Frontier in Space

Cor blimey they don't half drag this out.

The main plot: Draconians and Earthmen are on the verge of WAR. Neither side trusts each other & keep attacking the other's spaceships...or do they? The Doctor and Jo stumble into this, realize that the true villains are Ogrons and that someone, somewhere is trying to stir up war between the two Empires. Who could it be?

The rest of the story is told in a series of escapes. The Doctor and Jo are repeatedly captured, escaped, interrogated (by people who don't believe them), re-captured and escape either alone or together. They are captured by the Earth government, The Draconians, The Ogrons, The Master and finally, in a whacking great cliffhanger, by the Daleks. It's like a never-ending repeat.

This is the Master's last story for some time because poor old Roger Delgado is killed in a car crash whilst making a film in Turkey. Whilst he's up to his usual standards his departure in the final minutes of episode six is so badly directed and chaotic that he just...disappears. A sadly downbeat departure for an actor whose Master is - for me - the definitive performance. You can keep your Ainleys, Pratts, and Simms. I'll take Delgado (with a side order of Michelle Gomez).

There's not much else I can say.

The Draconians are well-designed and have a culture of their own*, which makes a change. Their proud, honor-bound and sexist allowing Doctor Who to throw in one of it's half-arsed 'women's lib' comments, which isn't really convincing.

Michael Hawkin's plays General Williams as a man with a spoon shoved up his arse. Stiff, closed-minded and warmongering. Until, in a bizarre instantaneous turnaround, he is told by the Draconian Prince that he killed a load of unarmed Draconians to start the last Earth-Draconian War and he decides that he has wronged everyone. It doesn't feel right. This man, who questioned everything as a Draconian scheme, accepts the Draconian Prince's account without a quibble?

Anyway, I can't be arsed to say much else. It's a story. It passes the time and really it's just halfway through a twelve-part epic that concludes with Planet of the Daleks but it is so padded as to be worthy of a cell of its own.

Will Planet of the Daleks be better?

*Or sort of borrowed from Japan.