until the VHS finished, and then I admitted that it was quite probable that this story would end on a cliffhanger. I didn't know why though. I didn't know how it would be resolved. I needed to get some form of closure to how it would all end. So I looked up what would happen next, resolving that I would watch the conclusion to Frontier In Space as soon as I possibly could. It was a wait that would last another nine years...