Colony in Space

Dear Gary—

At last Doctor Who is getting back to the TARDIS; back to traveling in time and space; back to its roots; back to Time and Relative Dimension in Space.

The Doctor has been working on the TARDIS to bypass the Time Lords’ homing control (he hopes) at the same time that the Time Lords are deciding, “We must restore his freedom—as long as it serves our purpose.”

The result is that the Doctor and Jo take off in the TARDIS, but the Time Lords determine the destination. The destination turns out to be the planet Uxarieus in the year 2472. The Doctor is excited just to be able to once again explore “the wonders of the universe,” whereas Jo disappoints the Doctor by lamenting, “I don’t want to think of it; I want to go back to Earth.”

Thankfully the Doctor doesn't oblige and return to Earth immediately. Parenthetically, Gary, I find it rather amusing that the show holds rather a dim view of the Earth's future. As we are told, in 2472 there is "no room to move; polluted air; not a blade of grass left on the planet; and a government that locks you up if you think for yourself."

But back to Colony in Space; back to time and space; back to a story that I can finally get behind. Like The Mind of Evil there are multiple storylines in Colony in Space, but unlike The Mind of Evil they are not thrown into a bag and jumbled up together; rather the events occur as a natural progression of the plot. We are also treated to some strong supporting characters appropriate to the narrative.

To begin our tale, the Doctor and Jo meet up with a group of farmers unsuccessfully trying to colonize. Not only are their crops dying inexplicably but now they have giant lizards that have started to attack and a mining company that is claiming prior rights to the planet. To top it off, the leader of the colony, Ashe, is plagued by disgruntled settlers questioning their choice of planets.

The Doctor is consumed with “scientific curiosity” and begins to seek explanations for the crop failures and lizard attacks. This leads him to the IMC mining ship captained by the dastardly Dent who will stoop to most anything, including murder, to gain control of the rich mineral deposits on Uxarieus. However he has his own dissenting voice to contend with in the person of Caldwell.

The first few episodes of Colony in Space are well paced with conflicts and conflicts within conflicts. With pitched battles, kidnappings, arguments, sabotage, and even psychological turmoil. All of the skillfully scripted drama we come to expect from a good Doctor Who serial.

Only after this discord has sufficiently simmered do we get a dash of the Master to spice things up before we get an all-out boil.

The Master has become the de facto villain in this eighth season of Doctor Who. He has appeared in every serial. We come to expect him. To my mind, Gary, Colony in Space is the most effective use of him to date.

The Master arrives in disguise as the Adjudicator come to settle the dispute between the colonists and the mining company. He clearly has his own agenda, but he cleverly plays the two sides against the middle, biding his time until he can achieve his own purpose. He has complete control of the situation, including the Doctor who is unable to discredit the Master, lacking his own credentials as he is.

The Master’s purpose is to find a supposed doomsday weapon that is concealed somewhere on the planet. This links in the primitives of Uxarieos who up until this point have had a peripheral part to play in the waging campaign for the planet.

The primitives have been helping the colonists, however it has been established that they can turn violent if crossed. The Doctor and Jo have also discovered the primitive under-city presided over by a Guardian and have determined that this was once a thriving and advanced society.

The Master now provides the linking piece. This is why the Doctor has been sent by the Time Lords. This is why the Master has descended. The colonists and the miners, as it turns out, are peripheral; they are the straight edges and the filler. The primitives are the centerpiece. They hold the last and final portion of the puzzle. They are the creators of the super weapon the Master seeks and the Time Lords wish to conceal.

The primitives have long since forgotten the significance of this weapon; only the Guardian knows of its devastating power, which during its testing phase created the Crab Nebula. The Guardian and the Master.

The Master once again tries to sway the Doctor to his side: “We’re both Time Lords; we’re both renegades; we could be masters of the galaxy.”

“Absolute power is evil,” the Doctor counters.

“One must rule or survive; that’s a basic law of life,” the Master argues.

“I want to see the universe, not rule it,” the Doctor concludes as he engages the self destruct mechanism on the weapon (why do all evil devices of this sort have such an easily accessible self destruct mechanism and why hasn’t anyone hit it either accidentally or deliberately long before?).

As the weapon explodes, however, we need to wind up the plot. For even if the miners and colonists turned out to be peripheral to the puzzle, they are central to the action and we care what happens to them.

Ashe has sacrificed himself to save his people; Caldwell ‘s conscience has overcome his greed and he has decided to join the colonists; radiation emanating from the super weapon has been eliminated so that crops will now grow; a real Adjudicator is on his way from Earth to settle the dispute over the planet’s future. 

And the Doctor and Jo are sent back to the waiting Brigadier only moments after they left him. Back on Earth, back with UNIT, but back with a semi-working TARDIS.

“I want to see the universe, not rule it;” that is the essence of the Doctor, and I am so glad that Doctor Who has finally gotten back to its essence.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you too are seeing the universe and will someday see this.