The Third Doctor and Jo are caught in the escalating tension between planets Earth and Draconia and discover that the Master and the Daleks are secretly working to provoke the two into all-out war.
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I love this one! Every episode felt like its own silly little adventure. 10/10
Love this story. A proper sci-fi adventure, a great performance from delgado in his last appearance as the master, and i love the draconian design (4/5)
Great designs, great overarching story, and a fitting sendoff for Delgado’s Master (though unintended to be so). In terms of pacing, this story does suffer a fair bit, but when things are actually happening this story really works.
one of if not my favorite story from one of my favorite classic doctors.
I like this episode a lot. The Draconians are really neat, they remind me a bit of the Ice Warriors, and it was a shame they never return in the tv series. The Master using fear to provide war between humans and Draconians for the Daleks was interesting and a bittersweet ending for Delgado’s Master. Jo was fantastic as always and some of my favorite moments were in this serial between the Doctor and the Master (like the whole time The Doctor and Jo were prisoners of the Master).
A story that I do enjoy a lot nore than a critical analysis suggests I should, even if that is still just a 3.5/5. But its buggest failing is that rhe story doesn’t end and instead hard pivots into the next one without resolving anything.
Haven’t done this for awhile, but full review here as its pretty clear:
I remember very little of this story except that, when I first watched it, I really enjoyed the last few bits and wished I’d paid more attention to the beginning. Felt like I’d really missed out on appreciating something potentially great. So definitely one of my most anticipated to return to. Here goes…
Part One
Yeah, this is interesting enough. I think the writing and the acting so far are maybe a little lacking, but there are enough intriguing concepts at play to make up for that, if things continue to build well.
I also gave this story a 3.5/5, and have the same major complaint. With a proper ending, I would’ve given it a 4/5 (though this isn’t Hulke’s fault).
What’s worse than the “hard pivot” as you put it, is that it isn’t immediately apparent on first watch that that’s even what’s happened. Sure, it’s pretty quickly disjointed in Planet of the Daleks, but eventually you realize, “oh, we aren’t actually concluding the story from Frontier in Space, we’re just moving on…” I’ve been told on here before that this opinion is completely wrong, but Frontier in Space ultimately suffers from the direction Nation takes Planet of the Daleks (I don’t know this was even Nation’s fault either, I’m not sure what the full story behind [what I consider to be] this production problem is).
I think most fans love the Draconians and wish they’d come back in modern Who.
While you’re correct about general opinion, Ive always thought that they were a very successful design (possibly the best huminoid of the classic era), but never understood their apeal beyond that. Even as a cool design its really just hitting the baseline I would expect from most sci fi telivision since the 80s and movies since at least the 70s.
They’re a pretty basic/surface level honor bound scociety, but without the neuance, depth, or political intrigue something like The Klingons have only gotten more and more of since mid TNG
I feel like one of the more obvious production issues would be that Roger Delgado died in a car crash a few months after Frontier in Space was filmed. (One of Doctor Who’s bigger tragedy’s, really…) Any proper followup to Frontier really ought to have the Master in it.
Delgado died June 18, 1973. The Planet of the Daleks was filmed into February of 1973, and aired into the middle of May of the same year. Delgado’s death couldn’t have had an impact on the direction they took Planet of the Daleks?
Frontier didn’t need a followup, it needed to actually be concluded before we went to the next story. Its fine if Frontier still lead into Planet of the Daleks, but I think it would have been so easy to just not leave multiple main charicters in active danger and the galaxy on the brink of war before abandoning the story. Some minor tweaks and The Doctor could avert that threat while still leaving the Daleks powerfull enough for some kind of “plan B” offensive that needs to be thwarted in the existing Planet of the Daleks.
Part Two
Verdict after Part Two - I’m really enjoying this but I’m almost surprised I am. The space politics of the Third Doctor’s era doesn’t often do it for me. And in this episode in particular, nothing really happens. But I still had quite a good time? Ridiculous as it is to use it as an alien base without any attempt to disguise it, it’s still fun to see the gang running about the Southbank.