“Frontier in Space” is an adventure of the tenth season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1973. It follows “Carnival of Monsters” and it’s a six parts adventure written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Paul Bernard.

The story

The Tardis materializes in a starship and the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) states that they arrived in the twentysixth century. There’s no time for exploration because the spaceship is attacked but a member of the crew who discovers him and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) thinks them to be Draconians, like their attackers. Suddenly, everyone sees the other in different ways.

According to the Doctor, someone’s using a hypnotic sound to cause hallucinations but he’s immune and sees that actually the ship was attacked by Ogrons. When he discovers that the Draconian Empire accuses humans of attacking their starships, he suspects that someone wants to provoke a war between the two powers but he must first defend himself from the accusation of being a Draconian spy.

Extras

This DVD is rich in extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, Radio Times Listings, a trailer about the next “Doctor Who” DVDs to be released and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.

There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonist Katy Manning, producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks moderated by Clayton Hickman.

Perfect Scenario: Lost Frontier. In the XXVI century, there’s no more oxygen on Earth and humans must live in a kind of stasis locked up in special pads. Some of them look back and discover how in the XX century the series “Doctor Who” looked at the future. It’s a curious way to see the different possible futures in a pseudo-documentary.

The Space War. Cast and crew members remember the production of this adventure.

Roger Delgado: The Master. The life and career of actor Roger Delgado. A tribute to the original Master.

Stripped for Action: The Third Doctor. The Third Doctor’s comics.

There are also in PDF format drawings of the designs for the sets and the official BBC notes about this adventure.

On the occasion of the tenth “Doctor Who” anniversary producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks wanted to create an adventure at least as long as the epic “The Daleks’ Master Plan”, consisting of twelve parts. However, the production would’ve been complex and there were concerns about the audience reactions to such a long adventure so eventually it was decided to produce two connected adventures six parts each.

“Frontier in Space” is the first of those adventures. The author Malcolm Hulke was strongly inspired to the political situation of the time imagining a future Cold War between the humans and Draconians. Between these two powers there’s a fragile peace achieved after a war started because a first contact went wrong. Today’s science fiction fans can notice the similarities of the incident that triggers the Earth / Minbari war in the series “Babylon 5”.

The conflict between humans and Draconians isn’t the usual kind with humans being the good ones and aliens being the villains, in fact the situation on Earth and its colonies is ambiguous to say the least. In theory, there’s a democracy and the President was elected by the people. In reality, General Williams can threaten the President to heve her deposed to put pressure on her to start a new war against Draconia.

It’s not clear who holds real power on Earth but certainly armed forces are a part of it. Opponents, however, can be sent to the Moon penal colony for the rest of their lives even if they’re peaceful.

The Draconians are interesting aliens though they were created using the clichés of warrior people inspired by the Japan of the samurai era. “Frontier in Space” would’ve been better if more time had been dedicated to showing something more about their planet and their society.

The Draconian also appeared in Big Finish audio adventure “Paper Cuts” – available on Amazon UK , Amazon Canada and Amazon U.S.A. – featuring the Sixth Doctor.

It’s interesting that the Doctor can be heard with greater openness by the Draconians than by humans. Of course, when he presents himself in front of the emperor of Draconia he tells him he visited the planet in the past and he was elevated to Draconian noble by the emperor of the time for his services. This makes things easier for the Doctor but the contrast with the closed minds of the Earth’s authorities shows the climate of paranoia that exists among humans.

The Master tries to take advantage of this situation and he’s another of the highlights of “Frontier in Space” more for his humour than for his clash with the Doctor. This is the last appearance of the actor Roger Delgado, who unfortunately died in a car accident a few months later.

There was the idea of producing another adventure where the Doctor and the Master would’ve been forced to work together and their relationship would be revealed. There was even the idea to reveal that they were brothers but it had to be abandoned so we’ll never know how the series would’ve been affected.

“Frontier in Space” has several interesting elements, unfortunately not enough to fill six episodes. The consequence is that the Doctor and Jo spend most of this adventure closed in some prison. In the classic “Doctor Who” series it often happened that the Doctor and his companions got in trouble with the local authorities and were locked up. It was a way to make the adventures longer when there was a need but in this case the padding is really exaggerated.

The various elements of “Frontier in Space” would work better if compressed into four episodes but the need was to produce six and the padding tends to break the plot. The fact that this adventure has no real ending but ends with a cliffhanger that starts the next adventure makes the situation worse.

I think the overall result is still good, however I also understand the people who remain dissatisfied seeing the elements of the story a little fragmented amid the many moments when the Doctor and Jo are closed in some prison.

This DVD is part of the “Dalek War” box set – available on Amazon UK , Amazon Canada and Amazon U.S.A. – so a global judgement of that box set must necessarily be given only at the end of the reviews of the adventures it contains.