Doctor Who (TV Series) Frontios: Part One (1984) User Reviews

Hungry Earth

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 8/10 · 4 April 2020]

Review of all 4 parts:

Many years before the 11th Doctor story The Hungry Earth we see a 5th Doctor story where people are drawn down into the soil and disappear underground. The phrase that the earth is hungry is even used. So I guess this was influential on that much later story? Also in common with that later story this is somewhat average and lacking in brilliance but it is a serviceable filler story.

The planet Frontios is well realised and the production values overall are decent. The humans are costumed pretty well and the effects are fine. When we meet the alien Tractators they are less impressive but are not a bad effort compared to many classic Who monsters. A little bit of CGI enhancement to animate some life into their faces and skin texture would not go amiss but for the budget and constraints of the day they are acceptable.

The plot involves hard to fathom science fiction ideas but nothing jumps out as being a terrible idea, it all works okay without being particularly impressive or hugely convincing. Humans are being used by the Tractators who are, in turn, controlled by one of their kind the Gravis who is inexplicably super powerful.

Mark Strickson as Turlough is good and Peter Davison as ever performs very well as the Doctor. Other actors are mostly solid and the script is reasonably written. It is quite dark and almost feels like a less impressive precursor to the gloomy brilliance of Caves of Androzani. It is quite enjoyable but it all just feels a bit lacking in either a convincing serious quality or entertaining levels of fun. It is all adequate quality without being brilliant.

My ratings: All 4 episodes - 7.5/10.

A strong opening episode, plenty of mystery.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 22 January 2019]

I know that Frontios isn't a universally loved story, but it certainly has its merits.

I'm watching this for the first time in years, and my overall impression of this first episode is very positive. I'm aware it was a troubled production, but I think they delivered a rather intriguing story. I love the idea of a human colony under seige, it's well crafted, with some nice sets, fine performances, but its two greatest assets, firstly the sense of mystery, and secondly the out and out sense of dark bleakness about it, I felt some stories under Kant's stewardship has an often frivolous feel, far from it here, this is intensely dark.

A great opener, which has me hooked. 8/10

The End Of The Universe?

[profh-1 · 8/10 · 13 April 2012]

Originally fascinated by both "LOGOPOLIS" and "CASTROVALVA", I was initially very put off by "FRONTIOS". All of Season 21 is so downbeat, nasty, violent & depressing. "FRONTIOS" is mostly just depressing. At least, until the 2nd half. Then it gets surprising.

In retrospect, Bidmead's 2 earlier stories make almost no sense at all. It's not that I didn't "get" them, they're just BAD across the board. But this is something else. It's weird-- but in a way, coherent. I like the observation that Bidmead is doing a "Saward" type of story (just as a few stories later, Holmes did a "Saward" type of story, and did it far, far better than Saward was ever, ever capable of doing himself).

Peter Davison has proved to me he's a capable actor. Just NOT on DOCTOR WHO. And it's obviously not his fault. His fans defend him for being a "nice guy", totally failing to realize that each regeneration of The Doctor is NOT supposed to be completely different in every way from all the others, but rather, a consistent character who simply looks and acts a bit different on the outside. Davison, for most of his run, seems like whoever the Doctor is or is supposed to be, has somehow gone into a 3-year-long coma and doesn't return until he's poisoned to death and takes 4 entire weeks to die painfully. But in "FRONTIOS", at least briefly, we finally see hints of the "real" Doctor. It's fitting that it happens in a story where things are so hopeless, that he finally rises to a challenge and has perhaps his biggest victory, in part, in DEFIANCE of the Time Lords (though that, like many things, is never quite explained in detail).

I couldn't even begin to comprehend what happened to the TARDIS the first time I saw this. I later realized it had to do with the fact that the TARDIS itself is, as stressed in "LOGOPOLIS", mathematically constructed to put the control room in a dimension separate from its outer shell. Lucky thing the control room was knocked back into the "real" world when that shell was destroyed. Otherwise, how could the shell ever have been re-created? Among the insane things here, the Tractators actually hit on the SAME idea The Daleks had in their 2nd appearance-- turning a planet into a giant spaceship. I wonder if there's any significance to the similarity between them and Nestor in "THE TWIN DILEMMA"?

My very favorite Peter Davison scene is in this story. It's when he has to save Tegan's life. And it's one of the only times one feels the "real" Doctor is alive in that under-aged exterior of his. "I got this one cheap because the walk's not quite right. And then of course there's the accent..." The look on Tegan's face is priceless. She wants to KILL him! He's put up with her big mouth and constant abuse for 2-1/2 years now, and FINALLY, he's giving it back, in a laid-back, seemingly polite, and genuinely FUNNY way. One could easily picture any other Doctor doing that scene. It's shocking to see Peter Davison do it. Why, WHY couldn't he have been written this way for the whole of his tenure? It's NO WONDER I was overjoyed when Colin Baker arrived. HE took crap from NOBODY.

Leslie Dunlop, who has a prominent role here, would return a few seasons later as a member of "THE HAPPINESS PATROL".

Giant Bipedal Woodlice

[JamesHitchcock · 14 January 2015]

In some ways, Peter Davidson represented Doctor Who as a British public schoolboy- youthful, eager and idealistic, if somewhat inexperienced, and (like most public schoolboys) mad on cricket. I liked his interpretation of the role, although I must admit that was not always so keen on his companions; of the two who appear here Turlough was not very memorable, and although Janet Fielding's Tegan was often courageous and resourceful, if hot-headed, her rather shrill voice did tend to grate a bit. During this season the Doctor had a third companion, the robot Kamelion, but he does not appear in this serial, with no explanation being given.

The TARDIS lands on the planet Frontios at some date far in the future. We learn that the Earth has been destroyed by some unspecified catastrophe and that the planet is home to a colony of humans, some of the last humans surviving anywhere in the galaxy. (The name "Frontios" may have been chosen for its similarity to "frontier", the planet being mankind's "last frontier"). The colonists are suffering from a series of meteorite showers which they believe are being orchestrated by an unknown enemy who resent their presence on the planet. To make matters worse, several prominent colonists, including their leader Captain Revere, have mysteriously disappeared.

The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough decide not only to investigate but also to provide medical assistance to the colonists injured by the meteorite storm. In so doing, however, the Doctor is conscious that he is violating a cardinal rule of the Time Lords against intervening in the affairs of other planets. (It must be said that this so-called rule was not always prominently featured in earlier episodes of the programme; Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor, for example, seemed to spend most of his time intervening in the affairs of Earth, with the full blessing of the Time Lords, by preventing it from being conquered or destroyed by some threat or other).

The serial also introduced a new race of enemies for the Doctor in the form of the Tractators, underground creatures who resemble giant bipedal woodlice and an advanced technology which involves immense powers to control gravity. This is to date the only serial in which the Tractators have appeared; there was to have been a sequel in season 23 involving Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor, but this was cancelled. We do, however, learn that the Tractators were once responsible for invading Turlough's home planet. (Despite his Irish-sounding name, he actually comes from an alien world).

"Doctor Who" serials, despite the science fiction format, often had relevance to earthly politics. "The Sun Makers", for example, has been taken as a satire on the taxation policies of the 1974-79 Labour Government, while "The Mark of the Rani" appears to comment on the 1984- 85 miners' strike, which was in progress when it was first broadcast. "Frontios" perhaps has a wider political significance. It can be seen as a portrait of a society under extreme stress, under attack but with no means of knowing who is attacking it and no means of striking back against its attackers. It is perhaps not surprising that the planet has evolved an authoritarian system of government; Revere's son, Plantagenet, has assumed leadership from his father without any popular election. (His name is significantly derived from the longest-ruling dynasty in British history). The government is not only authoritarian but also paranoid; the Doctor and his companions are initially taken for enemy agents and are lucky to avoid execution.

This, however, does not mean that leaders of Frontios are the villains of the piece. This serial does not really deal in moral absolutes; even the Tractators, except perhaps for their leader, the Gravis, are not "evil" in the sense that, for example, the Daleks are evil. Plantagenet and his second-in-command, Security Chief Brazen, have not imposed a dictatorship because they are selfishly power-hungry but because they can see no other way to preserve order in a society under threat. The "retrogrades", those humans on Frontios who reject the authority of their leaders, do so out of fear or self-interest, not because they have a vision of some better form of government. When confronted with danger, Plantagenet and Brazen prove themselves to be men of courage, and once the danger from the Tractators has been removed, Plantagenet emerges as an enlightened ruler. This political theme, with its subtext that fear- even justified fear- can be a corrosive enemy of freedom, makes this one of the more interesting "Doctor Who" serials.

Pulls Its Punches A Bit Too Much

[Theo Robertson · 6/10 · 31 January 2014]

Refers To All Four Episodes . Suggestive Spoilers

On the far flung Planet Frontois a human colony is facing extinction . Meteorite storms lash the surface but that is not all . The bodies of the dead are disappearing and it's as if the planet itself is consuming the dead

This is a great example of a boundary pushing script being let down by poor directing and the production team keeping one eye on a possible backlash from concerned parents . In other words it's a piece of television that pulls its punches which is a great pity because all the foundations of building a grim , nihilistic DOCTOR WHO story are there but it never reaches its potential

There's an uneven quality to everything . Take the costumes for example . The functional blue uniforms of the colonists are sensible and unlike so many science fiction films and TV shows never seem to be too futuristic to be incredible . What ruins this costume design is having the helmets culled from BLAKES 7 which sticks out a mile if not an entire light year

This schizophrenic quality extends to the acting and familiar faces such as Rawle , Gilmour , Dunlop and Lucus are fine which means when you've a duff performance from Maurice O'Connell as Cockerill it does tend to stick out more than it should . Worst performance is by Mark Strickson as Turlough since it requires him to give one of those " Oh no I've got to give a look at me and see how terrified I am performances " that we could have done without

Did anyone like the Tractactors ? Neither did I and it's always a bad idea to name a monster after a farmyard vehicle . Their aims also seem to have been copied from The Daleks in their second appearance on the show . It's amazing how these alien races often come up with the same plan which is silly

All this is is a great pity because watching this story it contains some great concepts and mood but is never fully realised . This would have been perfect it had been produced under the Hinchcliffe regime and it's interesting in the following season the production team went out of their way to inject violence and grotesque imagery ( Which sadly backfired ) in to the programme . That said the Radio Times did get a couple of angry letters from parents so I'm guessing everything is subjective

A troubled production

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 7 April 2015]

Review of the Complete Story:

That the Peter Davison-era Who story FRONTIOS only turns out adequate at best is no surprise given the troubles that seemed to have plagued this production. Producers were contending with the suicide of production designer Barrie Dobbins when they learnt of the murder of actor Peter Arne (STRAW DOGS), who had been cast in one of the leading roles and who had even gone so far as to have his costume fitted out. A replacement was drafted in at the last minute, but an oddly depressing atmosphere hangs over the whole production.

In any case, this is middling stuff indeed, although not one of the very worst Davison adventures (I hated KINDA and SNAKEDANCE in particular). The setting, of a war-torn, almost post-apocalyptic planet, is a good one, but the monsters, which take the form of giant woodlice, are particularly poor. There isn't much story here either - just the usual gruff military types, plus a couple of people (including Lesley Dunlop) who turn out to be nice and help the Doctor. It all feels predictable, though, and companion Turlough is an odd chap who it's difficult to warm to.