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Production Code: 6N
First Transmitted
Cast The Doctor - Peter Davison
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The TARDIS lands in the far future, on the planet Frontios, where some of the last vestiges of humanity are struggling for survival. The planet is being attacked by meteorite showers orchestrated by a group of unknown enemies who are also responsible for the disappearance of several prominent colonists, including the colony’s leader, Captain Revere. After witnessing Revere being “eaten by the ground,” Security Chief Brazen engages in a cover up. To the public, Captain Revere died of natural causes. After a state funeral, Revere’s son, Plantaganet, assumes the leadership of the colony. The TARDIS is mysteriously affected by a meteorite storm and dragged down to the planet by gravity. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough emerge, in the middle of the bombardment, to investigate. Despite his earlier reservations about getting involved, the Doctor violates the cardinal rule of the Time Lords by helping the colonists who were injured by the meteorite bombardment and by providing medical assistance. Needing better light in the medical facility, the Doctor sends Tegan and Turlough to fetch a portable mu-field activator and five argon discharge globes from the TARDIS. However, once they arrive, they find that the ship’s inner door is stuck, preventing them from getting beyond the console room. Norna, Tegan and Turlough obtain an acid-battery from the research room to power the lights. On their way back, however, they are forced to knock the Warnsman unconscious to avoid capture. Another bombardment occurs and, in the Warnsman’s absence, catches the colony unawares. When the skies clear, the TARDIS has gone and all that is left is the Doctor’s hat stand. Plantaganet orders the execution of the Doctor, but Turlough intercedes, using a surviving hat stand from the TARDIS as a weapon. Plantaganet tries to attack the Doctor with a crowbar but suffers a heart attack. The Time Lord manages to save his life using the battery, but he is later dragged into the ground by some mysterious force. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough discover that the culprits are the Gravis and his Tractators, giant insects with incredible powers over gravity. The disappearing colonists where being used by the Tractators because they need human minds and bodies to run their mining machines. Plantaganet was kidnapped to replace Captain Revere, the current driver whose is now brain dead. The Gravis intends to transform Frontios into an enormous spaceship; once successful, he would be able to spread the terror of the Tractators across the galaxy. The Doctor, Turlough, Brazen and his guards rescue Plantaganet by knocking out the Gravis. However, Brazen gets caught by one of the mining machines and is killed while the others escape. Tegan wanders around in the tunnels and comes across bits of the TARDIS’s inner walls. She is chased by the Gravis, who has now regained consciousness, and two of his Tractators. She inadvertently comes upon one of the TARDIS’s inner doors and she opens it to find herself in the TARDIS console room, which has bits of rock wall mixed in with its normal walls. She also finds the Doctor, Turlough and Plantaganet hovering around the console. The Doctor ushers the Gravis in and then tricks him into reassembling the TARDIS by using his power over gravity. The Gravis pulls the TARDIS back into its normal dimension. Once fully assembled, the Gravis is effectively cut off from his fellow Tractators, which revert to a harmless state. The Doctor and Tegan drop the Gravis off on the uninhabited planet of Kolkokron. Returning to Frontios, the Doctor gives Plantaganet the hat stand as a farewell token and asks that his own involvement in the affair not be mentioned to anyone especially the Time Lords. Once the TARDIS has left Frontios, its engines start making a worrying noise. The Doctor appears to be helpless as the ship is being pulled towards the centre of the universe.
A complicated story at first sight, but breaking down into a fairly simple premise – the old alien wanting to take over the universe ploy. The Human colony on Frontios is one with a lot of problems even without the alien entity making life even more difficult. It is ruled by a young man, Plantagenet, who inherited the eat of power from his father, and this was bound to lead to trouble. Wherever there is a young, inexperienced leader, but it a king, maharaja, or whatever, who accedes by inheritance rather than his own merits, there will be somebody trying to control him. Fiction, as well as history, abounds with such ideas. Look at Cardinal Richelieu, or any number of Grand Viziers and wicked uncles in less literary works. Here, we have Security Chief Brazen. Speaking of history, it is worth noting that the first Plantagenet king of England, Henry III was a boy king of nine years old when he came to the throne. The analogy with the young leader of Frontios is clear to anyone who did history in England and Wales. Scots and Irish can take my word for it. Meanwhile, as Brazen tightens his grip on the colonists and lays down the law in an increasingly unhinged way that proves the old adage about power corrupting, his insistence that they are at war with an unknown enemy from the sky – actually meteors being dragged down by the gravity exerted by the real enemy in the mines beneath their feet – has resulted in a confused and paranoid society with too many superstitions and not enough hard facts. The Doctor and friends get to the bottom of things, discovering a ghastly secret. The former leader, Revere, is not dead – not quite anyway – he is being used as a living engine to power the excavating machine the Gravis uses to extend his underground empire. Mary Whitehouse went ballistic about that rather graphic image of what looked at first glance like a decapitated head being used in the machine. The actual truth isn’t much more pleasant, and it did seem rather a gruesome idea for CHILDREN’S TV, even for a family orientated show with adult appeal, though not so bad as the moral crusade made it out to be. Turlough performs well in this. He has become fiercely loyal to The Doctor since being freed from the Black Guardian’s influence, and though admitting himself a coward does his best. The scene in which he used the TARDIS’s hatstand as a ‘weapon’ playing on the superstition of the locals is wonderful. The way he uses it to persuade them to do as they are told by The Doctor shows initiative, even if The Doctor eventually takes it away from him before ‘the joke goes too far’. Later, Turlough’s race memory of the Tractators and the damage they can do also proves instrumental. His near complete mental breakdown on seeing the creatures was well acted and convincing. Even after that he did his best to be useful to The Doctor. The character has gained a lot of respect by this point. Quite the creepiest thing about this episode wasn’t the Tractators, or the Human mining machine, but the site of the TARDIS disassembled and incorporated into the walls of the underground cavern. The TARDIS is very much a comfort blanket to any Doctor Who fan, and to see it in pieces is a shock. The restoration of it, as well as allowing the Gravis to be captured and rendering the rest of the Tractators harmless burrowing creatures, is a relief. The Doctor is able, this time, ‘to find another way’. Unlike the failure with the Silurians and Sea Devils, he manages to take the Gravis to an uninhabited and remote planet and leave it alive and unharmed. This is ALWAYS his preferred way. When The Doctor chooses to do anything else the situation is VERY grave indeed.
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