The children of the night

[I wrote this with about 0 brain something like 2 months ago. But I was feeling like posting one of my drafts and I just realised belatedly that Chris Bidmead had died in August. Or possibly just found out and was shocked for a second time, who knows, it's terrible how much I forget. But I do love his DW era very much and while he lived to a good age, I am still sorry to hear it - he brought so much to the show & was a rare DW script editor who was genuinely interested in SFF* as a genre, which showed in a whole bunch of scripts commissioned by him, which are like any of the other eras - even if a whole set of them then had the misfortunate to be made by the next script editor who Did Not Get Them at all. This serial is actually one he wrote later for his successor's rather more action/dark orientated era (and said successor, Eric Saward, Did Not Get this one either), but - I had prepared it earlier! And also: I love Frontios!]


I haven't much brain so I thought for this edition of the Unofficial Fandom 50 I would once again burble about a favourite classic Who serial, this time...

Frontios

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What is it?

It is a four part Fifth Doctor serial (4x 25 mins; c. 1hr 25 minutes in total) from Season 21 (1984). Yes, it has Giant Woodlice.

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Turlough (Mark Strickson) accidentally stray into the far future - so far that the Time Lords are forbidden to go there. They arrive at a tiny, struggling colony of survivors from Earth, who are under bombardment from an unknown enemy from space - except there's also something beneath them: the earth on Frontios is hungry...


Sometimes, as a DW fan, you love the unloved serial; sometimes you adore the fan favourite - and sometimes you just love a decent one more than you can properly justify or exactly explain, but we've all been there. I have a few of these, and Frontios is one, although honestly I think it belongs in the circle just outside of the all time greats personally, which is why I'm going to babble about it. (I mean, I realise, like everything, it does depend on a) taste and b) how people feel about lumbering giant woodlice).

(It's also the only DW serial where a member of the main guest cast had to be replaced at the last minute because the original actor, Peter Arne, had been murdered. This has no bearing on anything, other than the replacement being the excellent William Lucas, but I felt the need to mention it anyway). (All my DW classic faves do not involve someone dying or nearly dying irl, I promise).




What do I love about it?

It's about confronting buried/unspoken terrors & what you can do with gravity in SFF if you have some giant woodlice to hand, plus it's one of those forsaken, almost Shakespearean colonies classic Who loves to do (the youthful leader with his fragile hold on it is even called Plantagenet) and I am a sucker for such things. The guest cast is great - William Lucas, Lesley Dunlop, Peter Gilmore & Jeff Rawle, pre-Drop the Dead Donkey.

Penned by Five's original script editor, Chris Bidmead, Peter Davison shines here, and gets to pull out his brainy specs for the first time since Bidmead left; Tegan and Turlough are both really well used, with Turlough's buried race trauma demonstrating that having alien companions as well as earthlings on the TARDIS can lead to interesting options for storytelling.

It's dark and weird, fascinating and quotable, with excellent team!TARDIS banter. The hatstand gets a moment of glory. The TARDIS is disintegrated. The Doctor saves Tegan's life by being really insulting to her. "Frontios buries its own dead."

Basically, I love weird colonies, I love strange ideas, I love this TARDIS team, I love the hatstand, I'm not at all put off by giant woodlice and: "Just tell them I came and went like a summer cloud." (Oh, Five. <3)


* Classic Who script editors (and producers) were assigned to the show by the BBC and did not always have a huge amount of choice about being offered the post and then being removed from it - it was just how the BBC worked at the time.