Production Code YY

First Transmitted:
1-08/03/1969 17:15
2-15/03/1969 17:15
3-22/03/1969 17:15
4-29/03/1969 17:15
5-05/04/1969 17:15
6-12/04/1969 17:15

Cast
Lisa Daniely : Madeleine Issigri
Anthony Donovan : Space Guard
Dudley Foster : Caven
Donald Gee : Major Ian Warne
Gordon Gostelow : Milo Clancey
Frazer Hines : Jamie
Esmond Knight : Dom Issigri
George Layton : Technician Penn
Jack May : General Hermack
Wendy Padbury : Zoe
Brian Peck : Dervish
Steve Peters : Pirate Guard
Patrick Troughton : The Doctor
Nik Zaran : Lt. Sorba

Crew
Peter Bryant : Producer
Nicholas Bullen : Costumes
Martyn Day : Film Editor
Sallie Evans : Make-Up
Liam Foster : Assistant Floor Manager
Ron Grainer : Title Music
and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, arranged by Delia Derbyshire
Peter Hall : Film Cameraman
Michael Hart : Director
Brian Hodgson : Special Sounds
Robert Holmes : Writer
David Hughes : Studio Sound
Sylvia James : Make-Up
Snowy Lidiard-White : Production Assistant
Derrick Sherwin : Script Editor
Dudley Simpson : Incidental Music
Ian Watson : Designer
Peter Winn : Studio Lighting
John Wood : Visual Effects

Plot Outline from Wikipedia

Space beacons on the space lanes are being blown up and plundered for precious argonite by a gang of space pirates led by Caven, and his associate Dervish. The Earth Space Corps cruiser V-41 notices the destruction of the beacon and, with General Hermack and Major Warne in charge, sets out to apprehend the pirates. Another beacon is destroyed despite their best intentions, and the fragments are stolen using rocket propulsion. Hermack deploys troops to all nearby Beacons to prevent another robbery.

The TARDIS crew has arrived on Beacon Alpha Four shortly before the pirates reach it. Caven and his men mop off the security force on the Beacon, and the pirates seal the time travellers in part if the Beacon before blowing it to pieces. Fortunately the beacon falls into discreet, sealed pieces and the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves inside one. The eccentric Milo Clancey, in his aged ship the LIZ-79, rescues them – but they cannot retrieve the TARDIS, which is in a separate segment taken by the pirates.

The nearest inhabited world is Ta, dominated by the Issigri Mining Corporation, whose leader is Madeleine Issigri. The firm was founded by her father and Clancey, and the latter is now suspected of Dom Issigri’s murder, though nothing has been proved. Hermack visits Ta, believing that Clancey, whom he suspects of being the pirate leader, will end up there in due course – and he is right. However, Hermack leaves just as Clancey and the TARDIS crew reach Ta. Zoe has plotted the trajectory of the segments of Beacon and believes they were destined for Ta too, and as per usual the Doctor and his companions soon find the pirate headquarters. They evade capture and make contact once more with Clancey.

Meanwhile Caven forces Dervish to reroute some of the beacon fragments to Lobos, a frontier world where Clancey has his base, so as to throw suspicion on the prospector. It is clear someone has tipped him off about the Corps suspicion of Milo Clancey. Hermack and his crew see through this ruse, but it takes time, and they spend hours orbiting Lobos while the real action is taking place on Ta.

When the Doctor and his party reach Madeleine Issigri’s offices it becomes clear she is in league with Caven, and the Doctor and his friends are once more imprisoned. Their prison is the study of Dom Issigri – alive but frail and scared – and it takes time for him to recover his wits. Madeleine has meanwhile decided to break her alliance with Caven, and does so by radioing Hermack to bring his troops to Ta. Caven reasserts his authority by telling Madeleine her father is alive and threatening to kill him unless she returns to her compliant self. She responds by contacting Hermack again and telling him not to come to Ta.

The Doctor and his friends have meanwhile escaped, taking the weak Dom Issigri with them, and head to the LIZ-79. Caven has thought ahead and forced Dervish to cut the oxygen supply to the ship. As only Milo and Dom board the ship, theirs are the lives in danger, and Caven’s callousness finally convinces Madeleine to support him no longer. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe save their friends and Dom Issigri makes contact with Hermack, persuading him of the truth of the situation.

Caven now gets desperate, threatening to destroy Ta, the Issigri base and the orbiting V-ship by means of a series of strategically placed bombs. The Doctor manages to disengage the triggering device in the nick of time, while Major Warne blows Caven and Dervish’s ship to pieces. As Hermack’s ship lands, Madeleine looks forward to a reunion with her father, but knows she will also be imprisoned for her part in the conspiracy; while the Doctor and his companions prepare to seek out the TARDIS on one of the fragments of the Beacon.

Analysis by Cuisle

The plot as outlined on the BBC site does not exactly inspire confidence. It sounds rather lame. And it takes an effort to look beyond that. What saved it at the time was some quite well done model work, especially that cliffhanger explosion of the space beacon at the end of episode one. The Discontinuity guide says of that model work:-

"The model work and music almost stand comparison with Gerry Anderson's series."

I presume that is a compliment.

Gerry Anderson always had a far bigger budget than Doctor Who. And it was, in fact, budgetary constraints that dictated this story which has no 'monsters' at all in it. The theme is space travel and exploration. A topic that was in everyone's minds anyway in 1969, of course, with the Apollo missions on the verge of landing on the Moon.

What we had here, as contemporary critics noted, was an old fashioned western movie transported to space. There were the bad guys oppressing the good guys until The Doctor and his friends rode into town on the TARDIS. Unfortunately there isn't a lot for The Doctor and co to do at first except get caught in the pirate trap. But then, getting caught and outwitting the baddies is a stalwart plotline of Doctor Who. Even as late as 2005, in Dalek, when The Doctor is stripped of his shirt and tied to Van Statten's torture machine-cum-biological analyser he still stumbled into the trap. The point is, he always gets out of it and saves the day. And if that seems predictable, then so what? Doctor Who is not the X-files. You are not supposed to be left thinking 'What the heck was that about?'. Yes, it should give the viewer something to think about generally. But it should not be incomprehensible. Something that was forgotten for a while in the 1980s, but in the 1960s, the stories were not intended to confuse the audience.

The something for the audience to think about here, of course, is that not all 'monsters' are aliens. Here in this 'space opera' human beings managed to cause enough trouble for other human beings without anything sinister turning up. And that SHOULD have been enough food for thought. After all, with mankind on the verge of that giant leap, it was timely enough to realise that we would not be leaving our Human nature behind on Earth, and that some Humans had their own agenda.

A critic of the time asked 'was it a Doctor Who story' - perhaps because of the lack of monsters and the fact that much of the story centred around the guest characters with The Doctor and his companions not having a lot to do with the events as they unfolded. This, too, is a complaint that comes out every time anything other than "Doctor battling monsters in time and space" is tried. This was the complaint of all the traditionalists who didn't like the 2006 story "Love and Monster" - not that the monster was a ridiculously silly idea designed by a nine year old on Blue Peter, but that the story didn't have The Doctor in it very much.

But The Doctor is a traveller in time and space. To say that any historical or science fiction plot is not Doctor Who is just daft. Yes, The Doctor can take a back seat to the other characters. Why not. But essentially he is the lynchpin of the plot. And that is why it is a Doctor Who story.

Incidentally, this story is significant for one thing. It is one of the rare stories where The Doctor gets kissed, by the heroine/anti-heroine, Madeleine. And his face is a picture comparable only to that of Dave Tennant's tenth doctor when kissed by Madame du Pompadeur in the 2006 Girl in the Fireplace episode.