Frontier in Space - Episode 3

I do feel sorry for the president in this episode because she’s been forced into going into war but she is also trying to prevent a coup. It’s quite clear how well General Williams and the President work together. I really like General Williams and think that Michael Hawkins plays the character really well with a hint of borderline pantomime villain. My worry about the Doctor and Jo been accused of being something that they are not is already getting tiresome. During the mind probe session on the Doctor I found myself thinking of this fact and getting slightly depressed that there were going to be more moments like this.

The episode sees the story move to the Moon. On first looks, the set is quite good and I think that even though it’s a studio set it still look quite good. It’s a lunar version of Porridge except there’s little humour and no Ronnie Barker. I think that Jon Pertwee gets a better share of the story than Katy Manning but that’s more to do with the fact that the lunar scenes were the more interesting. The bonus for Jon Pertwee filming the scenes on the lunar set was that he got to wear a dressing gown.

The episode really picks up when Roger Delgado makes a welcome return. This is the last story that Roger Delgado appears as The Master. Like most times, he is pretending to be a commissioner and I let out a small cheer when he appeared. From the moment he gets involved in the story it picks up (Not that it was really dragging). I think that the costume he wears is quite interesting as it’s similar to what he wears but more importantly, it features a symbol which for years I thought little of it but it was only upon watching the extras on the DVD that I noticed it looked like the Daleks eye.

There is something good about the cliffhanger because on the one hand the Doctor and the Professor are going to run out of oxygen but then on the other hand its one of those where its obvious that the Doctor will survive so why put him in that situation. Apart from that minor quibble I think that this episode is still working well and we are getting more and more information and its not boring or moving things at a reasonable pace until the right time (probably episode five) before it picks up again.