Frontios | Sophisticated Idiots

This is what a filler story looks like circa the Davison era.

During Tom Baker’s years we’d get the mad fun of Meglos or The Creature from the Pit. These days we have to put up with this dross.

There’s nothing to actively dislike about Frontios. But when a story is best remembered for a hat stand, it’s safe to say you’re not onto a winner.

This is a very gentle story, in the guise of Castrovalva but with even lower stakes. The producers daren’t risk anything more exciting than lots of hiding behind plastic rocks and the FX guys dabbling with purple filters.

For the record, Frontios is not offensive in the slightest.

But it is dull. Interminably dull.

Imagine, if you will, the ploddiest bits of Colony in Space, embellished with the proto slug baddies from The Twin Dilemma.

This is not the only tragic aspect of Frontios. What kicks us in the knackers even more heartily is that there’s a good story in here. Only you need to dig down into carnivorous earth in search of it.

To demonstrate, we give to you:

A planet that eats its inhabitants is a gripping premise. It’s even better when those inhabitants are the last of the humans who managed to flee a dying Earth.

Throw in the planet somehow ripping apart the TARDIS, stranding the Doctor and his companions at the edge of the universe, and you’ve got the makings of a belter.

Sadly, Frontios is itself eaten alive by the rote formula of the era. Which dictates that, naturally, we’re obligated to shoehorn in some crap aliens, a half-arsed plan for interplanetary domination, and oodles of Blake’s 7 cosplay.

The result is that the strongest aspects of the script are underdeveloped and confused. Speaking of the Fifth Doctor...

The blond bombshell is well and truly on his lap of honour by now, having nailed his place in Who history by occupying the hot seat at the time of the 20th anniversary.

That burden released, he’s chillaxed a bit and actually seems to be – whisper it – enjoying himself a smidge on his farewell tour.

Frontios gives him licence to behave in a manner that has been hitherto unthinkable: he gets away with being rude (and a little sexist) to Tegan, wrestles a giant inflatable ball and outsmarts a woodlouse-cum-slug-cum-shrimp creature.

On the subject of behaving out of character, we’re not quite sure what happens with Turlough here.

He goes mad for a while with scant explanation and then slips back into it every now and again. We presume it’s a valiant attempt at giving him some interesting backstory but it’s carelessly rushed and poorly explained.

Which we guess is at least in keeping with the rest of the story.

Though we can’t help but feel there’s no excuse for rushing a story when it contains so little story in the first place.

Entire scenes take place without anyone bothering to explain them.

A Bad Local attacks Mrs 80s Hair from the Happiness Patrol, who’s immediately saved by Good Locals. This was totally out of the blue when you’d kinda expect an uprising to have been seeded throughout the plot. Though there’s a chance we missed it while we were yawning.

Ditto when the lumbering hobo with limited acting chops is banished from the colony and immediately beaten on by the feral yobs.

Or when tractor beams just appear every now and again to snatch people in a purple haze. Examples of confused storytelling come thick and fast.

Equally, the most dramatic aspect of this story – the destruction of the TARDIS – is tossed away like a teenager’s disposable vape.

There’s naff-all explanation for why it’s scattered among the cave system (though a damn striking image it makes) or how it’s conveniently re-fixed by the telepathic skills of the slug.

In The Mind Robber, the TARDIS being torn apart was a true jaw-dropping `holy crap` moment.

Here, what should be the most seismic loss for the Doctor in centuries is barely mentioned, so keen are we to get the slug monsters shuffling onto set.

We said there’s nothing hateful on show here, and we meant it. But we wouldn’t be doing the job that literally nobody asked us to do if we didn’t make certain observations:

The colonists being dragged through the ground is well realised (and serves as a rehearsal for the far more memorable scene in the Ultimate Foe).
The sight of a character turned into a robot slave is beautifully macabre but we feel duty-bound to let producers know that the shock value is diminished if you need to have another character explain to the audience who the dude is.
The colonists are wearing the pyjamas we see every colony wearing in this era.
The Pan Pipes Track 1 stuck on repeat gives us a genuine headache.

Spare a thought, though, for Tegan.

She leaves in the next story and here is relegated to running about in a cave while sporting heels and a tight leather mini skirt, which results in poor Janet flashing her knickers so often we can’t help but wonder if she’s been taking advice from Katy Manning on how to earn more fanmail/OnlyFans clicks.

More fundamentally, there’s an undeniable sense that none of this TARDIS team trusts each other. When the Doc is pretend-betraying Tegan you can tell she’s not sure if he’s being serious.

Everyone’s uber wary of Turlough anyway, who’s a slimy so-and-so. And Tegan looks ready to punch her male companions at any moment.

In what we presume is a totally uncontroversial statement, there’s a good shout for this being the worst TARDIS crew in the classic series.

If not this lot, then the nadir was Davison’s original merry band when Tegan was joined by Nyssa and Adric. Either way you land on this debate, it’s not a ringing endorsement for the state of the show at this time.

Oh, dear old hindsight, if only the production team could have another stab at Frontios.

There’s such unrealised potential and this wildly contrasting season (bookended – gulp – by the horrors of Warriors of the Deep and The Twin Dilemma) could really have benefited from this serial not being tepid.

As it is, the best thing about Frontios is its closing scene, when we’re teased of greater things to come as the TARDIS is dragged towards something sinister.

Which we know is thankfully propelling us towards the Daleks’ first appearance of the 80s.