#21 (11.5 - 11.10): Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

The Doctor watches dinosaurs battle for territory in central London!

6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 147 minutes. Written by: Malcolm Hulke. Directed by: Paddy Russell. Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor returns journalist Sarah Jane Smith to London - except something is wrong. The city has been evacuated, with no activity outside of scattered bands of looters. Eventually reuniting with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT, the Doctor learns that dinosaurs have been rampaging all over central London. The creatures appear, wreak havoc, and then vanish.

This is no natural phenomenon. Someone is deliberately causing this chaos, using the dinosaurs to clear out the area. Sarah is able to offer a lead: a missing scientist named Whitaker (Peter Miles), disgraced after the scientific community laughed off his theories about time travel.

It's clear that enormous power is required to bring the dinosaurs to present day London. The Doctor and Sarah each follow individual trails to the truth. But their efforts are complicated by sabotage. Somebody inside UNIT is working against them!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: As a Time Lord, he has a level of immunity to the time eddies being generated. This allows him to see time reversing when a dinosaur is sent back, something that the UNIT soldiers can't observe as time reverses for them too. He is delighted to meet Charles Grover, the Minister in charge of the emergency, having followed Grover's pro-ecology campaigns, and he tells the MP, "This planet needs people like you." He has less time for Gen. Finch (John Bennett), who is in charge of the military response and whom even the Brigadier regards with thinly veiled disdain. He has a degree of sympathy with the motives of the villains, but he agrees that what they're actually doing is madness.

Sarah Jane Smith: She is far too enthusiastic about telling people that she has information that she hasn't yet shared with others. She makes that mistake twice in this serial, which ends with her being abducted both times. That aside, this is an excellent story for her. As with The Time Warrior, she's presented as a character who could be the lead in her own series (which would, of course, eventually happen). When she feels dismissed by the Doctor and the Brigadier, she actively investigates on her own, and she turns up vital clues. Near the end, actions that she takes are almost enough to resolve the crisis, if not for a single flipped lever. She and the Doctor are separated for almost the entire second half, but the first two episodes allow her and Jon Pertwee to demonstrate good screen rapport, and they are charming together in the final scene.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Though he values the chain of command too much not to show proper respect to Gen. Finch, it's still clear that he dislikes both the man and his orders. He's particularly exasperated when the general insists on devoting resources to stopping looters rather than focusing on the larger problem. His faith in his men is such that he has difficulty believing that any member of UNIT could be working with the villains.

Capt. Yates: After he's reunited with the Doctor, he admits that he had to take "a spot of leave" to recover from his brainwashing in The Green Death. He still seems to be suffering from a hint of PTSD, with him openly musing about how peaceful the evacuated London is. He organizes detention centers for looters and other details, and this seems to earn him a degree of trust from Gen. Finch. He uses that to advocate for the Doctor; when Finch dismisses the Doctor's reports as "rubbish," Yates interjects to say that he shouldn't be dismissed so casually. He goes even further in a later scene, stating that the Doctor is "probably the greatest scientist on this planet."

Sgt. Benton: He acts fast when a traitor within the ranks pulls a gun on the Brigadier, jumping the man and disarming him at the first opportunity. When Gen. Finch orders him to arrest the Doctor, he agrees - only to immediately tell the Doctor to knock him unconscious in order to stage an escape. He later pulls a gun on Gen. Finch to enforce UNIT's jurisdiction. Finch vows to court martial him, a threat that doesn't seem to bother Benton in the slightest.


THOUGHTS:

To get it out of the way up-front: The dinosaur effects are pretty much what you'd think they'd be, greenscreen shots of what look suspiciously like cheap plastic toys, and the directorial choices make them look even worse than they had to.

Too many of the shots featuring the dinosaurs are in bright daylight, showing off the cheapness to full disadvantage. Worse still, most of these shots are allowed to run for entire seconds longer than they should. Late in the story, there is one scene featuring a dinosaur underground, in dim lighting, and the scene works much better - but that scene is, sadly, the exception.

Outside of the "very special" effects, Invasion of the Dinosaurs has a lot going for it. In a series filled with evil megalomaniacs, this serial's villains believe that their actions are fully justified. I confess to preferring antagonists who believe they are in the right, rather than ones who are simply "Eeevil." They even have a worldview the Doctor can sympathize with, to a point; they've just taken it to an extreme conclusion.

The first episode is reminiscent of the first part of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, with the regulars exploring a mostly empty London and trying to determine what has happened. The T-rex doesn't get unveiled until the cliffhanger, leaving most of the episode to build atmosphere and mystery. This opening installment also allows us to see the Doctor and Sarah together as a team - a good thing, given that they were separate for much of their first story and are separated again for the back half of this one.

The final two episodes are quite good. The Doctor gets involved in a car chase that's one of this era's better such sequences. There's genuine cleverness as he uses the environment to his advantage. The scene also creates momentum by giving him a double problem: evading Finch's soldiers while at the same time racing to reach the villains' lair before they can put their plan into action.

Unfortunately, the narrative bogs down in the middle. There is repetition, from multiple attempts to sabotage the Doctor to multiple trips back and forth between locations. It never devolves into tedium, but there's a sense of the action being stretched to fill six parts.

Even in the midst of the tedious middle episodes, the serial manages to deliver what I think might be one of Doctor Who's best cliffhangers. Episode Three doesn't end with characters in danger. Instead, it delivers a sudden narrative curveball, one that doesn't at first glance seem to fit with the rest of the story at all. It's well-executed, from the reveal itself to Sarah's look of shock at hearing it, and it does its job of hooking you into the next episode if only to get an explanation.


OVERALL:

There's a lot to like about Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The ideas are interesting, and there are several memorable sequences, including an excellent car chase and an outstanding Episode Three cliffhanger. The story does a good job of showing off new companion Sarah Jane Smith, who gets strong material with the Doctor in the first half and on her own in the second half.

I remember when this story was almost universally derided by fandom simply because of the cheap dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are cheap, and iffy directorial choices make that even more apparent than it should have been - but this is a good, solid story at its core, and I've been glad to see its reputation recover over the last decade or so.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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#17 (10.9 - 10.14): Frontier in Space.

The latest standoff between the Doctor and the Master.

6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 144 minutes. Written by: Malcolm Hulke. Directed by: Paul Bernard. Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT:

The empires of Earth and Draconia stand at the brink of war. Each side's ships have been raided, with survivors swearing that the other side is responsible. So far, Earth's President (Vera Fusek) and Draconia's emperor (John Woodnutt) have been able to maintain the peace, but calls for action among both races are growing.

This hostile environment is what awaits the Doctor and Jo when the TARDIS materializes inside an Earth cargo ship. When the ship is attacked, the members of the crew see their attackers as Draconians, even though the raiders are actually Ogrons. The Ogrons knock the crew unconscious and steal the TARDIS. When the Doctor attempts to tell the authorities what happened, he and Jo are arrested, charged with being spies working for the Draconians!

The Doctor soon realizes what is happening: A third party is using technology to trigger a fear response among the crews. Someone is trying to start a war. But no one in authority, either among the humans or the Draconians, is willing to believe him. Seemingly every conversation just leads the Doctor and Jo to a new interrogation, accusation, or prison.

Eventually, they are remanded to the custody of a colony offical - The Master! He is in command of the Ogrons, who are following his plan to destabilize the galaxy's two great powers. There's one more complication: The Master isn't working alone...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He retains a cool head throughout. In Part Two, when he and Jo are being held in the freighter's cell, she keeps trying to plan an escape so that they can get back to Earth. He points out that the ship is already on the way to Earth and that the people who will interrogate them are the very people they need to speak to. He initially hopes to get either the President or the Draconians to believe him. By the second half of the story, he unhappily resigns himself to the reality that no one will believe him unless he can provide proof, but he remains determined to find a way to prevent war.

Jo Grant: Most of her best moments in this story involve the Master. There's a scene in which the Doctor escapes from a cell under surveillance. Jo plants herself between the eye of the camera and the Doctor and essentially filibusters, rambling from topic to topic to keep their adversary from realizing that the Doctor has gone. Later, she resists an attempt by the Master to hypnotize her (again), and she holds firm against his fear device. He may be able to make her see monsters such as Sea Devils and Drashigs, but she rejects each illusion in turn, shouting back that "it's not real!"

The Master: This was Roger Delgado's final story as the Master; and though it wasn't planned as such, it turns out to be a fine showcase for the character. The Master's plan is genuinely clever, aggravating existing tensions and then mostly leaving the humans and Draconians to do his work for him. After a slightly "off" showing in The Time Monster, Delgado is back in top form here, the picture of urbane charm as he plays all sides against each other.

Ogrons: They were introduced the previous season as the Daleks' mindless henchmen. This serial clarifies that they are mercenaries who will work for anyone who pays. They're still not terribly interesting creations, being "dumb muscle" and not much else. It's not hard to see why they didn't catch on past the Pertwee era, and I'm legitimately confused as to their popularity in Doctor Who books and audios. They're better here than in Day of the Daleks, though, mainly thanks to the Master's clear impatience with their stupidity.

Draconians: Unlike the Ogrons, they are interesting, their society structured around strict codes. They are formal in speech and manner, and they abhor direct lies - though as the Draconian ambassador's actions show, they are not above deception as long as they can make it work within that framework. The design is particularly good, the makeup elaborate enough to be convincingly alien while still leaving the actors' faces free for a full range of expressions. Given how well they work in terms of both writing and makeup, I'm surprised that this was their only television appearance.


THOUGHTS:

Frontier in Space benefits from some good world building. This starts from the very first scene. The two crew members on the freighter discuss the potential of war with the Draconians. It's your basic exposition exchange, but it's given a lift by the attitude of the older crew member, who shrugs the whole thing off: "They steal a few of our cargoes, we steal a few of theirs. It'll all blow over."

A lot of information is sketched in quickly. Both sides still bitterly resent a previous war, one that we eventually learn was based on a misunderstanding (one that so closely mirrors the origins of Babylon 5's Earth/Minbari war that I can't help but wonder if J. Michael Straczynski had seen this story). The human government is at least somewhat authoritarian, with political dissidents sent to a prison from which no one returns. The Earth President has a lot of authority when it comes to questioning the Doctor and Jo or maintaining/severing diplomatic relations with the Draconians, but she cannot dictate purely military matters. These sorts of details help to make this future seem more real than many of Doctor Who's future societies.

Hulke was always good at weaving substance into his stories, and this is no exception. The Master is deliberately playing on the tensions between the two empires, but he didn't create them. His plan relies on fear. The humans fear the Draconians, and the Draconians fear them. With a slight push from his hypnotic device, he is able to use their existing fear to push both sides to make bad decisions and to take increasingly rash actions. It is, to put it mildly, not difficult to find real world instances of calamitous decisions that were driven by fear.

Structurally, there are good and bad elements. The narrative keeps itself fresh with frequent shifts of focus. The first two episodes revolve around the Doctor's and Jo's (unsuccessful) attempts to convince the Earth and Draconian authorities of the truth. The next two introduce the Master and his role in creating the current crisis, while also making time for an entertaining prison break caper. The final two episodes shift again, with the Doctor finally finding allies as the story reaches its conclusion. The regular changes in setting and focus keep the six episodes from becoming too stale.

Some staleness happens, however, because this serial suffers from severe repetition. In Episode One, the Doctor and Jo are captured and put in a cell. They escape, only to be recaptured and put back in that cell. In Episode Two, they are put in a cell on Earth. The Draconians break the Doctor out and briefly hold him captive, until he escapes and is recaptured by the humans. This continues for the entire story, with the Doctor and Jo being basically passed from one group to the next and from one cell to the next. There is simply too much of this, and the capture/escape pattern becomes tiresome long before the end.

Performances are strong. Pertwee is at his most authoritative when dealing with the various officials. He remains generally calm throughout, but we can see the Doctor growing more frustrated as the story goes along. He and Katy Manning continue to play wonderfully off each other, granting added energy to their scenes together, and Roger Delgado is excellent opposite both of them.

Oh, and if you haven't seen this serial yet... AVOID SPOILERS! There's a terrific twist late in the story, one that few viewers would be likely to see coming even though the story lays all the necessary groundwork. If you somehow don't already have prior knowledge of it, then don't look up anything about this serial before watching it.


OVERALL:

There's a lot to enjoy in Frontier in Space, from the interactions among the characters to the efficient world building. It does suffer from too many repetitions of the capture/escape formula, though, and this is definitely one of those stories best viewed an episode at a time rather than all in one sitting.

It's enjoyable thanks to strong performances and a fast pace, and it gets an extra boost from a late plot turn. Still, I think the repetitive structure keeps it from being as good as it might have been.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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#12 (9.09 - 9.14): The Sea Devils.

The Master forges an alliance.

6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 148 minutes. Written by: Malcolm Hulke. Directed by: Michael E. Briant. Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT:

Ships are vanishing at sea, all in a very specific area near a sea fortress being renovated by the Royal Navy. This is not on the Doctor's radar at all... until he and Jo visit the Master at his heavily fortified island prison, where the warden, Col. Trenchard (Clive Morton), makes an offhand mention.

The Doctor investigates, leading him to discover aquatic lifeforms that he recognizes as relatives of the Silurians. Like the Silurians, these "Sea Devils" have awakened to find the planet that was once theirs now belongs to man - and they want it back.

As before, the Doctor hopes to find a peaceful solution. But first he'll have to deal with the Master, who is planning to use this situation for his own benefit. But the Doctor's efforts are complicated when he realizes that his old enemy has taken full control of his prison, with Trenchard and all the guards now working for him!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: His trust in Jo has grown over time. When she says she's seen the Master at the Naval Base, he doesn't waste a second doubting her. He snaps at Capt. Hart (Edwin Richfield), the ranking officer, to lock the place down immediately. Jon Pertwee is on particularly good form throughout this story. While visiting the Master, the Doctor tries to coax him into revealing the location of his TARDIS. The Master refuses; and Pertwee shows the Doctor's reaction in his frosty delivery of, "Ask a silly question," before returning to his normal affability. Another good moment sees him bribing the boatman into running an errand that will allow him to borrow the man's vessel. He says he would run the errand himself, except that his bad leg is acting up. He runs through a couple historical battle sites ("Crimea... Gallipolli? El Alamein?"). Then he gives up and just smiles, holding up the cash and saying, "Does it really matter?" 

Jo Grant: I liked the Doctor/Jo relationship in Season Eight; in Season Nine, to repeat an observation I made about the previous story, the two of them positively sparkle. When Jo helps him to escape a trap set by the Master, they take turns beckoning the other to leave through the open door, exchanging "After you; no, after you" in a bit that feels unscripted (whether it was or not) in the best way possible. One minus, however: There are two scenes in which Jo is written to physically attack guards. In both cases, it looks hilariously unconvincing. I love Jo when she's interacting with the Doctor, or when she has flashes of ingenuity... but let's not try to make her into Emma Peel, because that really doesn't work.

The Master: Imprisonment has done nothing to make him less dangerous. He takes the measure of his captors, manipulating them to turn strengths into weaknesses that can be preyed upon. He does this with Trenchard in the first half of the story, then repeats the same feat with the Sea Devils. Roger Delgado is at his most charming, and his interactions with Pertwee are some of their best. He may want to take revenge on the Doctor for his captivity, but he doesn't underestimate him. When he discovers that Trenchard let slip about the missing ships, he is enraged, and he isn't at all mollified when Trenchard says that the Doctor didn't seem interested. He knows his adversary too well to think that he won't investigate such a mystery.

Pompous Bureaucrat of the Week: Trenchard, the warden of the Master's prison, is a man whose career is mostly behind him. He was once governor of a British colony - but only for long enough to grant the colony its independence. No resentment is ever stated, but it's not hard to imagine his frustration at having his career apex snatched away, only for him to be treated as a silly old man and/or a nuisance thereafter. This makes him easy prey for the Master, who manipulates him with visions of being a hero.

Pompous Bureaucrat #2: Trenchard is basically a good man who has been led astray. The same cannot be said of this story's other bureaucrat, Parliamentary Secretary Walker (Martin Boddey). Walker arrives late in the story, introducing himself by being dismissive and sexist toward both Jo and a female naval officer, whom he treats as a glorified secretary. It only gets worse from there. He preens behind his desk, stuffing his face while gleefully ordering an attack. Later, in a position of weakness, he turns into such a coward that I think even The Claws of Axos's loathsome Mr. Chinn would look down on him in contempt.

Sea Devils: The oceanic cousins of the Silurians. Their design is impressive by Classic Who standards, with their amphibian qualities making them look correct as ocean dwellers and their cold eyes and stature making them threatening. Unfortunately, this story is more concerned with the Master than with them, so they are mainly relegated to the role of "monsters," though their leader at least briefly considers the Doctor's appeals for peace.


THOUGHTS:

The Sea Devils was Season 9's big production, with location filming, reasonably large-scale action scenes, a decent-sized guest cast, and cooperation by the Royal Navy lending significant production value. Aside from a submarine set that's unconvincing even by 1970s TV standards, this is a rare "Classic Who" story that looks good.

Malcolm Hulke's script juggles the different elements well. Though the Master is the main villain, the Sea Devils are established as a presence early, with their activities having drawn the attention of the Navy, the Doctor, and the Master all. The different threads all feed each other narratively. The Doctor sees the Sea Devils; though Capt. Hart (Edwin Richfield) is skeptical, he sends a submarine to investigate, and that submarine plays into the story in its late episodes. The Master spends much of Episode Three building a device, and the construction of a larger version becomes a key part of Episode Six. All the pieces end up fitting together.

The serial is mainly an action piece, and as such it feels less weighty to me than Season Seven's Dr. Who & the Silurians did. The design of the Sea Devils is superior to that of the Silurians; but as they are secondary villains in their own story, they just aren't as interesting on the page. The different Silurians in the earlier story had individual personalities and motivations. The Sea Devils are basically just monsters, with the Doctor's peace overtures feeling more like a token effort than like the increasingly desperate driving force of the earlier story. Unusually for a Malcolm Hulke story, the script makes theme subordinate to incident.

But it's hard to complain when so much of the incident is so entertaining. The Doctor and the Master get into a sword fight, with the Doctor getting the upper hand... and pausing mid-fight to munch on a sandwich. A Sea Devil rises from the water onto the beach where the Doctor and Jo are escaping, forcing them into a minefield. The Doctor descends in a diving bell; when the bell is brought up, he has vanished, with Jo climbing in and staring wide-eyed at the empty chamber. The overall excellent realization and sure-handed direction by Michael E. Briant helps each moment and visual to land that little bit harder.

My only real complaint is with Malcolm Clarke's music. His experimental score is deliberately intrusive. This is effective when the Doctor and Jo investigate an empty facility that has been attacked by Sea Devils, or in scenes that see the Sea Devils attacking or about to attack. In other moments, however, it's just distracting, with the shrill noises particularly detracting from the well-choreographed Doctor/Master swordfight. To the sound editors: We do not need to hear the score "bleep" at us every time their swords touch, thank you.


OVERALL:

I could wish for a bit more of a sense of personality from the Sea Devils themselves, and I don't think this story makes the impact that Dr. Who & the Silurians did. On its own terms, however, The Sea Devils is a well-made and engrossing action/adventure story. Pertwee, Manning, and Delgado are at their best, the script is efficiently structured, and it's among the best-looking stories of all of "Classic Who."

It's very much a set piece story, and I think it benefits from being watched one episode at a time over multiple sittings instead of all at once. But it's a really good set piece story, and it's probably among the serials that would be most accessible to modern viewers.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

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#8 (8.15 - 8.20): The Colony in Space.

The Doctor and Jo study the history of a
once-great, now primitive civilization.

6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 145 minutes. Written by: Malcolm Hulke. Directed by: Michael E. Briant. Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor has completed repairs on his dematerialization circuit. He installs it while showing off the TARDIS control room to Jo. Then, suddenly, the timeship takes off on its own!

They materialize on Uxarieus, a desolate world whose only indigenous life is a civilization that has devolved into a tribal, primitive state. A group of humans, fleeing overpopulation on Earth, is attempting to build a colony here. Ashe (John Ringham), their leader, reveals that they have begun running into problems: crops that fail without cause and sightings of giant lizard creatures. Many of the colonists are on the verge of giving up and going back to Earth.

That's when representatives of the Interplanetary Mining Corporation show up. Led by Captain Dent (Morris Perry), the IMC men insist they were surprised to find a colony here. Soon enough, the Doctor discovers that the colony's problems stem from sabotage by IMC, with Dent determined to drive them out so that he can strip-mine the planet.

The colonists send for an Adjudicator to resolve the dispute. But the man who arrives, for all his credentials, is an imposter. The Doctor and Jo recognize him immediately: It's the Master - and he has come to this barren world for reasons all his own!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: When he shows off the TARDIS to Jo, he preens at her amazement that "it's bigger on the inside." As soon as they take off, he realizes that the Time Lords must be controlling his ship. Even so, he's happy to step out onto a planet that isn't Earth again. He badly wants Jo to share in his delight at even this temporary escape, seeming to almost need her to feel the sense of wonder.

Jo Grant: She reacts to the TARDIS's sudden takeoff the way most people would: with fear and a desire to go back home. She trusts the Doctor, and she allows him to coax her out onto her first alien world. She seems to pass an unspoken test when she forgets her anxiety long enough to be dazzled by an alien flower - but that doesn't stop her from being appalled when the TARDIS is stolen. This nervous reaction is well written, and it helps her to remain relatable. Crucially, her fear doesn't come at the expense of her helping the colonists. She bonds with them quickly and is actively assisting with daily chores by the second episode.

The Master: This is the one Season Eight story where his appearance feels tacked on. Still, Roger Delgado's performance remains excellent, and the script feeds him a few good character beats. He's learned caution from the Doctor's previous burglary of his TARDIS, putting in an alarm and additional defensive measures. He's also entirely genuine in wanting the Doctor to join him in his scheme, and he's hurt by his rival's rejection.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Nicholas Courtney appears just long enough to justify his spot in the credits. Even that couple of minutes establishes that he's actively following up on leads regarding the Master's whereabouts. The Doctor insists that this is a waste of time, but I'm going to side with the Brig on this. It's already clear that the Master has a desire to defeat the Doctor, not just escape him, so it's reasonable to think that he'll turn up on Earth again at some point.

Capt. Dent: The story's actual main villain. Morris Perry leans hard into the character's archness, just in case you miss that he's evil... Not that you're going to, because this is a man with zero positive traits. He's utterly corrupt and obsessed with profits. His plan is to scare the colonists away, but he is unbothered when an encounter results in two deaths. He wants to cover his worst abuses legally, even holding a show trial for the colony leaders at one point. The only thing that ultimately matters, however, is that he clears them out so that he and his men can mine the planet's resources.


THOUGHTS:

The Colony in Space is the first story of the Pertwee era to break the Earthbound/UNIT format. Though I've enjoyed that format, it was time for a change of pace. The simple fact that the Doctor goes back to traveling for a story, albeit on a leash, makes for a refreshing change of pace.

This story is not generally regarded as one of the era's better ones, but I've always rather enjoyed it. The first four episodes work particularly well. The conflict between the colonists and the miners may be routine stuff, but it's deftly scripted and builds steadily, an accumulation of incidents that leads to rising violence.

There are a range of personalities on both sides. Ashe, the colony's leader, is patient to a fault and wants to find peaceful solutions using the law. His second-in-command, Winton (Nicholas Pennell), is quick to want to fight, with both Ashe and the Doctor trying to hold him back. But given how aggressive the IMC men are, Winton may just have a point regarding the need for self-defense! Meanwhile, though the miners are definitely the "baddies," mining expert Caldwell (Bernard Kay) despises the methods that Dent is willing to use - and even Dent occasionally has to check the open sadism of security man Morgan (Tony Caunter).

I find the final two episodes to be a lot weaker, and I can describe why in two words: The Master. Roger Delgado is as good as ever, but he doesn't feel like an intrinsic part of the plot. It takes more than half the serial for him to appear, and he spends all of Episode Four pretending to be an Earth official and acting in that capacity. It would not surprise me if this had been originally scripted as a Master-free serial, with his subplot tacked on.

The final episode particularly feels as if it's cutting between two unrelated narratives, one involving the colony and one involving the Master. This harms both threads: The Master story feels rushed and underdeveloped, and the ending of what had been the serial's central plot gets squeezed around the Master's latest shenanigans.


OVERALL:

The Master subplot harms the ending, but not enough to stop me from recommending the story overall. For the bulk of its running time, The Colony in Space is enjoyable bread-and-butter Who, and even the final episodes offer several good moments. Most of all, when viewing the series in order, it's a breath of fresh air to see the Doctor get away from Earth, if only for one story.

I just wish that this one time, the Master had been left out of the proceedings.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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#3 (7.12 - 7.18): The Ambassadors of Death

Who are the mysterious astronauts from Mars Probe 7?

7 episodes.  Written by: David Whitaker, Malcolm Hulke (uncredited).  Directed by: Michael Ferguson.  Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT

It has been 7 months since contact was lost with the UK's Mars Probe 7. The ship successfully lifted off from Mars and commenced its journey back to Earth, but with no radio communication of any kind during the journey. Now a recovery capsule has been sent up to verify that the astronauts are still alive and to get them home. But the capsule itself loses contact after a bizarre electronic transmission. When the capsule returns to Earth, an attempt is made to hijack it. Finally, when it is cut open at the Doctor's urging, they make the most shocking discovery of all: The capsule is empty!

General Carrington (John Abineri) eventually reveals that the astronauts, suffering from massive radiation poisoning, were taken by his men as a matter of security and to avoid panic. The Doctor doesn't believe him; and when the astronauts disappear from Carrington's facility, the Doctor insists that the three beings in their spacesuits were not human at all. They were alien ambassadors, with the human astronauts still in orbit!

With Carrington doing all he can to stop the Doctor from inquiring further, and with his assistant, Liz Shaw, kidnapped, the Doctor becomes more determined than ever to get to the truth. But when the three alien "astronauts" begin breaking into secure facilities, killing people with massive doses of radiation simply by touching them, he realizes that he has a major crisis on his hands. Is this an alien invasion? Or does someone simply want them to suspect invasion?


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Still annoyed with the Brigadier over the Silurian incident, but willing to work with him once his interest in the recovery mission is piqued. For the first time, the Time Lords' meddling with the Doctor's memories actually affects his ability to aid UNIT. As he explains to Liz in Episode One, he knows he has heard the Ambassadors' transmission before... but because his memories have been scrambled, he is unable to put the pieces together in time to prevent the Ambassadors' kidnapping. The 3rd Doctor remains unflappable. Even when taken hostage alongside Liz, he is able to accept the situation and do what he can with it - giving in to Reegan's demands to construct a machine to communicate with the Ambassadors, and at the same time turning the situation to his own advantage.

Pertwee also gets one of his best scenes to date at the end of the serial, when dealing with the defeated Carrington. He doesn't make a speech at the man, he doesn't dismiss him as an idiot, and he doesn't gloat. As Carrington insists that what he did was his "moral duty," the Doctor allows him to keep his dignity, telling the general that he understands. He doesn't forgive or exonerate - but he allows that he understands the man's motives. It's a fine scene, and one that really seems like it could only belong to this Doctor.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: A bit less prominent here than in the previous two serials, but he still gets plenty of strong material. He becomes the voice of reason when Carrington begins insisting that the alien spaceship must be made the target of an all-out attack. This effectively places him in the Doctor's position in the previous story, knowing that an attack is unnecessary at the current time, and recognizing that Carrington is going ridiculously over the line.

Liz Shaw: Considering that she spends just over half of the serial being a prisoner, she has a surprisingly strong role. Liz proves calm and capable, often seeming more in control than her captors. The iconic Liz moment comes in this serial. Reegan pushes her back into a large guard, who threatens her. Her reply? A cool, "It's all right. I won't hurt you." No wonder Reegan is impressed enough to offer her a job with his crew. I know I will dearly miss Liz once Season Seven has reached its end.

The Villains: Season Seven continues to show its excellence in characterization. There are two fine villains in this serial, both of whom work as three-dimensional characters. Carrington (John Abineri), the ex-astronaut unhinged by his experiences on Mars Probe Six, insists that all he is doing is for the best. "It is my moral duty," he insists, almost desperately as his body count rises. Seeing the Ambassadors kill his friend, albeit accidentally, has made him convinced that they are a malevolent race planning to attack, and that he must adopt the role of savior and warn Earth of the threat.

Reegan, the self-serving criminal, is the subsidiary villain, but so well-played by William Dysart that he seems more than capable of carrying a serial all on his own. He sees the Ambassadors' strengths - their impervience to bullets, their ability to kill with a touch - and realizes that they are the ultimate thieves. He frequently acts to his own agenda, disregarding or adapting "inconvenient" instructions. When he realizes he is captured, he is also the one who suggests that the Doctor and the Brigadier use the Ambassadors to stop Carrington, ending his role with a plea that they remember his usefulness.


THOUGHTS

The Ambassadors of Death is a story that has only really gained in reputation over the last decade.  For most of its life, it's been regarded as Season Seven's "clunker." I can only assume that this is down to some fan theory of every season requiring a clunker, because there is no part of this smart, well-paced sci-fi thriller that could possibly merit the word.

This is probably the most outright action-oriented of Season Seven's stories. Episode One provides a shootout in a warehouse. Episode Two showcases a large-scale hijacking sequence, now semi-notorious as a sequence milked by director Michael Ferguson for more resources than producer Barry Letts should have actually allowed. I'm glad Letts had to learn that lesson the hard way, though. Not only did the experience make him a better producer, but it also provided more scale to this particular story. A helicopter, smoke bombs, a sort-of car chase... It's surprisingly cinematic, and it helps to set up both UNIT and Carrington's forces as being capable and professional.

As was the case in Dr. Who & the Silurians, the story gets off to an excellent start and has an excellent finish, but it runs into some trouble in the middle. The entire two-episode subplot with the Doctor going into space and then back again (all in the course of a couple of hours, apparently!) shakes my suspension of disbelief. When Troughton's Doctor takes a rocket to the moon in The Seeds of Death, fair enough - the entire story's a fantasy, so the ridiculous doesn't feel out of place. But all of Season Seven strives for, and largely succeeds in delivering, a recognizably real world "feel." The first four episodes of this serial succeed in this. Then the Doctor pops off to outer space and back like he's just taken a day trip to Kent!


This recent re-watch was my first time watching the story fully in color.  Episode One was the only episode retained in its original, color form; Episode Five was restored to color for the VHS release.  The DVD recolors the entire story, and at the same time provides much sharper image quality.  I won't say it changes my opinion of the story, which was just as engaging in black-and-white, but it is nice to see this serial looking so good.


Rating: 8/10. 

Previous Story: Dr. Who & the Silurians
Next Story: Inferno


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#2 (7.5 - 7.11): Dr. Who & the Silurians

The Doctor tries to make peace between humanity
and the Silurians. Few on either side agree with him.

7 episodes.  Written by: Malcolm Hulke.  Directed by: Timothy Combe.  Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT

UNIT is called to investigate a series of power failures at an atomic research facility. The Brigadier is inclined to agree with the facility's security chief that sabotage is responsible. But high occurrences of nervous breakdowns lead the Doctor in a different direction. After he sees the most recent patient, who witnessed a friend's death in the caves beneath the station, drawing detailed paleolithic designs on the walls of his hospital room, he becomes convinced that something is in those caves.

The caves are home to the Silurians, a race of intelligent reptiles who ruled the Earth long before humanity evolved. They went into suspended animation when their scientists projected a disaster that would rip away Earth's atmosphere. Now they are beginning to awake, to find that the guttural apes have evolved into humanity and taken over their world.

The Doctor wants to find a way for the two species to peacefully co-exist. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only one even trying to make peace.  Scientist Dr. Quinn (Fulton Mackay) wants to exploit the Silurians' knowledge for his own gain, and Security Chief Baker (Norman Jones) fires a careless shot that accidentally injures one of the aliens. With an aggressive young Silurian (Peter Halliday) gaining power among his race by urging violence, and with the Brigadier ordering soldiers into the caves in force, it seems inevitable that this hostile first contact will erupt into a full-blown inter-species war!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: As good as Pertwee was in Spearhead from Space, he is even better in this serial. He brings both credibility and authority to the role, reacting to moments of high drama and intensity without indulging in ham. Note particularly his line deliveries for the Episode Five cliffhanger ("The first one") or his reaction to the serial's final scene. He nails the gravity and emotion of the situation while still remaining effectively understated.

I particularly enjoyed his interactions with the Brigadier. In the beginning, when investigating the mystery of the power outages, he shares every discovery. Once he learns of the Silurians, however, he becomes increasingly secretive. From Episode Three onward, he is pursuing his own agenda, withholding information from the Brigadier and even acting against him at one point. This is far from the "UNIT Family" of later years. The Brig and the Doctor are two intelligent, strong-willed individuals... but in the right circumstances, they are as apt to work against each other as with each other.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: He dismisses the Doctor's evidence in Episode One, noting that a mental patient drawing pictures on a wall isn't proof of anything and that torn out pages from a logbook could as easily be concealing incompetence as sabotage.  This isn't Lethbridge-Stewart being a stubborn fool. He is, instead, challenging the Doctor to do more.  "Bring me something I can't dismiss," he snaps when the Doctor protests.

He is also quite ruthless in doing whatever the situation dictates. There's a tiny, entirely nonverbal moment at the start of Episode Six. As the Silurian disease is spreading to a nearby hospital, a doctor and a nurse stand over a dead body, wondering what is happening. The Brigadier orders them to go back inside. When they hesitate, he draws his gun and holds it at the ready. His body language is such that we are in no doubt that he is fully prepared to shoot both of these civilians, if that is what's necessary to prevent them spreading the disease.

Liz Shaw: Liz represents a middle ground between the Doctor and the Brigadier. When the Brigadier takes his action at the end, the Doctor is shocked. Liz is not. She didn't have foreknowledge, but she understands what was done and why. Liz is the closest thing to an audience stand-in that we have... and she does not fully endorse either viewpoint. She understands the Brigadier's deeds; she understands the Doctor's outrage; and she neither supports nor condemns either man. It is left to the viewer to decide; and given the events of the final two episodes, I suspect more than a few contemporary viewers felt that the Brigadier was in the right, or at the very least that his actions were defensible.

Dr. Quinn: His desire for fame and credit is key to the entire series of events. Had he listened to the urgings of his assistant, Miss Dawson (Thomasine Heiner), to go to the Doctor with what he knew, then the situation would likely have turned out very different.  Instead, he jealously guards what he knows.  By the time the Doctor manages to catch up with Quinn's knowledge, it is already too late. Though this role is essentially a villainous one, actor Fulton Mackay plays against that, emphasizing Quinn's outwardly calm and friendly manner. He's so genial, it's a bit startling when that mask finally dissolves into angry paranoia in Episode Three. 


THOUGHTS

Barry Letts took over as producer with this serial. The handover from Sherwin to Letts is all but invisible, though Letts' influence is felt in the toning down of humor. If anything, bits of it may be too straight-faced. Dialogue such as, "She was found in the barn, paralyzed with fear. She may have seen something!" cannot help but provoke giggles, particularly when Pertwee delivers the line with such gravity.

Still, these moments of unintentional comedy are few in number, and they do little to interfere with a gripping and intelligent story. Malcolm Hulke's scripts, fine-tuned by script editor Terrance Dicks, are expertly structured. Like Spearhead from Space, the episodic structure is used in a very methodical way.

Episode One sets up several mysteries (the presence in the caves, the power outages, the logbook, the drawings on the wall).  We start to get answers as early as Episode Two... but at the same time, the stakes begin to rise. Baker's careless shot, which ricochets and wounds a Silurian, sets in motion the conflict that comes to dominate the rest of the serial. Episode Three effectively follows a manhunt for the wounded Silurian, and the end of that episode and the beginning of Episode Four represent the last points at which the crisis might be forestalled.

Episodes Four and Five shift focus to the Silurians themselves. The pace sags a bit here, not helped by the obvious rubber monster outfits, but this section is still vital to the story.  We see that the violence of the "ape creatures" has sparked a power struggle, with the results ratcheting the tension to the crisis point for the final episodes.

Episode Six, centered on the Silurian plague, offers the spectacle of a gradually spreading epidemic. This subplot is (perhaps too easily) resolved in Episode Seven, but there's no release granted, as the story barrels right along to its climax.  Even after the Doctor stops a potential catastrophe, there's no reassuring tag to grant viewers release. The serial ends on an uncomfortable note.  The Doctor wins, in that he stops the Silurians from wiping out and/or subjugating humanity. But in his other goal - peace between the Silurians and the humans - he fails utterly.

I'd be remiss in not mentioning how expertly the story plays with the Silurians' reveal. In Episode One, Dr. Quinn and Miss Dawson discuss a mysterious "them," but the aliens are not shown at all. Episodes Two and Three allow us glimpses of them, but only in shadows or silhouetted by the sun.  The rest of the time, their scenes involve point-of-view shots, with the viewer only allowed to see the reptilian arms.  It is only at the cliffhanger to the third episode - the point at which the narrative thrust changes from investigating a mystery to dealing with the fact of the Silurians - that we actually see one of the creatures clearly.

It is a wonderful build-up, and it makes the Silurians real.  By the time we actually see one, the obvious rubber suit barely matters. The world in which the serial exists has become believable, making it easier to accept the Silurians. One of the triumphs of Season Seven in general, and this serial in particular: By presenting each setting, and the characters populating it, with such a strong sense of authenticity, the monsters and aliens become more real, and thus far more interesting (and unsettling).


Rating: 10/10. Despite a slight sag in the middle, this remains one of the series' all-time greats.

Previous Story: Spearhead from Space
Next Story: The Ambassadors of Death


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