Frontier in Space

The omnibus of Frontier in Space was a bit of an old drag. It kind of stumbles along until the whole moon prison thing and by then I was either half asleep or I’d wandered off. Safe in the knowledge that not even UK Gold could mess their schedule up mid-programme. Not like MTV which once came back from an ad break in the middle of Daria and played the entire second act with the soundtrack from another episode. The week after they did something similar and the second act had both the right soundtrack and a wrong soundtrack laid over the top. Another week they somehow managed to show the second half first, go to commercials and return with the opening titles and the first twelve minutes of the episode. Fuck MTV.

I ordered the video – along with those of the Monster of Peladon and the Green Death – from Choices Direct (now ChoicesUK) a couple of days before Christmas. My rough plan was to have something to occupy me during the inevitable mid-festive lull. Imagine my surprise (you don’t have to) when a large box was waiting for me when I got home that Christmas Eve. These days having three items in once parcel would be enough to shock me as everything is sent separately even when there is no need. Apparently the video is extended in some way. I've never noticed it. Probably because I've never watched it. I've vague memories of watching my UKG tape while in mid-student but if I went and looked in the video box now, I would not be shocked to see cellophane. I can't spell it (luckily Microsoft can) but I wouldn't be surprised to see it.

But mainly, when I think of Frontier in Space I remember the enthusiasm with which Jon Pertwee always talked about the Draconians. It was the eyes – you know – and the mouth. It made for a much more believable monster if you could see the eyes and the mouth. Jon Pertwee enthusing about anything was always a joy – and I’d recommend anyone and everyone to get a copy of his Myth Makers tape because it is the definitive Jon Pertwee interview and tribute. The thing is he’s absolutely right. The Draconians are fantastically well presented aliens and it is all the most surprising (shocking even) that they were probably the peak of Old Series alien design. Compare them to the inept Sontarans of “Doctor Who in Spain” or the lumbering faced monsters in “Doctor Who and the Great Fire of London” and it is amazing. In many ways they are better than the designs in the new series because of their simultaneous complexity and simplicity. No computers required. It's surprising that they never returned to the show. Though had they come back in the 80s they would've looked shite, sounded different and probably been orange.

You can see what Pertwee meant

Planet of the Daleks

Ah now here we have an all time classic. In the build up to the thirtieth anniversary, the BBC cleared half an hour on Friday nights – on BBC1 – after Tomorrow’s World for Doctor Who. Making up the time were six 5 minute documentaries (featurettes in today’s DVD speak) which inexplicably haven’t made their way to the extras package. Planet of the Daleks was laid before the general public in a way that classic Doctor Who hadn’t been for several years and probably will never be again. And even if it was, they’d never show a story where one of the six episodes is in black and white. Planet of the Daleks was probably the best and worst story they could’ve chosen. I adore it which should indicate it isn’t exactly the show’s finest hour. The dialogue is arch, it never stops looking like a studio, the plot is rehashed nonsense and the whole thing is as camp as hell. And it has ejaculating plants. But it also has lots of Daleks (well, probably not lots of the Daleks), Pertwee at his absolute best and a real sense of action and adventure. It gripped us all for six weeks. Even Howard Stableford – presenter of Tomorrow’s World – got into it. One week he made a joking attempt to tune their in-studio gadget of the week into BBC1 so he could watch Doctor Who. Tomorrow’s World followed by Doctor Who. That’s the licence fee right there.

Some years later, UK Gold had a Bank Holiday Dalek fiesta. Word was that their licence to show Dalek stories was about to expire so they made a themed weekend of it and went Dalek crazy like it was 1965 all over again. That was a traumatic weekend for me – mother was going through the loft and had piles of stuff which she made me sit down and decide what to keep and what to throw away. That was my childhood. Things I’d managed perfectly well without for fifteen or twenty years but now had to consign to oblivion. I didn’t enjoy that. So I was pleased to find Planet of the Daleks waiting for me when it was all over and that it would be helping me as I tried to find homes for all the junk I simply had to keep. I think I broke my shoulder that day too. Not literally but I was in agony.

My video of Planet of the Daleks is Australian. It was released over here in a tin with Revelation of the Daleks but I didn’t buy it. It’s the only tin I never bought. I remember seeing it a few times but I was very off Doctor Who at the time. I still bought the Magazine but couldn’t be bothered reading it. I was probably in one of those gloomy phases and almost certainly unemployed. So by the time I wanted the tape it was impossible to get hold of. Eventually, the tin remaining stubbornly expensive on eBay, I got an Aussie version. Aside from a slightly patronising “British TV” trailer at the beginning it is just as a proper BBC tape would be. It's a very patronising trailer actually. It might even be worse than the ones on the American videos if you can believe it. We don't all drink tea and think Jennifer Saunders is hilarious, thank you very much. That's racist that is.

In 1993, Tomorrow's World gave the world its
first look at leveraging cross-brand synergy

The Green Death

I have a feeling this got a BBC2 airing on a Sunday lunchtime in early 1994. If it did, I have vague memories of watching it. If it didn’t then I have false memories of watching it. I know Pyramids of Mars got a spin in a similar time slot (more later). Thinking about it, it must've been on BBC2 at about that time because I don't remember anything even vageuly UKGoldish about this story. Say what you will about my memory (and I won't remember what you say so fill your boots) I do get dangerously infallible where UKGold is concerned.

Pertwee was definitely in for a year or two as the face of Doctor Who. I think he was the nostalgia guy who wasn't in lots of stories that were either (a) wank or (b) too scary for little ones. If they showed any repeats now - which they don't - they'd probably toss out a couple of Peter Davison stories. I think we can guess which ones. Anyway, the Programme Guide had been devoured by this point (not literally as the smell of paper tends to make me retch and the idea of eating it is not high on my to do list) so I knew which were the event stories – ones where people leave, people arrive, people return, monsters pop up and so on. I knew this was Jo Grant’s swansong but I hadn’t seen enough of Jo Grant to care all that much. It does rather diminish the power of a big ending when you've not seen much that's gone before. It's like that film where that woman dies at the end. If you didn't know who she was or who the other guy is then you're probably not going to find it absolutely heart wrenching. It did however predict Quorn which makes it groovy. It also predicted the reaction of meat eaters when they discover they've been eating Quorn. A sort of wobbly resentment where they're cross but they can't quite decide why.

My favourite thing in the world that isn't an iPhone
or a red-headed TV doctor from Bristol