Frontios is located towards the end of the Fifth Doctor's run and therefore at a point when a large number of people, primarily Peter Davison, had stopped giving a shit. That doesn't mean the stories were necessarily bad - late Davison era of course produced The Caves of Androzani but it increasingly meant that the overall quality of the series was beginning to noticeably dip which would culminate in the problems that were just ahead in the road.
This isn't a knock on Frontios per se - it's a perfectly serviceable story and very far from the worst in the season. But there are a lot of very noticeable problems with the story that probably could have been fixed fairly easily - some muddled character motivations, a lot of meaningless technobabble and the feeling that the excellent overall tone of the story is squandered on bug eyed monsters. Again - it's far from bad, but a lot of it feels like it was a bit of a missed opportunity to make something great.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We get the first indication there might be a problem or two ahead in the opening titles.
Bidmead, in case you are unaware, was Doctor Who's script editor in Season 18. He left the show at the end of the series but returned pretty much immediately to write Castrovalva. Aside from that, this story is his only post-Season 18 work for the TV series, although he has since written for Big Finish.
You may also know that his stories have a bit of a reputation for being, if one was to be charitable, overly complex, science based stories which rely more heavily on the concepts involved and the technobabble to explain them than those pesky things like story and character. We saw when we looked at Castrovalva how that ended up being a problem and hampered a good idea.
I'm of two minds on Bidmead. There's no doubt he is a smart man and the scientific concepts he puts into his stories are fascinating and he usually makes sure they're put to good effect. Not every story has to be a high concept one, but that doesn't mean that high concept stories are necessarily a bad thing themselves. On the other hand, the character work in his stories tends to be hit or miss, it can be very easy to get lost in the plots and his dialogue leaves rather a lot to be desired - the title of this post is just one example from this story.
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| "How come we live on a settlement struck by poverty and misfortune, but we still have perfectly tailored and washed clothes" |
Frontios is set on a human colony in the distant future after the destruction of Earth (it is implied at the beginning of the story they are similar to the colonists from The Ark). Their colony is being ravaged by meteorites and their society is a miserable one to live in. They lack basic amenities, but things are even worse - people are disappearing into the ground. This is compounded by the Doctor's inability to interfere - this is an important period in human history and the Doctor is aware that he cannot interfere with the natural development of history.
This is a great set-up and the story almost, but not quite, delivers on it. Aside from a few dodgy effects here and there, the colony itself looks pretty good and delivers visually the meaning of its problems. The atmosphere built up in the first two episodes is a good one and the characters do just about work - there are the usual ranting madmen blaming the Doctor for it, but in a subversion of the usual fare, both of these characters end up eventually seeing sense. They're not portrayed as usual stock villains, but as desperate people hoping to blame anyone and anything for their desperate plight and have no intention of antagonising the Doctor if he really can help them.
But it doesn't quite manage it. The dialogue is piss poor at times: again, not a Bidmead strength and there are some points where it works as well, but... yeah it can get pretty terrible. The first episode has a completely pointless scene of Turlough, Tegan and Female Supporting Character going off to the abandoned ship to steal some MacGuffin which detracts from the tension and atmosphere of the actual story. The TARDIS gets destroyed in a ballsy cliffhanger at the end of Part One... followed by it barely being referenced again until the end when it magically reassembles thanks to plot convenience. Waste of an opportunity. Also, the entirely subplot of Turlough having seen the Tractators on his home planet (something that had, of course, never been referenced before and will never be referenced again) only exists to sideline him for half the story with PTSD and then given an excuse to exposition dump the info the audience needs about the Tractators. Additionally, despite the strength of many of the concepts involved, a lot is just mentioned in the dialogue rather than being properly established: that the Tractators rely on the Gravis to function is established in two sentences for instance.
But it doesn't quite manage it. The dialogue is piss poor at times: again, not a Bidmead strength and there are some points where it works as well, but... yeah it can get pretty terrible. The first episode has a completely pointless scene of Turlough, Tegan and Female Supporting Character going off to the abandoned ship to steal some MacGuffin which detracts from the tension and atmosphere of the actual story. The TARDIS gets destroyed in a ballsy cliffhanger at the end of Part One... followed by it barely being referenced again until the end when it magically reassembles thanks to plot convenience. Waste of an opportunity. Also, the entirely subplot of Turlough having seen the Tractators on his home planet (something that had, of course, never been referenced before and will never be referenced again) only exists to sideline him for half the story with PTSD and then given an excuse to exposition dump the info the audience needs about the Tractators. Additionally, despite the strength of many of the concepts involved, a lot is just mentioned in the dialogue rather than being properly established: that the Tractators rely on the Gravis to function is established in two sentences for instance.
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| GET TRACTATORED |
Oh, yeah. The Tractators.
I'm not sure introducing a bug-eyed monster into this story was the right move. Up until their introduction, the story's tense atmosphere and themes of paranoia and desperation had worked well with the inherent mystery. But then it turns out the mystery is evil bugs from beneath the surface, that can control gravity with their minds, stealing people to drive their mining machine.
The central concept behind the Tractators is a good one (a single hive mind controlling the species, wanting to hollow out a planet and turn it into a spaceship), but giving the faceless terror a rather clear (and not especially convincing) face removes the tension and suspense and replaces it with... well I'm not really sure what.
I'm not sure introducing a bug-eyed monster into this story was the right move. Up until their introduction, the story's tense atmosphere and themes of paranoia and desperation had worked well with the inherent mystery. But then it turns out the mystery is evil bugs from beneath the surface, that can control gravity with their minds, stealing people to drive their mining machine.
The central concept behind the Tractators is a good one (a single hive mind controlling the species, wanting to hollow out a planet and turn it into a spaceship), but giving the faceless terror a rather clear (and not especially convincing) face removes the tension and suspense and replaces it with... well I'm not really sure what.
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| Know how you feel mate |
It's not that it's necessarily bad - it's just a bit of a distraction to go from a genuinely good scene on the surface of the colony where the humans discuss the threat to them, whether they should believe it and how they should respond and then go back to the bug monsters using their gravity powers to drag Peter Davison and Janet Fielding across a BBC Cave Set.
On a positive note again, Bidmead puts in some good character work between the Doctor and Tegan, showing how far their relationship has come in the time she had been in the series, and perhaps faintly foreshadowing her departure in the next story. It also adds a nice bit of humour that prevents the Tractator stuff from becoming quite as tedious as it should have been.
While there aren't too many pointless subplots (for a change), there is one involving the colony's outcasts that contributes nothing and goes nowhere, apart from demonstrating that the colony is dysfunctional and falling apart... which is a point we had got. By, you know, actually looking at the story, never mind following the plot.
On a positive note again, Bidmead puts in some good character work between the Doctor and Tegan, showing how far their relationship has come in the time she had been in the series, and perhaps faintly foreshadowing her departure in the next story. It also adds a nice bit of humour that prevents the Tractator stuff from becoming quite as tedious as it should have been.
While there aren't too many pointless subplots (for a change), there is one involving the colony's outcasts that contributes nothing and goes nowhere, apart from demonstrating that the colony is dysfunctional and falling apart... which is a point we had got. By, you know, actually looking at the story, never mind following the plot.
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| Frontios was in such a bad shape that it couldn't even afford a proper matte painting |
Also, I know I'm sounding a bit like a broken record over this, but if you watch Classic Who for the special effects then you're an idiot. But, the ones in this story are below average. The production design of the colony itself isn't bad, but as you can see above the wider special effects are a bit crap, and the Tractators look really fake.
Finally, there's a really weird theme in the first two episodes surrounding the TARDIS Hat Stand that leads nowhere and has nothing to do with anything. It's confusing, can someone more versed in Bidmeadology help me out there?
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| Ryūjin no ken wo kurae! (but with a hatstand) |
To sum, Frontios is fine. It has a lot of problems: an uneven tone, the Tractators aren't implemented properly, some of the plot threads go nowhere and it ends up being annoyingly loosely plotted. But the overall themes work well, the atmosphere is good and the central plot surrounding the colony is a strong one which has some good characters to work with. It's very far from a perfect story, and it can be frustrating in how many opportunities are missed, but it does work. Just.
Final Score: 6/10. Good atmosphere, strong central concepts and decent character work is hampered by the poor plotting, dialogue and effects and the failure of the Tractators to properly mesh with the rest of the story, but what is good stands out meaning that, at the end of the day, this is a slightly above average story.
Next Episode: Full Circle
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