8x04. Colony in Space
Writer: Malcolm Hulke
Director: Michael Briant
Script Editor: Terrance Dicks
Producer: Barry Letts
Synopsis: The Time Lords
reactivate the Doctor's TARDIS and dispatch him to a planet where an
ancient Doomsday Weapon lies hidden in the ruins of an ancient alien
city, hoping he can prevent the Master from accessing the weapon. The
Doctor and the Master become involved in a territorial dispute between
some human colonists and the ruthless Interplanetary Mining
Corporation, with the Doctor trying to help the colonists and the
Master posing as an Adjudicator sent to decide between the two
factions' claims.
Review: "Colony in Space" is
probably less memorable for its actual content than for the role it
plays in the eighth season and the Pertwee era in general. After seven
Earth-based serials in a row, this is the Third Doctor's first venture
into outer space, courtesy of a brief reprieve from the Time Lords. The
script by Malcolm Hulke offers some of the best Doctor/Master
interaction to date, and the political colorings that are becoming
characteristic of Pertwee serials are present, but there is also a fair
amount of mediocre filler material.
The Doctor and Jo spend most of their time caught up in a conflict
between the colonists and the IMC, with the "primitive" alien natives
as a sort of wild card. It's clear we're meant to root for the
colonists from the very beginning, and while the Doctor does try to
prevent violence at first, "Colony in Space" lacks the subtlety of
Hulke's previous serial, "The Silurians." It doesn't take long before
the Doctor is openly assisting the colonists, and the political
commentary is rather obvious, amounting to little more than "Big greedy
corporations that kill people are bad." The aliens are a little more
interesting, in that their civilization was once prosperous but
declined into ignorance and superstition after they constructed the
Doomsday Weapon and began to suffer from its radiation. They don't
possess the depth of the very best alien races on Doctor Who, but the fact that they
can be lethally dangerous to innocents despite having a strong moral
code of their own makes them effectively unpredictable, and it expands
the story a little beyond the level of the simpler and more easily
accessible human conflicts.
"Colony in Space" does offer a few interesting guest characters. Most
essential is Caldwell, an IMC officer who is having a crisis of
conscience over the methods employed by Captain Dent and his
colleagues. One might cynically observe that, with the colonists
outmatched technologically, the story would be over in about ten
minutes if there wasn't someone helping them from inside the INC, but
Caldwell is credibly written and acted as someone who has compromised
himself a little at a time and, now that he finally cannot abide it any
longer, isn't quite sure what to do and still finds himself easily
intimidated. Among the colonists, we have a leader/deputy conflict that
follows a pattern established in past serials like "The Silurians" and
"The Krotons," with the leader (Ashe) being older and more moderate and
the impatient young deputy (Winton) pressing for decisive action. It's
a formula that works, however, and Hulke's script wisely refrains from
portraying either of them as having all the answers. It seems unlikely
that Winton could have ever negotiated a truce with the aliens as Ashe
has, but Ashe has also put the colony at risk by agreeing to trade food
when they are just barely surviving, and he does seem too mild-mannered
to mount an effective opposition against the IMC. On the other hand,
Ashe proves himself a man of principle by going on a suicide mission to
fool the IMC into thinking the colonists have all been killed, and it's
not clear that Winton would have been so easily capable of such an act
of self-sacrifice.
The Master has been a reasonably effective villain thus far, and in
"Colony in Space" we get the clearest statement to date of his
philosophy. Questioned by the Doctor as to why he wants to use the
Doomsday Weapon to rule the universe, he responds simply that one has
only two choices: "rule or serve." Intriguingly, he hints that he might
not be entirely malicious once he possesses this power, offering the
Doctor a partnership and suggesting that he could use it for good
purposes. The Master is more concerned with simply having power (and
with winning the approval of the more idealistic Doctor) than with what
he would actually do with it. The Doctor, of course, is not interested,
famously dismissing the offer with the line, "I want to see the
universe, not rule it." The line nicely sums up the two most prominent
and admirable elements of the Doctor's personality: the explorer with
an insatiable intellectual curiosity, and the small-l liberal who tries
to help people take control of their own fates.
One failing of "Colony in Space" is that, as a relatively simple
story, it's rather drawn out and it eventually grows repetitive: this
is probably the first long Pertwee serial that could have been trimmed
down by an episode or two. The colonists and the IMC are
obviously the respective white and black hats, and as a result, Hulke
resorts to a number of lengthy chase//capture/escape scenarios to pad
out the six episodes. Though the production values are better than
those of any Hartnell or Troughton "outer-space" story, the Doctor Who team are still only
passable when it comes to staging action scenes, of which there are
quite a few. This is especially true of the gun-battles, which consist
mostly of close-ups on various individuals firing their weapons,
leaving the viewer uncertain where exactly anybody is standing and who
they're shooting at, the result being confusion and eventually
irritation rather than suspense. The Master's decision to pose as the
Adjudicator and involve himself in this conflict also seems like
padding. He does obtain some help from the colonists in finding his way
to the alien city, but it's hard to believe he couldn't have done that
without them, unless there was absolutely no detail at all in the files
he stole from the Time Lords.
Like its predecessor "The Claws of Axos," "Colony in Space" is a
respectable but unexceptional installment. It shows that the new team
can pull off an outer-space serial and it gives us some good
Doctor/Master interaction, but it didn't leave me too disappointed that
the Doctor was back on Earth by the end.
Other notes:
- The colonists seem to take the Doctor's warning to "keep an eye on
Norton" (an IMC infiltrator) absurdly literally -- they sort of watch
him, but they don't monitor his movements very closely (much less
impede them), resulting in another betrayal in Episode Four. Just what
exactly did they think the Doctor meant other than that the man was a
spy?
- The Master's TARDIS has filing
cabinets?
Rating: **1/2 (out of four)
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