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The Third Doctor finally gets an adventure away from Earth... all the way to Uxarieus and all that business with the miners and the colonists, doomsday weapons and primitives, guardians and adjudicators.
How will Jo take the trip? What are IMC up to? And where is the Master?
What are your thougths of Colony in Space?
Si xx
The Target novel is a 10/10 classic. Made it seem like the best story ever made... and then a UK Gold repeat bought me back down to reality!
So I can't bring myself to vote on this one sorry.
:-D:-D I really know how you feel on that score. I love Colony in Space though, it seemed so exciting at the time. After three good stories though there had to be something of a duffer, and this had to be it. Time has not been good to it at all, but it doesn't mar its appeal to me. It has its good performances, and certainly its bad ones, and definately seems the cheapy of the season, it even has the same cliffhanger twice.:pQuote:
Originally Posted by Dino
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Two pages from an excellent Radio Times article (there's a cover somewhere) with artwork by the late, great Frank Bellamy. It introduced the story and made it seem really exciting. Sadly, the episodes were something of a let down.
I can really sympathise with Dino - I loved the book as a kid, and the TV version is... a bit pedestrian in comparison.
But-- For all that, I remember getting really excited about finally getting to watch it. This was back in the days before we had Sky, but when my brother did, so once I'd worked out when it was going to be on I got him to record it for me. Yes, it's ploddy & cheap-looking in places, but there was still a lot of fun there - I loved the first shot of the planet, with the robot chugging along just before the TARDIS appears. And even that bizarre 'POP' appearance of the TARDIS was a delight. Just as it starts to flag, the Master appears, and all that business about going down into the city is rather exciting too. And although they aren't all great, I do think the cliffhanger to episode 3? 4? when the rock door closes behind Jo, is very good indeed. Must have been a real "What, I have to wait a whole week??!!!" back in 1971.
So, far from a classic, but quite fun. Just don't watch it in one go!
I'm not sure |Colony in Soace really deserves its reputation as a bit of a clunker. It has its problems- mkostly the same as other Pertwee 6 parters- there's a lot of padding, not quite enough story to justify the length, but the story isn't nearly as dull as its made out to be.
The whole thing is just a shade more intelligent than the other stories in the season, which you would expect from a Malcolm Hulke script. He manages to keep the shifts in the balance of power between the miners and the colonists entertaining. The situation seems so desperate when all the colonists take off in their ship and it explodes.
IMC seem a formidable enemy who have everything stacked on their side and for once it seems possible that the good guys won't actually win this one.
Of course, while the Mastre arriving is entertaining it does the careful plotting of the previous episodes rather falls apart as we get caught up in the usual ill thought Master plot. That said rather wonderfully Jo and the Doctor immediately know its the Master and shout "Its the Master!" Fab! No silly masks or pretending!
So, plenty to hold your attention if you don't watch it one go. Shame the 525 line tapes are so washed out and lifeless. I think with sparkling picture quality this one would be better thought of than it is.
Si xx
I'm not really keen on this story, it's rather average fare and could have done with being two episodes shorter. That said Roger Delgado is as always on top form :)
It's another one that took a while to grow on me but which I now adore. There's nothing that isn't awesome in its own way - Captain Dent is a fabulous villain because he really doesn't care about being evil, the Master arrives at just the right moment to keep the story going, the colonists are great mix of hippies, idealists and hotheads with moustaches, Norton is unbelievably slimey and obvious as a traitor, the whole of galactic law fits in one book, Jo thinks colonists left Earth in 1971 without mentioning it to anyone and the primatives keep their king in a cupboard. Who doesn't love it?
Colony in Space is underrated. It has one of the most ingenious ideas seen in Doctor Who: cowboys and Indians in space. Also features guest appearances by two soap stars, Helen Worth (Gail Platt in Coronation Street) as Mary Ashe and Tony Caunter (Roy Evans in EastEnders) as Morgan.
The Master is mentioned at the beginning and doesn't turn up until Episode Four. Maybe the story could have been a bit better if he'd arrived earlier rather than later?
8/10
Colony in Space is not as bad as its reputation suggests. It is far from the worst Doctor Who story ever. It has plenty of problems, however. There are two major gunfights in the same location with the same people, just which side is invading is switched. We hear a lot of talk about failed crops but little indication of any farmland, and they all seem to still be pretty well-fed and watered. The robot with big fake lizard claws looks absurd. The business with beams and gas and tubes in the Master's TARDIS is ridiculously Flash Gordon-esque (as well as requiring Jo to be sufficiently dense to completely forget all the shuffling on the floor they had to do to get in and avoid those beams and go and stand in them), and leads to one of most awful cliffhangers ever as the Master's finger descends agonisingly slowly towards what appears to be a cross between a makeup compact and a cherry bakewell. The destruction of the Weapon at the end is treated as the solution to all the problems, but won't stop the soil being radioactive, so the colonists still have the same problem they had before. And finally, a story which features the Doctor's first trip off Earth since his exile, on a secret mission for the Time Lords, involving the Master in a search for the Ultimate Doomsday Weapon, was given one of the most boring, uninspiring titles in the whole history of Doctor Who (just compare it with the three that preceded it, for example, and tell me this one sounds even slightly interesting).
All that aside, however, it makes for quite a good story. I can't help but feel my usual suspicion that people who rate it as slow and dull have done so after trying to sit through it all in one sitting, forgetting that is not how it was ever meant to be seen (it seems common to think of most stories as feature-length plots divided into parts, but that's not how most were written or presented). Each individual episode has enough incident to keep you watching for those 25 minutes. Delgado is superb, and the Master's pretending to be an adjudicator is intriguing, as we all know he couldn't possibly care less who owns the planet. The business at the end with the Master offering to share the Universe and the Doctor briefly looking tempted is quite brilliant (and way better than the over-angsty attempt to re-do it the other way around in The End of Time). So nowhere near the best, but quite a way from the worst, and one that benfits from being watched as it was originally suposed to be.
I think it's main problem is that it lacks amazingness. The first trip to an alien world for a few years (and in colour) ought to have wowed the audience. That ought to have been the aim. To take the breath away. Then the TARDIS lands in a dull quarry and gets involved in a dispute with some farmers. It couldn't be less alien if it tried, despite some blokes in masks and spears. And is there a less colourful story in the whole of the seventies? UNIT HQ was more dazzling than Uxarious, a planet with a name designed not to be remembered.
Si.
It's all very beige.
Si xx
Been many years since I last saw this one and perhaps I'll be able to reevauate it once it comes out on DVD but at the moment it's not one of my favourite stories like most of the Pertwee, 6 parters I find it gets a bit dull in the middle few episodes and just as with Frontier in Space, the story only really starts to pick up once the Master shows up.
See, I disagree with this point. Colony in Space would actually work perfectly well without the Master in it at all. Doctor lands on planet, finds colonists having trouble, mining corporation trying to move them, unexplained radiation, does some exploring, finds ancient doomsday weapon, sorts it out and helps the colonists resist the miners. Might not have filled 6 parts, but would make a repsectable story. What the Master's arrival does is actually pad it out to the full 6 episodes with some dull politics and some very B-movie style gubbins with gas traps and cherry bakewells. The Doctor and the Master end up exploring the ancient city and uncovering the weapon together, so it's not even a race to stop the Master using something he already has.Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry
Delgado is brilliant as always, but the character could be excised from the plot without too much trouble.
I think I agree with Jason: the story would have served adequately well up to the point where the Mater turns up; then it starts to drag with lots of running around and gunfights that could have finished off the story at the end of part four. If Barry and Terrance were worried about overexposing the Master, this is the one they could have rested him from.
4/10
