Well, that "rescue" didn't last long; apparently the Doctor and Jo have no desire to be rescued by Ogrons, and the result is to be recaptured by Earth security forces and locked up again. Then the Doctor is subjected to the mind probe, which indicates that everything he's been telling them has been the truth (even when the mind probe is turned up to "break" the Doctor's non-existent conditioning by the Draconians). General Williams's conclusion? The Doctor must be lying and just
really good at defeating mind probes. It never occurs to them that, hey, maybe there actually is a third party trying to provoke a war; nope, they just pack the Doctor off to a penal colony on the Moon.
Of course, the nice thing about this is the change of scenery, as a reasonable lunar landscape is represented outside the large window inside the prison. There's some screwing around with the Peace Party members already imprisoned (the lunar prison is apparently for political prisoners), as two of them play
Star Trek-style three-dimensional chess (perhaps the first obvious influence of
Star Trek on
Doctor Who) while the Doctor and the Peace Party's leader Professor Dale work on escaping from the prison.
The most important part of this episode, however, is the appearance of the Commissioner from Sirius IV, revealed almost nonchalantly to be the Master. He's here to take the Doctor and Jo back to Sirius IV for trial; yes, he's the one who's been hiring Ogrons to impersonate Draconians and humans in order to start a war, and he learned of the Doctor's presence after the Ogrons brought the TARDIS back, along with the stolen cargo, to their home planet, where the Master was scheming. So after collecting Jo, it's off to the Moon to collect the Doctor -- except he might be too late, as the Doctor and Professor Dale are both trapped in a rapidly-depressurizing airlock with no oxygen (a result of a failed attempt at an escape)...
 |
The Doctor and the Master are confronted by a Draconian
boarding party. (Frontier in Space Episode Four) ©BBC |
Nope, no death for the Doctor today; the Master arrives to save them at the top of episode four, and he successfully convinces the prison governor to turn the Doctor over into his care. It seems the Master's employers want the Doctor alive, so the Master's taking him and Jo back to the Ogrons' home planet. Of course, this means that the Doctor and Jo are locked up yet again -- but this time the Doctor is able to escape (thanks to a steel file and a lot of extemporaneous talking from Jo -- "Thank you, Miss Grant, we'll let you know," the Master remarks drily upon uncovering the ruse) and head outside the spaceship to try and take control of the flight deck via an external hatch. The spacewalk parts of this episode are rather good -- it's a shame that the Kirby wires holding the Doctor up are so visible (to the point of casting shadows on the hull of the spaceship). The Master and the Doctor have a confrontation, but before this gets too far a Draconian ship arrives and takes everyone prisoner, piloting the ship back to Draconia. The Doctor is looking forward to this, as he hopes he can explain the Master's actions to the Draconian emperor, but the Master has secretly sent a signal, which, in a shocking cliffhanger, is received by an Ogron. With its back to us. That'll get 'em tuning in next week.
It might not sound exciting, but the thing
Frontier in Space has going for it is the scope of things. We've been on ships, Earth, the Moon, and it sounds like we're going to Draconia next. There's a scale to the proceedings here that is incredibly welcome -- it's nice to see all the different things, rather than just hear about them as in
Colony in Space or
The Mutants. Let's hope they can keep this going for the final two installments.