Space…the Doctor’s final frontier!!!
The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) materialize on an Earth space ship, just as it falls under attack. An auditory attack has the Earthlings seeing the attackers as Draconians along with Jo and the Doctor. With the TARDIS stolen and Jo and the Doctor being considered traitors, Jo and the Doctors must convince both the Earthlings and the Draconians that they are being manipulated into a war. As tensions grow, the Doctor learns his old enemy the Master (Roger Delgado) is behind the attack…and he might not be working alone.
Doctor Who: Frontier in Space aired in the tenth season of the popular British serial Doctor Who. The series originally aired in six parts from February 24, 1973 to March 31, 1973 and is sometimes packaged with its follow-up episode Planet of the Daleks as Dalek War. Following the events of Doctor Who: Carnival of Monsters, Doctor Who: Frontier in Space has been collected in The Jon Pertwee Years as Story #67.
Here there be…Draconians
The story really meanders. There is a lot of down time for the Doctor and Jo as prisoners, and if the people try to mind probe them once, they try it a million times. The serial also faces a problem with the end sequence and the adventure to the Ogron world. The Daleks are revealed to be the threat working with the Master and the serial doesn’t really resolve much of the Dalek plot while ending the war between the Draconians and Earth. The Master kind of disappears and the Doctor and Jo escape (barely) with the Doctor near death…it is an unusual cliffhanger ending as a result of some script/shooting problems. The story like many Doctor Who episodes is too long and probably could have been four or five episodes.
The Doctor and Jo made a good team and their different personalities worked well to advance the story…especially in scenes where they are separated. Pertwee’s uppity behavior works with Jo’s more swinging style. It is a bit of a ying and yang. In this serial, I like the scene where Jo is forced to pretend to be talking to the Doctor as a distraction to the Master while the Doctor makes a spacewalk. The spacewalk might be cheesy looking, but the sequence of events is quite fun.
Silly Master…Daleks are for kids!
The series also marks the unfortunate end to Roger Delgado as the Master. He was killed in a car accident not long after this serial and never really got to round out his character’s story. The next appearance of the Master didn’t occur until Doctor Who: The Deadly Assassin in Tom Baker’s run and had Geoffrey Beevers playing him as the Master’s final regeneration.
Doctor Who: Frontier in Space continues a fun season of Doctor Who. I really enjoyed Carnival of Monsters and this storyline was also good…another reason I feel Jon Pertwee is one of the best Doctors. This story has its faults and slow points, but Pertwee and Manning keep the series fun. Doctor Who: Frontier in Space was followed by Doctor Who: Planet of the Daleks.
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Preceded By:
Doctor Who: Carnival of Monsters (Story #66)
Followed By:
