| COLONY IN SPACE by Malcolm Hulke |
| Story 58 Synopsis: Believing he has his TARDIS working again, the Doctor invites Jo for a spin. They arrive on Uxarieus, in 2472. A new colony of people from Earth are struggling, as their crops wither and die. Also, a mining company, IMC, have arrived to strip-mine the planet for duralinium, a useful metal. They attack the colonists, and try to scare them off. The Doctor realises IMC are up to no good. An Adjudicator is sent for, but he is in fact the Master, and he backs IMC. Jo is tied to a bomb, but escapes. She is taken by Primitives, natives of the planet. The Doctor goes to look for her. He rescues her, meeting a Guardian, who allows them to leave. Back at the IMC base, the colonists try to usurp IMC, but fail. The Master uses Jo as a hostage, and takes the Doctor back to the Primitve City. The Guardian guards a Doomsday Weapon, with which the Master wants to hold everywhere to ransom. He offers the Doctor an equal share, but the Doctor refuses, and talks the Guardian into destroying the Weapon. IMC are finally toppled by the colonists, who are allowed to settle. The Master escapes. |
| Review:- After 7 tales on Earth, this incarnation of the Doctor finally managed to return to space travel, in a relatively straightforward tale of greed versus good. Malcolm Hulke's stories are notable for the approach he takes to "big business", and here we get a narrative setting up a real mob of avaricious gits. IMC may only be doing their jobs, but they are clad to represent the most far-out anti-people policies that could be created. The satire, is that IMC's values are not too far removed from many companies in 1971 (or indeed, ever since). In a sense, IMC are almost pantomimic, in that by being the most extreme example of this sort of company (and Dent is a vile figurehead), almost all their lines are over-emphatically evil. One can't help but side with the colonists, especially when IMC go out of their way to be extra-bad. The Master is rather a red herring, or a needless sub-plot, as the drama twists to his pursuit of the Doomsday Weapon, and the colonists v IMC story fades into the background. It's a shame that the story pans out this way, as if a hybrid of two half-ideas that doesn't quite meld. The Doctor and Jo are pretty thin here, the latter having little to do. The main characters are Dent, leader of the IMC team, and Ashe, leader of the colonists. Such are two diameterically opposed characters, and make for good leaders of their 'side'. That Dent winds up demoted, and Ashe having made an act of self-sacrifice, only serves as testament to their strength of characterisation. The Primitives don't really get explained, and are consequently not all that exciting. Let alone the Doomsday Weapon, and its tiresome Guardian. It's a half-decent story, but also a bit hit-and-miss. |
| Disclaimer: I've read the book, and seen the video. |