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...

Day 342: Frontier In Space Episode 5

The Draconians are a race who appear in this story, and sadly this story alone. They are probably my outright favourite alien race to appear in Doctor Who for so many reasons. For a start, their design is spectacular, being recognisably alien and at the same time able to show the facial expressions of the actors behind them, meaning that they can fully emote and express opinions instead of lumber about the place and shout. Although, they are created by Malcolm Hulke, aren't they, and so we don't really expect them to be lumbering alien menaces, instead we know that they are going to be treated as equally as the humans in the narrative, full of Hulke's shades of grey that he puts into the stories to introduce a sense of morality to the audience watching it. We can see this through their society, built up in a few brief scenes and yet it tells so much about them and what they think. We can see the high respect that they have for the ruling class, as well as their respect for tradition. But we also see that they are willing to listen, and to learn from the actions of the past. It is for these reasons and so much more that I love the Draconians, and every series that I sadly discover that they aren't returning is a tiny bit of disappointment that I have when I look at the excitement that lays ahead for what is to come.

I don't remember much about the Draconians on first viewing. Instead, I was focussed on how weird everything had suddenly become. The VHS copy that we had of this story had decided to forgo the usual theme tune for Episode 5 and instead use the 'Delaware' version of the theme, only heard in a few foreign markets due to a mistake made when creating the overseas print for the story. It was so weird and different to what I was expecting to happen that I was curious to find out more. To find out why this had occurred and what was behind it. This led me to have a hunt through the shelves of Doctor Who books downstairs to discover Doctor Who The Television Companion, a book that went through the history of every episode of Doctor Who up to The TV Movie. I would devour this book for information, to discover more about this strange series that I had been introduced to. And I still do to this day, as can be seen by the incredibly well read copy that sits beside the computer, for when I can't be bothered to use Google to look up something.

The Book that formed much of my childhood,
as Old

The Book that formed much of my childhood,
as New

Day 341: Frontier In Space Episode 4

The Master appears in this story, as played by Roger Delgado, sadly for the final time before his unfortunate death. Delgado brings a suave charm to the Master with an ability to walk into a scene and instantly make himself the most attractive character. By this, I mean that the audience is drawn to him and his character. We may not necessarily agree with him or his ideals and yet there is the attraction there that makes us want to watch him. Add to this a wonderful chemistry that he has with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo, the Doctor's companion, and we get a character that is truly memorable and it's fairly safe to say that we will miss him greatly.

Not that I was aware of who the Master was at the time of first viewing, of course. Instead, this character was someone else in the story, someone who I had no prior connection to and as far as I was aware, neither did the Doctor. But through the way in which the story dealt with him, and the way in which Manning, Pertwee and Delgado played off of each other. There was the indication that there was a greater mythology behind all of this. Something which would be explored throughout my life as I sought to learn more about the programme.

Day 340: Frontier In Space Episode 3

There's a sequence that I have little recollection of noticing the first time that I saw this episode. Indeed, it was only when I was around 17 or 18 that I fully noticed and began to appreciate this sub-plot within the story. Essentially, the Doctor is sent to a Lunar penal colony to spend the rest of his days, as he is accused of being a spy for the alien Draconians and the evidence seems to back this claim up. Whilst on the colony, he meets like-minded people who have been placed on the colony for political crimes. These crimes are crimes of peace, attempting to prevent war from occurring. It's a revolutionary moment because it inspires in the audience a sense of realisation as to how society truly treats those that search for peace, and hopefully encourages them to join in the fight against war.

As I say, I was around 17 or 18 when I re-watched this story. I'd seen it a couple of times before, most recently about a year or two prior, although that was mainly spent realising that this story was actually quite good, and not noticing the subtleties present in Malcolm Hulke's writing. Watching it as a young adult made me fully realise how political Doctor Who could be, showing themes that reveal and reflect the time in which they were written. It helped to show me how awesome Doctor Who could be, and reinvigorated a love for the programme in my mind.

Day 339: Frontier In Space Episode 2

Frontier in Space is, on first glances, not the best story to introduce a kid to Doctor Who with. There's none of the fast paced action that hooks younger viewers nowadays, instead it is an altogether slower and more thoughtful affair. There is action, but there's also political intrigue and discussions on prejudice and fear, points that I shall delve into later. Ideally, I would talk about how this didn't matter to my nine year old self. That he was still intrigued by this piece of television that looked at the way in which we treat each other. But to tell the truth, I can't remember. I remember that I watched and liked the story, but it wasn't one that I revisited too often so I don't know how much of an impact it made on me.

But hiding in the back of my memory is something. A giant rabbit, a pink elephant, and a purple horse with yellow spots. The Doctor mentions them in an anecdote to Jo about how you shouldn't be afraid of people interrogating you with truth telling machines as long as you tell the truth, even if they don't believe you the first time*. I love this moment, it's a charming moment from the Doctor and endears him to the audience. I can't recall whether he endeared himself to me at nine years old though. But the memory stuck with me for eleven years as I grew older, and began to forget occasional memories from my childhood. The fact that that stuck says something to me about how maybe this magical little moment let me see the inner beauty of the series, and made me think that I should perhaps check out some of the other videos in the cupboard downstairs. But that's another story, as we still need to finish Frontier In Space.

*(I could lie and say that this one moment inspired me to tell the truth always for the rest of my life. However, the truth is that a traumatising moment with Christian vegetables left me petrified of lying. This is a legitimate problem that I have in my life.)

Day 338: Frontier In Space Episode 1

One day, I was watching television. I was nine years old at the time, and easily impressionable. My TV diet consisted almost entirely of the ABC, the Australian public broadcaster. Every day I would wake up to their morning cartoons, and in the afternoons I would return home and watch their afternoon programming, confident in the knowledge that everything went to some sort of order. If a new show were to be broadcast I would see the trailers for it, get from these trailers a feeling of what the show was and whether I would like it, and then decide on whether it would be worth checking out.

Then, one day, there was a trailer that didn't describe the series that was going to be on. All it said was that "It is returning" as weird patterns filled the screen and a wheezing groaning sound came forth from the TV set. I asked my parents about it, they'd seen it too and were talking about what it really was. They said that Doctor Who was coming back. Not new episodes though, the old ones from before I was born. They explained what the show was and took me downstairs. There, I was shown their Doctor Who collection. Books that I had run past rushing through the house were actually novelisations  of these stories. A cassette tape that hadn't been played since a revolutionary time travelling nativity production a couple of years prior was actually the theme to this strange programme. And the video cupboard that only held Mum and Dad's videos was opened, revealing a handful of VHS copies of Doctor Who episodes for me to discover. That weekend, I sat down with my family and watched one of them. That episode was Frontier In Space, and it would be the gateway for me to a whole new world of discovery.

Day 329: The Time Monster Episode 6

A couple of days ago, I was having a chat with my Dad. Over the course of the conversation, I mentioned the relatively poor quality of The Time Monster, pointing out the terrible special effects and plot in particular. I was then surprised to learn that my Dad is actually quite the Time Monster fan, as he attempted a defence of this rather poor story. This inspired me to try and find some more good points to talk about with regards to The Time Monster, which was actually easier than I thought. What follows, then, is Three Good Things About The Time Monster (Specifically Episode Six)

1. Kronos. Kronos is of course a poorly regarded monster, because of a remarkably conceived design. However, the conclusion to this story has Kronos as they were always meant to be. An all powerful and inconceivable figure that appears to exist outside of any sort of normal reality itself. They're something odd and strange, able to change their shape at will. To become a destroyer or a creator. A monster of fear or a dominating figure of beauty. This is showing the true power of the original Greek Myths, and shows that there was perhaps some respect paid to the original source material.

2. The Daisiest Daisy. Sometimes there'll be padding like we looked at in Episode 4. It doesn't really do anything to advance the plot and leaves you with a feeling of boredom. But sometimes there can be beautiful and joyous padding, such as this. It's a simple little scene that survives purely because of Jon Pertwee's charm as the Doctor, telling us a beautiful story about perspective and dark days. This scene may come from a less than spectacular episode, but it does have its charm and certainly forms a highlight of the entire series so far.

3. NAKED BENTON! Sergeant Benton also turns into a baby previously in this story, such that when he is returned to his proper age he is found to be naked. I don't think I need to elaborate on why this moment is a highlight of The Time Monster

Day 328: The Time Monster Episode 5

The major reason why The Time Monster is so disappointing, in my opinion, is somewhat personal. When The Time Monster was aired on Australian TV as part of a repeat run of Doctor Who episodes, I did not watch it. I can't remember the exact reason, but I have a strong feeling that it was because I was more interested in a video game known as Age of Mythology. The game was a Real Time Strategy based adventure where you would take a Civilisation and through using their Gods you would be able to crush your opponents. This game instilled in me a love for mythology, and I would spend the next couple of years obsessed with Egyptian Gods, the Norse Legends and in particular, Greek Heroes. I don't think that I knew then, that The Time Monster dealt with these themes otherwise I would have watched it with keen interest, but I can't help the feeling that the story would have been massively disappointing to my young self. For someone who had this idea of Kronos as the destroyer of worlds and Atlantis as a great lost civilisation, I could have only been let down by the less than stellar ways of The Time Monster. It's a shame, as this idea of looking at Greek Mythology is certainly a good one and hopefully it will be dealt with better as the series progresses.

Day 327: The Time Monster Episode 4

There's a moment in this episode where the Doctor and the Master essentially try to outwit eachother for about ten or fifteen minutes. It is annoying, as it means that the plot essentially comes to a standstill as we focus on this piece of padding, thus making the story feel dull as a result. It also reveals one of the crucial problems with the Master, being that we have become comfortable with him as a character. Seeing him engage in battles of wits with the Doctor is now commonplace and we always know the outcome. Even when the Master appears to win, we know that the Doctor will secretly win anyway, because he's done so for the past however many times the Master has appeared. So by having an extended scene where the Master and the Doctor essentially have a chat about who is the one in control of the situation, it allows the audience to suddenly realise that they are growing slightly bored of this Doctor/Master relationship, indicating that perhaps something needs to be done to change things for the future.

Day 326: The Time Monster Episode 3

Kronos appears in this episode. In Greek mythology, he is one of the Titans, the father of Zeus. He is the god of time and one of the true all powerful beings in mythology. This is how he is portrayed when he first appears in The Time Monster. It is, to be perfectly honest, one of the most laughable creatures in Doctor Who. To take an extremely powerful being and reduce it to a man dressed as a budgerigar is a times frustrating and hilarious. But as if this were not hilarious enough, imagine seeing it flap about rooms trying to be menacing but failing horrifically. It's one of the great failures in terms of monsters in Doctor Who and also represents the moment when The Time Monster crosses the line and becomes a truly poor Doctor Who story.

Day 325: The Time Monster Episode 2

Sergeant Benton is one of the regular members of the UNIT family. He's characterised as a loyal and dependable man who will pop up in every other story and just lend the Doctor a hand. He works as a character because secretly, behind all of this facade of him being competent, he is actually rather thick. We feel sorry for this character as he consistently fails at understanding the plot or fighting alien menaces or whatnot. It makes his occasional successes all the more exciting because we realise that this is actually a rare occurrence for the series, and that we can enjoy Benton getting a good moment for once, such as in this episode when he successfully captures the Master. Of course, this fails almost instantly revealing that in the end, Benton is just as incompetent as ever.

Day 324: The Time Monster Episode 1

This story begins with something reasonably unique in the history of Doctor Who. We get a glimpse of one of the Doctor's nightmares as he envisions the Master standing over him and proclaiming himself to be the Master of all, while volcanic eruptions and earthquakes go off in the distance (cf Inferno). This is unique as we get a glimpse into the Doctor's inner thoughts. We begin to see what goes on behind this man of mystery's mind. This is unique as normally we see the Doctor through the eyes of normal people, mainly his companions as we travel through time and space. Despite the fact that he is the protagonist of the series, we actually spend very little time seeing things from his perspective, preferring instead to keep an air of mystery about this centuries old alien being. Which is a good thing as it keeps the series fresh, but yet there is still the inner hankering to know more about what makes this Time Lord tick. This is why we can cherish this scene as something unique, something that we only see on special occasions, and brought out on occasion - most recently in Listen - because it's a glimpse at a whole world that we cannot even begin to comprehend.

Day 307: Day of the Daleks Episode 4

The plot of this episode is wonderful, because it actually uses the time travel elements which Doctor Who has as its premise. The idea is that a group of guerrillas in the future attempt to prevent a terrorist attack made in the twentieth century by travelling back in time to kill the supposed terrorist before they can make this attack. What they fail to realise though is that by attempting to do this, they are in fact creating this terrorist attack themselves. This is fantastic because it's actually attempting to do something different. Other episodes of the series have just been generic alien invasions, but Marks is keen to differentiate himself from what has come before, and actually take a spin on the premise of the series to produce something new.

That's not to say that we're free of flaws though. The Daleks come back in time to ensure that history will remain on course (by allowing history to be changed). This is a good idea on paper, however execution leaves a lot to be desired. The production team has three Daleks. It's not exactly an invasion force, and it begins to stretch credibility when we see the same three Daleks paraded in front of the camera in an attempt to be menacing. Never mind the fact that the Daleks don't really work on location here, as we can see them wobble about as they try to remain stable on the ground. It's a shame as the idea has great potential, it's just been squandered in the execution.

Day 306: Day of the Daleks Episode 3

As hinted at by the title of this story, this story features the return of the Daleks. There is one very obvious reason for this: a hook is needed in order to bring the audience in for the new series. There is one very obvious result of this: a villain that doesn't quite work. The entire story of Day of the Daleks is actually rather good. It has an engaging hook and some very interesting characters. But it also has the Daleks, who have been obviously shoehorned into the story to try and get some more viewers. This is to the detriment to the story as it means that we now have a handful of completely useless scenes in every episode featuring the Daleks, when it is plainly obvious that scenes with any other character would be more engaging.

But this is all bearable because for every bit of pointlessness in each episode, we get some remarkably good scenes. And that will make the Day of the Daleks something to look forward to as we approach the conclusion to this story.

Day 305: Day of the Daleks Episode 2

One of the things that happens in this episode is the Doctor picking up a gun and shooting one of the alien Ogrons in cold blood as he saunters up to the Doctor. It should be noted that the Doctor shot first, and that this is certainly a moment where the Doctor killed someone with a gun.

This is wrong. It doesn't matter that it fits into the tone of how other programmes of the ilk would handle similar situations, or that the Ogrons are clearly working for the bad guys. It still is remarkably out of character for the Doctor. The Doctor is a character who will ask questions instead of shooting. Who will use aikido as a martial art because there are no offensive moves within it, only defensive moves. Who will act for peace in a universe of war. This action by shooting an Ogron is so aggressively out of character for the Doctor that it leaves a disgusting taste in the mouth for blatant disregard for how the series works, and takes away much of what makes Doctor Who a unique and fun property. I'm not saying that it's one of the worst decisions ever made in the series (that will be discussed when we get to around August 2015), but it certainly remains an uncomfortable part of Doctor Who history.

Day 304: Day of the Daleks Episode 1

Day of the Daleks. The name seems to imply that this episode will see the return of the Daleks. This return has been well overdue, as they have been absent from our screens for over 100 episodes. However, they are synonymous with the mythos that is Doctor Who, thus they will have to return to wreak havoc on our television screens once more. However, there is one slight problem. The production team has changed several times since the Daleks were last on our screens. This isn't a blight on the production team being in flux, more a blight on the time between appearances for these evil metal creatures. Because everyone's forgotten how the Daleks work. The Dalek's voices are slightly 'off', for instance. The way in which they're directed is 'off' as well. The cliffhanger with Dalek stories is traditionally a character encountering the Daleks and being reduced to some form of shock at the revelation of the Daleks. This time, the cliffhanger is a bunch of Daleks saying that they're going to Exterminate the person in the twentieth century who's screwing up their plans. It's not exactly nail biting stuff.

But the important thing is that the Daleks have returned and it doesn't matter that they're slightly 'off' as they still have an amazing ability to draw kids in and show them the exciting world of Doctor Who.