Frontier in Space Episode Six

The one where the Master reveals who he's been working for all along...

As predicted, Jo's fear centres throw up an image of a terrifying Drashig from Carnival of Monsters, as well as a rather benign Mutt from The Mutants and a somewhat sinister Sea Devil from, er... The Sea Devils. What, no Gell Guards, Jo? Still, it's lovely to have a menagerie of monsters!

Back on Earth, the people are restless and calling for war to be waged on Draconia. We see this communicated via telecast by a particularly irate Congressman Brook, leader of the Opposition, who was mentioned by the futuristic Trevor McDonald back in episode 1. The President of Earth and her pastel chiffon dresses are in trouble, and there's only one man who can forge peace before it's too late - Doctor Who (dressed as Miss Marple).

Travelling in General Williams' private scout ship, the Doctor's peace party encounter trouble from a Draconian battle cruiser, which tries to blast them out of space for transgressing the frontier. Williams claims his ship can outrun anything, and uses a hyperdrive to escape. Sadly, this hyperdrive overheats and leads to the Doctor having to go on another space walk outside to fix it. And so yet again we have leaden scenes slowing down the action with Jon Pertwee suspended from all-too-obvious Kirby wires. Even in the final episode, writer Malcolm Hulke can't resist sticking in a bit of time-wasting frippery. Some might say it all adds jeopardy. I say it's lazy and dull.

And so to the planet of the Ogrons. We must call it that, as nobody wishes to name it on screen, although expanded fiction has variously named it as Orestes (book So Vile a Sin), Braah (book The Romance of Crime) and, with apt Ogron imagination, the Planet (audio Planet of the Ogrons). This rocky world, as well as being home to the simian knuckleheads, is also populated by huge orange blobby monsters, which the Ogrons worship because they fear them. When we catch a glimpse of one of the blobby monsters, it looks like a Sainsbury's carrier bag caught on the breeze, and it's a mercy that director Paul Bernard keeps its time on screen to just four seconds.

Jo manages to dig her way out of her cell using a dessert spoon, but rather dimly digs her way into the neighbouring cell rather than outside the cage completely. Luckily for her, the cell door is open, and she's able to send a distress signal to attract the Doctor's attention. Unfortunately, this was the Master's cunning plan all along, manipulating Jo in order to entrap his enemy.

As grey and uninspired as the quarry location is for the planet - hell, I'm just gonna call it Braah - Bernard shoots them with a nice splash of scale, shooting up to the hilltops, with characters silhouetted against the sky. The brief shoot-out with the Ogrons is nicely done too, which affords him the chance to minimise the hilarity of the aforementioned blobby monster!

"They are coming!" announces the Master, referring to his employers, the ones truly behind all of this subterfuge and chicanery. And what a shocker it is when they are finally revealed - it's the bloody Daleks! Malcolm Hulke pulls off a double whammy of shock reveals in this story: first the Master is revealed as the Sirius IV delegate, then the Daleks are unveiled as the Master's employers. It's a heart-stopping reveal, again shot well by Bernard as the Daleks glide into view on the hilltop, then proceed to gun down the Earth soldiers. After all the false teasing via the use of the Ogrons, it was the Daleks all along! Double bluff!

Sadly, the appearance of the Daleks five minutes from the end of the last episode does not lead to the expected action-packed finale. The Daleks want to exterminate their arch enemy, but are persuaded not to by the Master. He convinces them not to kill the Doctor until he has witnessed the Earth lying in ruins, and the gold Dalek stupidly entrusts the Doctor to the Master until such time. Why put their arch enemy into the hands of an untrustworthy ally who will probably double-cross them? There's no logic in allowing the Doctor to witness the destruction of Earth. Surely the Daleks, having no need of the Doctor alive, should just shoot him down immediately?

But no, the Doctor is locked in a cell yet again, where he's reunited with Jo, who doesn't bat an eyelid when they start talking about the Daleks being on the scene. Luckily, Jo stole the Master's perception device, and the Doctor spends a while fiddling with it to make adjustments he insists must be made. Quite what alterations he makes to it are unclear, because when he uses it on their Ogron guard, it does precisely what it did before - make it see the thing it fears most (a Dalek).

The final scenes are a little muddled as the Doctor switches on the device, which spooks the Ogrons, which leads to the Master misfiring his gun and injuring the Doctor. And that's the last we see of the Master, as played by Roger Delgado, at 22 minutes and 55 seconds. It's a somewhat ignominious swansong for one of the best actors ever to grace Doctor Who. He simply disappears in the melee, without one of those traditional scenes where he escapes, or turns to give one last evil laugh. Just gone. Forever.

Of course, the plan was to bring the Master back in Season 11 for one final showdown with the Doctor, but Fate had different ideas. Frontier in Space episode 6 was filmed in studio on Hallowe'en 1972, and transmitted exactly five months later. Three months after that - between transmission of The Green Death episodes 5 and 6 - Delgado was killed in Turkey while filming the TV series Le Cloche tibetaine. He was 55 years old. The Master has never been the same since.

The story ends with the injured Doctor staggering into the TARDIS and using the telepathic circuits to call for help from the Time Lords, the second time he's done that this season. He really should learn to stand on his own two feet at times like this. I don't remember his earlier incarnations calling for help from his mates back home when tackling the Animus, or the Great Intelligence, or the Quarks.

Frontier in Space ends with a cliffhanger into the next story, the first time this has happened since The Dominators, and does elevate proceedings very slightly because we know that the Daleks must be involved in the next story. There's a nice shot of a model TARDIS spinning off into space as the titles come in, but I can't help feeling glad to see the back of this sorry serial.

It's probably been one of the most frustrating, disappointing and annoying Doctor Who stories I've watched to date, because despite giving the appearance of being busy and action-packed, it's actually really boring and hollow. Scratch beneath the aesthetic surface - the excellent modelwork, costumes, sets and monster masks - and there's very little of substance beneath.

Just an awful lot of jail cells.

First broadcast: March 31st, 1973

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The revelation of the Daleks!
The Bad: The Master's ignominious end (or rather, Roger Delgado's).
Overall score for episode: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (story average: 4 out of 10)

"Now listen to me" tally: 23
Neck-rub tally: 13

NEXT TIME: Planet of the Daleks...

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/frontier-in-space.html

Frontier in Space is available on BBC DVD as part of the Dalek War box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Frontier-Planet-Daleks/dp/B002KSA3T8