Frontios Part Four

The one where the TARDIS is pulled back together...

It's amusing how the Gravis is treated completely seriously by those around him, despite the fact he looks like a giant constipated rubber snail. The Doctor chats away to him conversationally, offering a handshake but then realising the Gravis's shortcomings in that department. I also like Tegan's brief fake smile when the Doctor introduces her!

Best of all, of course, is how the Doctor pretends that Tegan is an android, his "serving machine", in an effort to draw the Gravis's attention away from his companion. It's hilarious how he explains that he got Tegan cheap because "the walk's not quite right, and then there's the accent..." The look of suppressed fury on Tegan's face is priceless, and I'm surprised she doesn't pick him up on it later on!

The problem with the Gravis is the fact he looks so silly, and that's a shame, because the strength of the dialogue between them is nice. The cumbersome nature of the Tractator costumes is painfully demonstrated when they spin out of control, and particularly when the Gravis falls SPLAT face down on the ground! It's all a bit slapstick and silly, as is the fact the Gravis has more pronounced ears than his minion counterparts. There's a suggestion he has a slightly more human face than the Tractator workers, with a Gollum-like appearance, but this isn't explicitly expanded upon, beyond the fact the Gravis controls the Tractators, which would otherwise be mindless, burrowing insects.

The Gravis has a hunger for knowledge, and is particularly keen on the concept of travel, which is very ambitious for a race of creatures confined to the underworld. The Gravis and his Tractators have been beneath the surface of Frontios for 500 years, and the arrival of the settlers on the surface was the godsend they needed to help burrow their complex tunnel system. I'm not sure why the Tractators couldn't have done the burrowing themselves though.

The Gravis seems to know the Doctor already "by reputation", and is aware of Gallifrey and what TARDISes are. Again, this is not explained, but the Gravis does suggest the Time Lords are aware of their presence on Frontios, so is this a sequel to an as-yet-untold earlier story, one which perhaps explains the origins of the Gravis and how he knows about the Time Lords? In any case, the Gravis, with his ambitions of travel, is keen to see the Doctor's TARDIS, and is tricked into reassembling it by the Doctor.

The sight of bits of the TARDIS scattered throughout the cave system is wonderful, memorable imagery in the same vein as Christopher H Bidmead's other TARDIS-centric stories, which saw a police box inside the TARDIS control room (Logopolis), and a deeper exploration of the TARDIS interior (Castrovalva). To see a partial rock formation fused with the TARDIS roundels is simply weird (and terribly clever), but if you think about it too much, it doesn't quite hang together (the interior dimension of the TARDIS is infinite, so where is it all? Wouldn't it be like trying to empty a vat of sugar into a thimble?).

The Gravis bringing the TARDIS back together is done rather comically - as is everything featuring the Tractators - as he sways from side to side in a weird dance routine which ends up with him falling flat on his face (again!) on the console. Separated from his Tractator minions now that the interior dimension of the TARDIS has severed links with the outside, he loses all his oomph. "We can't go dragging around the universe with a dormant Gravis on the console," says Tegan, quite astutely.

The Doctor's solution is to transport the big ugly bugly to a deserted planet of rocks and boulders, namely the planet Kolkokron. Interestingly, it's only the Doctor and Tegan who make this trip, leaving Turlough behind on Frontios, so there's potential for there to be a series of adventures with just the Fifth Doctor and Tegan in between. Lo and behold, such adventures have been told, including the Short Trips stories Life After Queth and Keeping It Real, the audios Excelis Dawns and Time in Office, and the Yearbook story Perfect Day. The Gravis also makes a return to help the Sixth Doctor prevent the creation of a gravity machine in The Hollows of Time (a Big Finish adaptation of an abandoned Season 23 story by Bidmead).

What else?

• The Tractators' ultimate plan is to create a mathematically perfect gravity motor beneath the surface of Frontios, and then pilot the planet around the universe, plundering other worlds and infesting them as breeding grounds. It's an ingenious idea, and one they've obviously attempted before if Turlough's race memory is to be believed.
• Brazen falling victim to the excavation machine is done rather hamfistedly, with Peter Gilmore struggling to convince. The only moment that sells it is Gilmore's agonised screams of assimilation, off-camera, when we can only imagine what the machine is doing to him. Sadly, we don't get to see, and his demise is all rather unnecessary.
• There's a brief shot when the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Plantagenet are escaping the lair when they all pause, then move on, but the Doctor hangs back for a moment, just contemplating. This could very easily have been trimmed off the end of the scene by director Ron Jones, as it doesn't add to proceedings, but the fact it's kept in gives a nice little pause for the Doctor, as we get to see him thinking. What about, we're not sure, but we very rarely get these moments of the Doctor alone, conjuring his plans. I like it.
• The Doctor gives Plantagenet the TARDIS hat stand as a gift, which instantly makes me wonder when we next see one in the TARDIS. The TARDIS Wiki suggests it doesn't reappear until the Seventh Doctor's era (the Short Trip story Daisy Chain, set during Season 24). It's certainly back on screen by Dragonfire.

As the TARDIS crew bids farewell to Plantagenet and his people outside the TARDIS at the end, it would have been nice to have a little goodbye between Norna and Turlough, two characters who'd made a connection throughout the story - but there's nothing at all. It's such a shame Turlough wasn't afforded this one last bit of character development, where we might have found out if he was attracted to Norna, or just thought of her as a sister, or whatever. Characters had made these personal connections in the past - be it Barbara and Ganatus, Jamie and Samantha, or Jo and Latep for instance - but during the 1980s, or the Eric Saward era at least, these connections became few and far between, and when they did happen, they were never shown to go anywhere. It's such a shame, because after all the work Mark Strickson and Lesley Dunlop had put in, there's no pay-off. As ever, Turlough just straightens his tie, buttons his jacket, and wanders away. If Andrew Cartmel was in charge, things would have been very different, I reckon.

The story ends on a cliffhanger into the next story, which was very unusual for the time, something not seen since the 1960s. The TARDIS is being dragged toward the middle of the universe, but the Gravis is not to blame, the Doctor claims. Tune in next week to find out what's happening!

Frontios is a fantastic story, written intelligently by Bidmead, with an eye on both plot and character. You can tell this is a man who knows this Doctor and knows Tegan Jovanka, and is more than happy to give time to Turlough too (a true rarity!). It's not perfect, but it's a tremendously good effort in a season that, after the troubled first steps of Warriors of the Deep, seems to be growing from strength to strength. Davison continues to be magnificent, and there's a newfound confidence in the series, it seems. Let's hope it continues.

First broadcast: February 3rd, 1984

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The imagery of the TARDIS walls fused with the caves.
The Bad: The Gravis's ridiculous little dance.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 8.5 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: Resurrection of the Daleks...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

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.

Frontios is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Frontios-Peter-Davison/dp/B004P9MRSU