Day 611: Frontios Part 3

A week or so ago, I lamented the fact that I could not watch episodes of Doctor Who and experience surprises, sudden plot developments that come out of left field and genuinely shock the viewer. Frontios was to prove me wrong though, as it keeps on bombarding me with little bits and pieces that make it all worthwhile.

The biggest example, for me, is the cliffhanger to Part 3 wherein we discover that the villainous Tractators have been capturing humans and using them as slave labour in machinery as some sort of terrifying body horror concept. It's a genuine surprise and throws the story in a new direction with ethical dilemmas to now consider about the lives of the humans in the machines, as well as dealing with the generic alien attack story that had been present for the previous couple of episodes.

It's also a good enough cliffhanger concept to allow me to forgive Ron Jones' poor direction of it, where he elects to zoom the camera in but holds the final position for a second too long, making it slightly awkward. But it's oddly one of the few poor moments from Jones' direction of the story, which is otherwise quite good. Interesting camera angles are chosen as well as some effective glass shots and some strong acting, which presumably comes back to discussion with the director. It's not enough for me to forgive him for Time-Flight or Arc of Infinity, but it is enough for me to say that, on the basis of the first three episodes, Frontios is an underrated gem of a story.