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.

And with good reason, because as soon as he gets the chance, Norton nips into the power room, smashes the Primitive over the head with a spanner, and stabs Holden to death with the Primitive's spear, framing the indigenous mute and stirring up trouble. It's a shame "sunny" Jim Holden and his green friend are bumped off so quickly because they could have made for quite an endearing/ amusing double act. It does reinforce the stupidity of embarking on a dangerous colonisation project carrying just one (not altogether young) electrical engineer though.

By the way, I'm very surprised that the BBC hasn't withdrawn the DVD of Colony in Space and banned it from Twitch due to Mary Ashe chirruping "Don't worry, Jim'll fix it!" when the power goes down. The infamous BBC TV show, fronted by the infamous radio DJ, didn't start until 1975, so this reference is completely innocent, yet it still has the power to incite a gasp of surprise, because we're so used to Jimmy Savile being erased from our popular cultural history (don't get me started on the whole "cultural cleansing" phenomenon!).

We're introduced to IMC (Interplanetary Mining Corporation) and its band of rather brutal mineralogists, as well as its somewhat overzealous servo robots. IMC has landed on Uxarieus to conduct tests for traces of minerals, and quickly discover that the planet is rich in duralinium - enough to build one million living units on Earth, and double the annual profits of IMC, in fact. This ship-full of mineralogists is led by the hard-nosed Captain Dent (a deliciously poker-faced Morris Perry) and his right-hand man Morgan, who between them have no compunction in murdering innocent people in order to get the mining spoils they crave. They have bonuses to think of, and it is money which drives them, not their conscience (you can almost see the cash registers ringing in their eyes).

Then there's Caldwell, played with great sensitivity by Bernard Kay, who seems to be the only IMC man who does have a conscience. He's shocked by the news that the servo robot killed the Leesons, shaken by the thought of what Morgan plans to do to the Doctor, and dislikes any suggestion the colonists can be forced off Uxarieus. But Dent has one all-encompassing advantage over Caldwell: knowledge. Caldwell is "up to his ears" in debt and needs his IMC wage (and possibly bonus) to survive. Giving his characters real human foibles and weaknesses such as debt and greed places Malcolm Hulke's writing a level above your average Doctor Who hack (Bob Baker and Dave Martin are great at the big ideas, but try telling me something - anything - about, say, Filer, Winser or Hardiman in The Claws of Axos).

Earth needs duralinium, it seems. In episode 1 we learnt that the Earth is overcrowded, and Dent mentions here that there are "one hundred thousand million" people living there. That's 100 billion people. There's currently 6.9 billion people on Earth (there were only 3.8 billion back in 1971!), so there's a long way to go over the next 500 years to get that crowded! It seems the answer is to build 300-storey high "floating islands" which provide living space for 500 million people, but this makes Dent's discovery on Uxarieus a drop in the ocean in context (Uxarieus can provide duralinium to build one million living units, but they actually need to home 500 million people). IMC have an awful lot of mining to do!

What I don't quite understand is the Doctor's colonialist politics. He berates Dent for wanting to deprive the colonists of their freedom, and says that the answer to Earth's overcrowding is to colonise other worlds. He's obviously not a fan of "population control", but colonialism brings with it its own evils, not least the effect it has on indigenous species. Colonialism and exploitation tend to go hand in hand, and it doesn't matter how much the Doctor reckons "living side by side in harmony" is the right way forward, that's just never going to happen. Humans can't do it on their homeworld, so they're never going to achieve it on other people's.

Even more surprising is the Doctor's throwaway line about "finding and destroying" Uxarieus's hostile animal life. Whether the giant lizards are real or not, this is the Doctor supporting the idea that humans can land on a planet, colonise it, exploit its riches, and if any of the indigenous life forms dare to bare their teeth or put up a fight, they can be destroyed. It's OK to live harmoniously with the indigenous mute green Primitives, but not the indigenous animal life? That's like saying it's fine to build a village in the jungle, but if a tiger or gorilla comes a-knocking on your tent flap, it's OK to "destroy" it.

Sorry, Doctor, but I'm really not with you on this.

The cliffhanger sees the Doctor back in the Leesons' dome, where he started, being menaced by an IMC servo robot, as he was at the start. The only difference is that this time he's also being held at gunpoint by Morgan, and the robot's got a pair of ridiculous mitten "claws" on.

Already by episode 2, divisions are forming among the characters: Norton vs the Primitives, Winton vs Ashe, and IMC vs the colonists. Rivalry, jealousy and greed fuel these factions, and it'll prove interesting to see who takes a lead and who wins in the end...

First broadcast: April 17th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Malcolm Hulke makes the IMC miners very real and human, even if two of them are murderous psychopaths.
The Bad: The cliffhanger is essentially the same as the first one, but with fibreglass claws.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 13
Neck-rub tally: 6 - the Doctor rubs his neck at the start of the episode when explaining his presence in the dome to Caldwell.

NEXT TIME: Episode Three...

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

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