November 6: Frontios Parts Three & Four

Part three isn't quite as wonderful as parts one and two, sadly.  Though to be honest, there's not really anything wrong with this; it's just that there's a sense of marking time, particularly down in the tunnels.  Tegan and the Doctor spend most of the time wandering around, narrowing avoiding/escaping Tractators, and they don't really learn much new until the cliffhanger.

But above ground it's a bit different.  Brazen is holding Mr. Range accountable for concealing information about "deaths unaccountable", and between Mr. Range and Turlough's ramblings (which seem to come from some sort of race memory -- not entirely unlike the reaction of people after seeing Silurians in Doctor Who and the Silurians) we start to piece together what's going on.  It seems that these Tractators have operated on other planets (including Turlough's home planet, it seems), where they live below ground and pull people down underground with them -- and then use those people for their own devices.  And as we see in the cliffhanger, the Doctor and Tegan discover the same thing, as they find an excavation machine being run by the corpse of Captain Revere...

Part four gets us back on track, with some lovely interactions between the Doctor and the Tractators' leader, the Gravis -- once the Doctor appears to sympathize with the Tractators' side of things, the Gravis seems perfectly happy to show him around.  Tegan has to stay behind, though, but the Doctor avoids her being used in one of the Tractators' machines by pretending she's a robot.  "It is certainly a very convincing replica of the humanoid life form," the Gravis says.  "Oh, you think so?" the Doctor replies.  "I got it cheap because the walk's not quite right.  And then there's the accent, of course."  This scene is wonderful just to watch Tegan fume helplessly at these insults, knowing that she can't respond to them for fear of giving the game away.  And meanwhile, after Turlough tells them that the Tractators need people alive, a search party goes into the tunnels looking for Plantagenet, who was sucked underground in part two.  This is notable because it's what leads Turlough to overcome both his base fears and his natural cowardice to head down into the tunnels to help -- it really is a moment to cheer, as the show finally decides to make him better than he was; it's been a long time coming.

Two Tractators and the Gravis near parts of the broken-up
TARDIS. (Frontios Part Four) ©BBC

The ultimate revelation of the Tractators' intentions (they've been using their gravity beam powers to pull asteroids down at the colonists -- as well as causing their ship to crash in the first place -- so they'd have a ready supply of parts for their machines, which are carving out tunnels in such a way that they can then use those gravity powers to pilot Frontios around the galaxy -- which sounds rather silly, but as they're working with gravity maybe they have the ability to warp space and move a lot faster than it otherwise sounds) answers a number of plot points, as well as making clear the extent of the gravity beam powers the Tractators have.  This will become useful for the climax, as the Doctor goads the Gravis into pulling the TARDIS back together -- and as Turlough has pointed out, when the Gravis is cut off from the Tractators both become harmless.  Thus the Doctor is able to take the Gravis to the uninhabited planet of Kolkokron, leaving the remaining Tractators harmlessly burrowing on Frontios.  The colony is saved -- just don't mention it to the Time Lords...  And then, in classic Hartnell style, we get a cliffhanger into the next story, as something incredibly powerful is pulling the TARDIS off-course...

It's something of a rarity in this era to have a story where everything comes together, but that's what we get with Frontios.  The strong direction, the intelligent scripting, the appropriate casting, the excellent acting, the smart design, the suitable lighting... it all works really well.  It's not perfect (as I said, part three does sag a bit), but in terms of production unity it's the best we've seen in a very long time.  And yet for some reason this is a story that tends to fade into the background, not given the credit it deserves (it was down at 147 out of 241 in the most recent DWM poll for some unfathomable reason), when it's easily one of the best stories of Peter Davison's run.  A great injustice for a jewel of a story.