‘COLONY IN SPACE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

IMC and the Master with the Third Doctor and Jo

It’s time for the most unique story in Season 8 of ‘Doctor Who’. I say ‘unique’ because Jo Grant gets to have her first trip in the TARDIS with Jon Pertwee’s Doctor! That’s right! After many stories being stuck on Earth, the Third Doctor actually gets to go into outer space and visit a planet for a change. 🙂

‘Colony In Space’ is a thrilling, action-packed ‘Doctor Who’ adventure starring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. It’s also one of the most underrated ‘Doctor Who’ stories ever made since I don’t hear it talked about that much and a lot of its messages are very significant today.

I immensely enjoyed watching ‘Colony In Space’ when I first saw the story on DVD in 2011 and I enjoyed it even more when I revisited it recently on Blu-ray in 2021. It’s also amazing this happens to be ‘not’ a U.N.I.T. story since it has the Doctor travelling in the TARDIS again after such a long exile. 🙂

At least I believe that’s the case in the TV series. I’ve not come across stories in other media such as books, audios and comics where he’s been off Earth and been to other worlds. I’m not counting ‘Inferno’ as that was a parallel Earth he visited, even though he travelled there via TARDIS console. 😐

This happens to be a six-part adventure by THE INCREDIBLE MALCOLM HULKE!!! 😀 Malcolm Hulke previously co-wrote ‘The Faceless Ones’ with David Ellis and ‘The War Games’ with Terrance Dicks before he wrote ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ and done rewrites for ‘The Ambassador of Death’. 🙂

Malcolm Hulke would later write more TV adventures featuring the Third Doctor in the early 1970s as well as novelize many ‘Doctor Who’ stories for the Target book range. Did you know he pitched two unproduced TV stories for the First Doctor era called ‘Britain 408 AD’ and ‘The Hidden Planet’? 🙂

The story that Malcolm Hulke writes here in ‘Colony In Space’ is about a human colony on an alien planet called Uxarieus that becomes threatened by a group of miners who are part of the Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IMC). The Master visits the planet to find a ‘doomsday weapon’.

The Doctor and Jo get to go to Uxarieus as the Time Lords temporarily lift the Doctor’s exile to send him on a mission to stop the Master getting his hands on the ‘doomsday weapon’. The Doctor and Jo uncover this when the Master poses as an adjudicator between the human colony and the miners. 😐

At the time this story was made, the production team of producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks were trying to find new ways of getting the Doctor off the ground and have adventures in space and time again. This was while he was being exiled to Earth by the Time Lords. 🙂

This was also before ‘The Three Doctors’ allowed the Doctor’s exile on Earth to be lifted permanently by the Time Lords. ‘Colony In Space’ is where it starts for the Doctor to have adventures away from the planet Earth. The next couple of stories to do that are ‘The Curse of Peladon’ and ‘The Mutants’.

Like I said, the Time Lords use the Doctor as their agent on a special mission to recover secrets file of a deadly ‘doomsday weapon’ that were stolen by the Master. The Doctor is given limited freedom to travel away from Earth and visit the planet Uxarieus. The Time Lords are quite a crafty bunch in this.

The year that ‘Colony In Space’ is set in for the human colonists is 2472. So that means we’re in the 25th century. Gosh, captains of ‘Star Trek’! What have you done?! This isn’t the idealistic future I was hoping for. A lot of people in the 25th century use ‘dated’ technology from the 1970s in this story! 😀

The colonists struggle as they dwell on Uxarieus, which doesn’t look ideal. Maybe if they went to a more exotic planet that had a Tenerife sort-of style as director Michael E. Briant originally envisaged instead of looking like a bogged-down Welsh/English quarry, the colonists could’ve had more luck. 😀

It’s also fascinating how Malcolm Hulke depicts the colonists as people you would have more sympathy for when the IMC miners are being ruthless in wanting to get rid of them off Uxarieus. Sometimes though, some of the colonists do not do themselves any favours here with being violent.

Malcolm Hulke delivers an intriguing tale about the human colony struggling to survive on this desert world that won’t grow any crops. It isn’t long before they’re bullied by the IMC who want to collect a certain mineral called duralinium that apparently will be essential for the Earth’s survival. 😐

There is a lot of politics going on in this story as humanity’s greed sets about the conflict between the two groups of humans – the colonists and the miners. There’s also an intriguing alien civilisation that dwells on the planet that seems primitive but it was once an ancient and well-advanced society.

And yes, this story happens to be directed by Michael E. Briant, who makes his first directorial debut to the ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. I’ve met Michael Briant in real-life at the ‘Pandorica 2015’ convention in Bristol, September 2015. He’s clearly an enthusiastic guy when making ‘Doctor Who’ productions.

Beforehand, Michael E. Briant contributed as an assistant floor manager on ‘The Crusade’ and a production assistant on ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, ‘The Power of the Daleks’ and ‘Fury From The Deep’. So he clearly had some experience on making the show before becoming a full-time director.

I’m amazed with how he managed to make ‘Colony In Space’ with it being mostly filmed in a wet, muddy china clay quarry during the February months of 1971, I believe. The action sequences are also really good when watching the story on screen. It does feel like two action-packed feature films.

Again, like I said before, this story happens to be the first time that Jo Grant, the Doctor’s companion/assistant at U.N.I.T. gets to travel in the TARDIS. It’s amazing how four TV stories into Season 8 of ‘Doctor Who’; it has taken this long for Jo to travel in the TARDIS. Liz Shaw wasn’t so lucky.

Jo made her debut in ‘Terror of the Autons’ and in all the time that she’s been getting to know the Doctor, she didn’t know or believe that he had a machine that could travel in space and time. She thought it was all fairy stories. Quite peculiar considering all the strange things she has seen so far. 😐

She gets more than she bargained for when having her first TARDIS trip. I like how Katy Manning plays that amazement and tentativeness since she’s not exactly a willing TARDIS traveller as the Doctor would expect. She’s quite scared by visiting a new alien planet and wants to go back to Earth.

Katy Manning is wonderful as Jo. I like how instantly amazed she is as well as being scared when seeing the TARDIS being ‘bigger on the inside’ for the first time. Incidentally, the dialogue between Jo and the Doctor and how he explains to her how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside sounds familiar.

Jo: I don’t believe it! It’s bigger inside than out!
Doctor: Yes. That’s because the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental.
Jo: What does that mean?
Doctor: It means that it’s bigger inside than out.

Hmm, I’m sure I’ve heard that dialogue somewhere else in a future ‘Doctor Who’ story I really love.

Nyssa: But why is it so much bigger inside than it is outside?
Adric: Oh, the Doctor told me that was because it was dimensionally transcendental.
Nyssa: What does that mean?
Adric: It means it’s bigger inside than outside.

As indicated, all this space and time stuff is unsettling for Jo, but she gets to enjoy the adventure when the Doctor’s infectious love for seeing the universe gets to her. I’m sure that happens to the best in all of us when the Doctor invites one or two of his/her companions to travel with him/her. 😀

I like the relationship shared between Jo and the Doctor in this adventure. They clearly got on well with each other in the U.N.I.T. stories, but away from U.N.I.T., they work well together in discovering what’s going on with the conflict between the colonists and the IMC; and what the Master is up to. 🙂

Jo clearly shows compassion in this adventure, especially when the colonists are being threatened and she becomes worried about the Doctor whenever he goes missing or is captured by the Master. Jo and the Doctor discover the primitives’ city when they have been brought there against their will.

Jon Pertwee is also equally good as the Third Doctor in this adventure. It’s interesting that this happens to be the first time that Jon’s Doctor gets the chance to go off-world as well as Jo. For the most part in his era so far, he has been mostly confined to having adventures on the planet Earth. 😐

I like how Jon’s Doctor embraces the chance to explore a new planet and being involved with what’s going on with the colonists’ tough situation before and once the IMC miners cause trouble. It’s something that hasn’t been seen in the Third Doctor era by this stage. Thank goodness that it’s here.

The Doctor is clearly on the side of the colonists as opposed to the IMC people where most of them are greedy and being bullies to the colonists. The gallant Time Lord works things out as he discovers the IMC people have been trying to scare the colonists off the planet Uxarieus with ‘crude’ methods.

As the story progresses, the Doctor becomes fascinated by the ancient alien civilisation he and Jo visit and later he and the Master visit. The Doctor shows off his Venusian aikido when tackling IMC guards and the Master. He defies the Master and he refuses to join him in his universal conquests. 🙂

Roger Delgado returns as the villainous Master in this adventure. It’s quite amazing how the Master keeps popping up in every story throughout Season 8. Although the Master doesn’t actually appear in ‘Colony In Space’ until halfway. Yeah! ‘Episode Four’ is where the Master is revealed as the villain.

And when he’s finally revealed, he happens to be an adjudicator sent from Earth to deal with the colony/IMC crisis. Not sure how he got to be an Earth adjudicator of the 25th century, but then quite a bit of time has passed since he and the Doctor last met. The Master can also be very manipulative.

He would later become the commissioner of Sirius IV in ‘Frontier In Space’. The Master is surprised to see the Doctor and Jo as much as they’re surprised to see him. As mentioned, the Master’s come to Uxarieus to acquire the ‘doomsday weapon’ which is held by the alien civilisation on the planet. 😐

Roger Delgado is spellbinding in his performance as the Master in this adventure. I enjoyed his scenes when interacting with Jon Pertwee’s Doctor. It becomes tense when he’s threatening Jo’s life and when he asks the Doctor to join him on his conquest to rule the cosmos. It’s really gripping stuff!

John Ringham guest stars as John Robert Ashe, the leader of the human colony on Uxarieus. John Ringham has had his fair share of ‘Doctor Who’ stories before doing ‘Colony In Space’. He was Tlotoxl in ‘The Aztecs’ and Josiah Blake in ‘The Smugglers’. He’s also been in ‘Dad’s Army’ on TV and radio. 🙂

In ‘Colony In Space’, Ashe tries to keep his people together when things are at their most stressful. He tries to keep the peace between the colonists and the IMC and gets frustrated when some of his people led by Winton become violent. It’s a shame that Ashe dies in an explosion at the story’s end.

Nicholas Pennell guest stars as Winton, a colonist who questions Ashe’s leadership. He looks for a fight when the IMC guys try to get rid of them off Uxarieus. Winton often forms attack plans to get the IMC off the planet too, but he’s foolish in his methods. Ashe disapproves of Winston’s methods.

It was amusing to see Winston have a fight with an IMC guard (played by stuntman Terry Walsh) in the muddy china clay quarry. I can imagine how cold that mud must have been when Nicholas Pennell and Terry Walsh as their characters fought each other. I don’t fancy being in all of that muck.

The story also features…Helen Worth as Mary Ashe, John Ashe’s daughter! WOW!!! Helen Worth did ‘Doctor Who’ before playing Gail Platt in ‘Coronation Street’. It’s amazing to see Helen in one of her earlier roles in TV before she became well-known playing Gail in ‘Corrie’. It was nice to see her here.

She does look very young in this adventure compared to how I’ve seen her lately in ‘Corrie’. 😀 Mary is a lovely character and I liked it when she made friends with Jo early on in the story. I wish though that Mary had a bigger part to play in the tale, though her pleading with Caldwell for help was good.

Incidentally, just to go off on an tangent, I envisaged Jack P. Shepherd who plays David Platt in ‘Corrie’ to play Sean Black in my Fifth Doctor story ‘Dawn of the Dwaxi’. And the IMC guards happen to dress up in red and black uniforms and wear helmets similar to what the Dwaxi wear in my story!

I wonder if ‘Colony In Space’ could be a prequel to the Dwaxi stories I’ve written in my Fifth Doctor stories. Mary Ashe could be Sean Black’s ancestor or something. It’d make sense if I wanted to make the connection between Helen Worth and Jack P. Shepherd appearing in my ‘Doctor Who’ stories. 😀

The IMC guys are pretty militaristic and bullish when they try to get rid of the colonists off Uxarieus. As well as miners, they also wear jackboots; helmets; have threatening firearms and there are some tense gun fights between them and the miners. Again, the IMC guys could definitely be pre-Dwaxi!!!

Morris Perry guest stars as Captain Dent of the IMC. After doing ‘Colony In Space’, Morris Perry would work with director Michael E. Briant again in the BBC TV classic serial ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ in 1980. In ‘Colony In Space’, Captain Dent is a very cold-hearted and ruthless man in charge of the IMC.

Dent makes out he’s in charge of a survey team that have come to Uxarieus mine the mineral duralinium. He doesn’t care about the colonists and wants them off Uxarieus by any means necessary for his company can get its profits. Amazing how Morris Perry mostly plays Dent with no smile! 😀

Bernard Kay guest stars as Caldwell, an IMC mining expert who’s against Captain Dent’s cold-hearted methods. Like John Ringham, Bernard Kay has had his fair share of ‘Doctor Who’ credits. He was in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, ‘The Crusade’ and ‘The Faceless Ones’ before he did ‘Colony In Space’.

Caldwell is clearly a good-hearted man who’s out to do his job on the planet Uxarieus. He doesn’t like it when IMC people like Captain Dent and Morgan are doing things to mistreat the colonists. Very often, Caldwell reluctantly helps the colonists as well as the Doctor and Jo against the IMC here.

The story also features Tony Caunter as the ruthless, sadistic Morgan who’s willing to kill anyone under Captain Dent’s orders. It’s interesting that Michael E. Briant originally envisaged casting a woman to play the part of Morgan. Susan Jameson was originally cast to play Morgan in the TV tale.

Sadly that didn’t happen as the BBC’s Head of Drama Serials, Ronnie Marsh, disapproved of the idea of a woman playing a sadistic character in Morgan. I think it would have been interesting if a woman played the part. Tony Caunter would later return to ‘Doctor Who’ to play Jackson in ‘Enlightenment’.

And there’s Roy Skelton who plays Norton, a presumed colonist that’s actually an IMC agent working undercover as a spy for Captain Dent. Roy Skelton is well-known for voicing the Daleks in a number of classic ‘Doctor Who’ stories. He also voiced Zippy and George in the children’s series ‘Rainbow’. 🙂

It was difficult to distinguish Roy Skelton’s voice when playing Norton since he doesn’t sound like Zippy, George or any Daleks at all. 😀 It was tense when Norton was sabotaging a lot of the colony’s efforts to survive. The Doctor suspects and warns Ashe to be pretty wary of Norton’s movements. 😐

The story does feature a number of IMC service robots that appear rather dodgy. I liked it when Anjli Mohindra and Sacha Dhawan in the ‘Behind the Sofa’ Blu-ray item for this story described them as a ‘digger Daleks’. They are operated by John Scott Martin who often did the Daleks in ‘Doctor Who’. 😀

The primitives’ make-up and costumes are also rather dodgy when looking at them, especially when the actors are wearing skin-tight costumes. There are the green bipedal primitives that capture the Doctor and Jo; the blind, dwarf-like priests; and the babyish troll-like Guardian that can actually talk.

I did like those buggy cars that the IMC miners drove in when on the planet Uxarieus. The assistant floor manager Graeme Harper (who would later become a ‘Doctor Who’ director) did well finding those vehicles. I’m sure Jon Pertwee’s Doctor enjoyed driving one of those vehicles during the story.

Nicholas Courtney also makes a small appearance playing Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the story. The Brigadier appears in the first episode of the story as well as the last episode of the story. This is when he sees the Doctor and Jo going off in the TARDIS and come back to Earth a few minutes later.

The Brigadier is unaware that the Doctor and Jo have had an adventure in time and space as it seems to be no time at all since he last saw him. The Doctor and Jo keep that to themselves once they return to Earth. I found that very amusing to watch here, especially towards the story’s conclusion. 🙂

Incidentally, it was strange to see the TARDIS dematerialise and appear like that with no fading in and out like it usually does. It was a mistake on director Michael E. Briant’s part. I would’ve thought they would rectify that with some CGI optional effects as it came to the story re-released on Blu-ray.

The original DVD special features were as follows. There was the ‘IMC Needs You!’ making-of documentary featuring behind-the-scenes cast and crew interviews. There was ‘From the Cutting Room Floor’ film trim highlights and a photo gallery of the story. There were audio options including a mono sound audio mix option for the story and a DVD audio commentary with Katy Manning, Bernard Kay, Morris Perry, director Michael E. Briant, script editor Terrance Dicks and assistant floor manager Graeme Harper, moderated by Toby Hadoke. There was also an info-text commentary option to enjoy and PDF materials including a ‘Radio Times Listings’ of the story. There was also a ‘coming soon’ trailer for ‘The U.N.I.T. Files’ DVD box set, which included ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’, starring Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen as well as ‘The Android Invasion’, starring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen.

On Disc 4 of the ‘Doctor Who – The Collection – Season 8’ Blu-ray, the ‘IMC Needs You!’ making-of documentary; the mono sound audio mix option for the story, the DVD audio commentary and the ‘Radio Times Listings’ PDF can be found on there. The photo gallery and the info-text commentary option for ‘Colony In Space’ have been updated for 2021 on the Blu-ray.

The new special features on Blu-ray include the ‘Behind the Sofa’ feature on ‘Colony In Space’ with Katy Manning (Jo Grant) and Stewart Bevan (Clifford Jones) as well as Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) and Janet Fielding (Tegan) as well as Anjli Mohindra (Queen Skithra from ‘Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror’ and Rani Chandra in ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’) and Sacha Dhawan (The Master). There are BBC trailers and continuity announcements for the story and a ‘coming soon’ trailer for ‘The Dæmons’, starring Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney, Roger Delgado, Richard Franklin and John Levene (taken from ‘The Face of Evil’ DVD).

On the PDF front, as well as the ‘Radio Times Listings’ of the story, there are production documents and scripts for the story. You need a special Blu-ray computer drive for that.

On Disc 5 of the ‘Doctor Who – The Collection – Season 8’ Blu-ray, the ‘From the Cutting Room Floor’ film trim highlights can be found on there.

The new special features on Blu-ray include the 2011 restoration of ‘Colony In Space’. There’s also an early edit of ‘Episode Two’, location film trims and special effects film trims.

‘Colony in Space’ is definitely a bona fide and underrated ‘Doctor Who’ adventure from the early 1970s. I’ve greatly enjoyed watching it both on DVD in 2011 and recently on Blu-ray in 2021. It’s certainly a story that shouldn’t be dismissed since it has some profound messages relevant for today

Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning are excellent as the Third Doctor and Jo throughout this adventure; and Roger Delgado delivers a superb villainous performance as the Master. I was also thrilled to see a young Helen Worth/Gail Platt in this adventure! 😀 What will happen next for the Doctor and Jo? 😐

‘Colony in Space’ rating – 8/10

---

The previous story For the Third Doctor was ‘The Legacy of Time’ (Audio) For Jo was ‘The Mega’ (Audio) For the Brigadier was ‘The Legacy of Time’ (Audio) For the Master was ‘The Claws of Axos’ (Audio)	The next story For ‘The Third Doctor’ is ‘The Tip of the Mind’ (ST) For Jo is ‘Prisoners of Time’ (Comic) For the Brigadier is ‘The Dæmons’ (TV) For the Master is ‘The Dæmons’ (TV)
Return to The Third Doctor’s Timeline
Return to Jo’s Timeline
Return to The Brigadier’s Timeline
Return to The Master’s Timeline
Return to The Doctors’ Timelines Index
Return to The Companions’ Timelines Index
Return to The Monsters’ Timelines Index
Return to Doctor Who Timelines
Return to Doctor Who
Return to Sci-Fi