Colony in Space Episode Six

The one where everything goes boom...

In keeping with the pace of the rest of the story, episode 6 is in no hurry to get anywhere fast. The first ten minutes is basically made up of people getting onto a rocket, people talking about not wanting to get onto a rocket, and the Doctor and the Master recreating a scene between the Doctor and Jo from episode 4. I think that's the problem with this story: there's potential in it, but it's all told at a leisurely, genial pace, with only occasional pockets of action to lift it out of talky melodrama into space adventure.

The Master's plan seems to be to take control of the long dormant doomsday weapon which the advanced people of Uxarieus developed generations ago, but never used properly. He aims to use this super-weapon to hold the galaxy to ransom (or the universe, he's vague on the details) so that he becomes supreme ruler. And the automatic response to this is voiced succinctly by our hero: what for?

"One must rule or serve," explains the Master simply. The discussion between the Doctor and the Master in these scenes does the best job of summing up the relationship between these two old friends, as well as highlighting the differences. When the Master offers to share power with the Doctor - "We could save the universe... I'm offering you a half share in the universe!" - he seems genuine in that he wants to embark upon this megalomaniacal venture with his old pal. And the Doctor looks severely tempted at one point, until he concludes that "absolute power is evil".

"I want to see the universe, not rule it!" asserts the Doctor, which basically sums the character up perfectly, and by contrast, the Master too.

It's not altogether clear quite how the doomsday weapon works, or what it does. The Master says that the super-race of Uxarieus tested the weapon on the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant, so the doomsday weapon obviously has a much more powerful effect than something like the Death Star in Star Wars. One thing we do know is that the weapon's power source is radioactive, which is what led to the downfall of the people who invented it. The radiation also poisoned the soil of Uxarieus, making it impossible to grow crops there (so why did Ashe think it would be possible to do so? Did he not have a Geiger counter?).

When the Guardian of Uxarieus trundles out of the wall on his little tea tray, the Master amusingly asks: "What is it?" Well, apart from it being a really, really bad hand puppet that looks like a talking walnut with dolly arms and legs, as the Doctor says, it's "the ultimate development of life on this planet". How Jon Pertwee manages to say this with a straight face is astounding.

In order to prevent the Master from taking control of the doomsday weapon, the Guardian decides to sacrifice himself and his entire people by asking the Doctor to pull the self-destruct lever (he can't do it himself because he's a hand puppet, obviously). This seems rather rash and impetuous to me, seemingly decided on a whim with no thought or care for the consequences. Maybe the Guardian is just thoroughly fed up with sitting inside a wall all day with nothing to look at? This little chap has the power to vanish the Master's ray gun just like that, so why can't he use that power to vanish the Master completely? Why don't the Primitives rush in and stop him, as they did with the Doctor and Jo in episode 4? They were very keen to sacrifice the Doctor and Jo two episodes ago. Now the answer is to blow everything up? It smacks of writer Malcolm Hulke taking a very easy way out to me.

Meanwhile, the colonists have tricked IMC thanks to the ever resourceful Winton getting them all back off the dilapidated rocket before take-off. The rocket is seen to take off and explode, but we learn at the end of the episode that actually, only soppy old Ashe was aboard. Ashe was their only space pilot, and if you remember, Holden was their only electrical engineer, so the colonisation was pretty much doomed from the get-go. I'm not sure how I feel about people sacrificing themselves for the greater good; it happens quite a lot in Doctor Who, where a problem is solved because somebody is big enough to commit suicide (I'm thinking of Galloway in Death to the Daleks too). In real life, I'm not sure people would be so ready and open to ending their own life so that others have a chance to lead theirs. You'd have to be a very particular person to be up for that, someone who perhaps has little to live for, has "issues" of their own... Robert Ashe was a good man with morals and responsibilities, as well as a daughter. Mary Ashe is now orphaned (it's implied that Mrs Ashe is dead from the framed photo on his desk), and it's hard to reconcile self-sacrifice with a widowed father who has the future of an entire colony on his books.

Winton is the man of the moment once more, wrestling with IMC guard Rogers in thick, gloopy mud and rainwater (that must have been fun for the actors on a miserable February afternoon!), then leading the third gunfight of the story to take control back from IMC. Thug Morgan is seen to be shot dead, but it's not clear at all what becomes of dastardly Captain Dent. Frustratingly, we get no final pay-off with the villain of the story - no apprehension, no incarceration, no trial, no humiliation. He just gets lost in the edit, which is a shame, as Morris Perry made Dent such an unlikeable villain that you want to see him get his comeuppance.

At the end the Doctor suggests that now the doomsday weapon has blown up, the colonists will be able to farm the land, but surely this is codswallop? First of all, the city blew up in a ball of fire. The doomsday weapon had a radioactive power source, so that would have gone boom too (and it would've been a little more devastating than a couple of BBC pyrotechnics in a quarry). Quite how the Doctor thinks the soil of Uxarieus will be fertile after the destruction of a nuclear-powered doomsday weapon is baffling, and it emphasises the lack of understanding the Doctor Who production team seemed to have of nuclear power, radiation and their environmental effects so soon after the nonsense at the Nuton Power Complex in The Claws of Axos...

Caldwell opts to ditch IMC and stay behind with the colonists to help them forge a new life on this fertile, sterile world. No mention of the huge debts piling up back home on Earth. He's essentially running away from his responsibilities, but I'm not sure his new life will be any easier...

The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Jo back to the UNIT lab just moments after it left. The Time Lords obviously want the Doctor to experience every single second of his ongoing exile on Earth, while also using him to right wrongs when they see fit (as long as it serves their purpose).

On the one hand, Colony in Space is boring. It's too long and drawn-out, very talky, and fails to engage with its early preoccupation with arable farming and mineralogy. It's all adjudicators and hearings, grey clay pits and dodgy facial hair. It's so beige. But on the other hand, Colony in Space is intelligent, addressing very modern-day issues like over-population and nuclear power. It's well written, and very well acted, but just lacks the energy and zing Doctor Who needs to make it a watchable weekly serial for all the family. I imagine kids were pretty bored by the whole affair. Amazingly, episode 3 of this serial was the most-watched of Season 8, with 9.5m viewers, so what do I know?

What I do know is that I very much doubt Colony in Space is anybody's favourite Doctor Who story. When Doctor Who Magazine asked its readers to score every story in 2013, Colony in Space came 199th out of 241, the fourth lowest Pertwee. For 2009's similar Mighty 200 DWM survey, the story came 171st out of 200, also the fourth lowest Pertwee. So it seems that while people don't think it's the worst Pertwee story, it's never going to be able to justify being the most watched story of 1971!

First broadcast: May 15th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: I only have admiration for Nicholas Pennell and Terry Walsh wrestling in that all-consuming mud bath!
The Bad: Blowing up a nuclear-powered super-weapon, then expecting everybody in the vicinity to survive and for the planet to become suddenly fertile. Please, give me some credit...
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (story average: 5.7 out of 10)

"Now listen to me" tally: 13
Neck-rub tally: 5

NEXT TIME: The Dæmons...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/05/colony-in-space.html

Colony in Space is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Colony-Space-DVD/dp/B005CW11AO