There is a weird thing that happens towards the end of Season 8. The following story, The Daemons, as an Earthbound story, is my favourite story of the Pertwee Era. Colony In Space, however, as the first adventure for Pertwee's Doctor to get away from Earth, is my least favourite story of not just this Season but also one my least favourite non-Earth stories!

When I watch Doctor Who through in order as I sometimes do, I always look forward to watching Colony In Space as it is a bit of a throwback to the Sixties Stories when The Doctor used to travel in the TARDIS. After all those Earth stories it is something of a welcome break.

However, what happens then is that all the excitement of The Doctor and Jo travelling in the TARDIS(and it's different console room from the previous story) to an alien planet quickly disappears by what happens afterwards. For six solid episodes there is this continual change in power from The Colonists to the IMC and back again(and back again and so on) and after a while it becomes boring.

Thankfully The Master is kept out of the story for three episodes which gives the Season a break from him for a few weeks. However, I think there is another spin on The Doctor/Master relationship with The Master seemingly unwilling to kill him and prepared to offer him a power share instead which really shows the difference in character between the two. On the downside though the on-screen admission by The Doctor stating that using Jo against him to do The Master's work was unimaginative was a true point by this time as it definitely started to get a bit boring.

I do like the other worldly feel of the city and it's inhabitants, despite the obvious puppet look of it's leader but aside from that there is very little to like about this story. It's one of those stories that really does suffer from being a 6-parter with all the repetitiveness. As The Doctor's first trip away from Earth during this period it is something of a let down for me but the best non-Earthy stories were yet to come.

*tumbleweed*


lol that's what my brain does after watching this story. It's probably the best example of the arse-achingly boring overly-long adventures that tend to drag the 3rd Doctor's era down. For me this one competes with Time Monster for the worst 3rd Doctor story.

I've watched it three times and can only remember a couple of scenes, I think I'm that pleased I've got through it that I don't really remember much about it afterwards .

Captain Dent is like a poor man's Tobias Vaughn. (An extremely poor man's.)

It's almost interesting to see the Doctor and Jo snooping through the surprisingly boring filing cabinets in the Master's TARDIS. And then there's the ... erm ... the ... well, basically capture escape capture escape capture, innit? :yawn:

The big mistake of season 8 was having The Master, in every story as it all became a bit to predictable and tedious it certainly doesn't help here as Colony in Space is a painfully dull story to watch. I doubt it would of been any better with out The Master, in it but his part could easily of been taken by a completely different character.

Yeah, I think Letts and Dicks have acknowledged that mistake. Like the New Series these days, the Season could have done with a break from the main 'arc' which in this case was The Master. I felt he could have been left out of The Claws Of Axos as well and just brought back for The Daemons. That would have been better.

Just watching the DVD of this, and I noticed that in episode 1, they've restored two instances of very short "trims" made to the NTSC tape. These occur at around 08:42 (primitive with TARDIS) and again at 16:05 (colonist being attacked by unseen enemy), each one lasting no more than half a second, right at the cut-off point of each scene.
Interestingly, (certainly for the second one) they've used what looks like a low-quality source (eg, an off-air recording), rather than the 16mm telerecording, to insert these extra frames. It's a pity that the R.T. haven't written an article about their work on this one, as I wonder what the source was, and how come they couldn't use the telerecording? Ho-hum...

I'm watching it now.. it isn't the best is it. Thefact I've searched this thread out and posting in it is a testament to that I guess. (I'm on part 5 at the moment)

Just reading through my original thoughts on this story and they haven't changed that much. The one thing I will say in the story's defence that after watching the Pertwee Era from the start over several weeks, this story is quite a refreshing change from the Earthbound stories despite the faults I outlined above.

With the constant power changes between the colonists and the IMC, I think that only becomes more apparent when you watch the episodes all closer together. Over the 6 weeks it was originally transmitted it may have been less obvious.

The other thing you notice about those constant changes is that they increase ever more with the Master's arrival in the story. It's like the storyline is padding against the real battle between The Doctor and The Master.

The other thing in it's favour is that the quarry setting does for once give it an alien feel. Again, I put this down to the refreshing nature of having a story not set on Earth for the first time in ages. Later stories when it started happening more regular the quarry setting was a lot less effective.

I also like the rare use of continuity in the story with several references back to Terror Of The Autons regarding The Master's TARDIS and Jo's escapology skills.

I also like the setting for the primitive's city. Though it has a very 70's look, it also is quite effective and has a nice alien feel to it, though the puppetry of the leader lets the whole thing down bit.

I like Jo's initial reaction to her first trip. She's genuinely scared & doesn't want to leave the Tardis.
Not the most courageous of reactions but very real I think.

My least favourite Pertwee story (well its a toss up between this and The Mutants and they're the last two Third Doctor I have to get on DVD not particularly in a hurry about it).I just find it really dull and not even Delgado can redeem it for me

While at the bottom of the Third Doctor's era for me (personally, I have a soft spot for The Time Monster), I don't think Colony In Space is quite as bad as some maintain. It could have been a lot tighter; I'm not one of those who condemn the Pertwee six-parters because I think they're much-maligned. But here I have to agree that the material is stretched. There's also a drabness to the production, which seems to permeate every part of the story and even the regulars seem to be going through the motions for once.

A lot of Pertwee six-parters are overlong and would be much better with four parts. This is the epitome of "Six Part Drear".

But I love the "robot with claws" cliffhanger.
Everytime I see it, I laugh so much that I fart.

Saw this today for the first time and I enjoyed bits of it very much but other bits just seemed a bit superfluous. The story of the colonists against the mining corporation is actually well realised with the different characters. Ashe seems idealistic, his daughter Mary is very sweet ( go Gail!) and you have the voice of Caldwell who despises the measures the mining company will go through. Tony Caunter is quite cold as Morgan ( isn't he in Full Circle later). Possibly Dent is the least well realised character as an atypical commander.

I really like Jo's reaction to her first trip in the Tardis. It feels very realistic that she would be scared. The doctor does seems to play a more of a father figure to Jo in this story than before and this does come across as slightly patronising asking her to stay behind at times.

I really wish this story had been 4 parts as it could have rattled along quite nicely. The episode endings for episodes 2 and 3 don't actually seem that menacing and having got the Master in it they could have explored the background of the Time Lords a bit more or the Doctor's relationship as their agent.

How nice to see a quarry again. Loved the mucky mud fight in the last episode. Two men slugging it out in the clay mud !Would have been great if they could have filmed abroad as per the directors wish.

[quote=Lady of Traken;73413623]Saw this today for the first time and I enjoyed bits of it very much but other bits just seemed a bit superfluous. The story of the colonists against the mining corporation is actually well realised with the different characters. Ashe seems idealistic, his daughter Mary is very sweet ( go Gail!) and you have the voice of Caldwell who despises the measures the mining company will go through. Tony Caunter is quite cold as Morgan ( isn't he in Full Circle later). Possibly Dent is the least well realised character as an atypical commander.

Don't think so. You may be thinking of George Baker.

I really like Jo's reaction to her first trip in the Tardis. It feels very realistic that she would be scared. The doctor does seems to play a more of a father figure to Jo in this story than before and this does come across as slightly patronising asking her to stay behind at times.

I've always like this, as you say very realistic, (much like mine would be).


Have to admit Colony in Space is a bit of a guilty pleasure. It's not good in anyway but I love Pertwee and Manning, the opening episode is lovely and I liked The Brigadier topping and tailing the whole story.

It was also one of the first Targets books I ever read as a young child so the story has a nostalgic element to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if this has already been done, but many of the Pertwee stories would benefit from fan edits. There's just so much padding, which Terrance Dicks was always very honest about. The serial length was set by the budget, so they'd just fill them up with as many capture/escape sequences as was needed.

here you go http://whoflix.wordpress.com/category/jon-pertwee/

-please note this isn't me and I haven't seen any so can't comment on quality

EDIT: hmm you might need to pay to watch them or at least give credit card details for rapidshare - so no thanks for me.

the whole site is pretty hard to navigate if I'm honest

Addition to above - it seems fine now! just takes hours to download!

I love it that there's a shoot-out in a room three metres square, with everyone hiding behind filing cabinets. Also, Mr Nice Guard arrests the Doctor, and then we see the Doctor driving Mr Nice Guard is his little car thingy with Mr Nice Guard in the passenger seat!

Yep I saw that and thought it was funny and odd. Maybe Mr Nice Guard couldnt drive

Mr Nice Guard 'mentions' this during the commentary. General feeling was Mr Pertwee wanted to drive the little car thingy.