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?

Colony in Space Episode Five

The one where we see inside the Master's TARDIS properly...

This episode is all about the Master's TARDIS. It's quite exciting, getting to see inside a TARDIS other than the Doctor's, for the first time since 1965's The Time Meddler (there have been glimpses before this, but it was just a plain backdrop). The Master's TARDIS obviously has a fully functioning chameleon circuit, and is currently disguised as the Adjudicator's spaceship. It's rather amusing when Jo says she hasn't seen the Master's horsebox (from Terror of the Autons), and the Doctor reveals that a TARDIS can "change its shape". Yeah, except for yours, Doctor (but Jo doesn't think to question this).

Entry into the Master's TARDIS is somewhat laborious, as there is an alarm beam across the doors which, if broken, warns the Master that his ship has been infiltrated (and I love his little handheld compact with in-built CCTV!). The sight of Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning wriggling their way along the floor to get under the beam is very silly!

Colony in Space Episode Four

The one where the Adjudicator turns up and is revealed to be...

Isn't it great how the Adjudicator's spaceship looks like it's being flown by a seven-year-old boy playing with his toys? It wobbles toward the surface of Uxarieus on a wavering trajectory, then turns from a spaceship into a rocket to flip up and land upright! Elon Musk would be proud!

Meanwhile, aboard the IMC ship, the colonists have taken control and set about gathering vital evidence against Dent to present to the Adjudicator. Winton finds a machine which projects giant images of lizards (complete with sound effects!), as well as the polystyrene claws that Morgan fitted to the servo robot's arms. The colonists must feel really stupid to have fallen for this kind of mummery! Even more frustrating is Winton's swift loss of control when he lets Morgan reach for a pistol in Dent's "secret compartment", and they tumble all the way back to square one.

Colony in Space Episode Three

The one where Jo gets chained to a bomb...

I've already mentioned the fact the colonists don't seem to own a razor between them (I think every single one of the men has facial shrubbery of some sort!), but I've only just noticed that the IMC staff seem to have a particular way of brushing their hair. All of them have their hair brushed forward, often into a kind of widow's peak if they don't have enough hair to go round. The colonists don't have this hairstyle, so maybe make-up supervisor Jan Harrison decided that the IMC crew would be trendier because they'd more recently come from Earth?

I also love the fact the IMC spaceship has a noticeboard. Despite it being 2472, it seems people still read memos printed on sheets of A4 paper pinned to cork boards!

Colony in Space Episode Two

The one where we meet some murderous mineralogists...

Uxarieus is a bloody grim planet, isn't it? I know it was actually a Cornish clay pit in dampest February, but it's hard to understand why the colonists ever thought they'd be able to thrive in this most depressing of environments. Ashe may have done his homework, but it's virtually impossible to believe that the land would be suitable for farming (which reminds me: we're never actually shown the colonists' farmland, we're just told about it - maybe because director Michael Briant knew it'd look silly sticking a couple of wilting runner beans into a patch of wet clay soil!). Nevertheless, the location allows for some quite impressive, sweeping shots of the "planet" when the Doctor's driving around in his little golfing kart.

The arrival of the mysterious Norton at the colony has really thrown the cat among the pigeons. As Jo sagely observes, he makes a "remarkable recovery" for saying he's been living on roots for 12 months (but looks suspiciously healthy for it), and he wastes little time in genning up on the hows and wherefores of the colony thanks to the dashing Winton's informative tour (do the men in this colony not possess razors? They're all as hairy as a Primord!). Norton seems particularly interested in the colony's power source, and when he asks whether Jim Holden is their only "electrician engineer", my suspicions were raised immediately.

Colony in Space Episode One

The one where the Third Doctor visits another planet for the first time...

The opening scene of this story is both marvellous and frustrating. We zoom through space and home in on what would appear to be the Doctor's homeworld (yet to be named) where we meet three Time Lords in splendid robes. This is theoretically very exciting, because we all know how terrifying the Time Lords are (except for that bumbling bowler-hatted chap in Terror of the Autons). It's quite a refreshing revelation to have them send the exiled Doctor on a mission for them ("We must restore his freedom, as long as it serves our purpose"), but they reveal too much plot, and needlessly.

The fault can only be writer Malcolm Hulke's, who basically tells the viewer that Roger Delgado's going to turn up as the Master again, and that he has plans for something called a "doomsday weapon" (in fact, the very first words of the story are: "The Master..."). After this scene ends, there is no further reference to the doomsday weapon, and the Master does not appear. Why oh why didn't the production team hold back the involvement of the Master until his actual appearance later in the story? And why mention something that then becomes totally irrelevant to the rest of the episode? It all seems a bit ham-fisted to me.