Doctor Who: Colony in Space [1971]

Date(s) of Broadcast: 10 April 1971 - 15 January 1971
Number of Episodes: 6
Episode Running Times: 25 mins
Format: colour
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: BBC
Producer: Barry Letts

SCRIPT
Script: Malcolm Hulke
Story Editor: Terrance Dicks

DIRECTION
Director: Michael Briant

PHOTOGRAPHY
Studio Lighting: Ralph Walton
Film Camera: Peter Hall

EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION
Film Editor: William Symon

MUSIC
Title Music: Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Title Music Arranged By: Delia Derbyshire
Incidental Music: Dudley Simpson

SOUND
Studio Sound: David Hughes, Tony Millier
Special Sounds: Brian Hodgson

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Jan Harrison
Costumes: Michael Burdle

VISUAL EFFECTS
Visual Effects: Bernard Wilkie

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Designer: Tim Gleeson

MISCELLANEOUS
Production Assistant: Nicholas John
Assistant Floor Manager: Graeme Harper

CAST
Jon Pertwee [The Doctor]
Katy Manning [Jo Grant]
Nicholas Pennell [David Winton]
John Ringham [Robert Ashe]
Helen Worth [Mary Ashe]
John Scott Martin [robot]
Roy Skelton [Wilfred Norton]
Nicholas Courtney [Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart]
Pat Gorman [primitive]
David Webb [Eric Leeson]
Sheila Grant [Jane Leeson]
John Line [Martin]
Mitzi Webster [Mrs Martin]
John Baker, Peter Forbes-Robertson, Graham Leaman [Time Lords]
Bernard Kay [Caldwell]
Morris Perry [Captain Dent]
Tony Caunter [First Officer Morgan]
John Herrington [Jim Holden]
Stanley Mcgreagn [Allen]
Pat Gorman [Long]
Roger Delgado [The Master]
Norman Atkyns [Guardian]
Roy Heymann [alien priest]
John Tordoff [Alec Leeson]
Pat Gorman [colonist]
Stewart Anderson, Derek Chafer, Les Clarke, Emmet Henessy, John Mcgrath, Alan Peters, Greg Powell [primitives - uncredited]
Stanley Mason, Antonia Moss [alien priests - uncredited]
Bob Blaine, Monique Briant, John Caeser, Les Conrad, Ian Elliott, Charles Finch, Brian Gilmar, Ken Halliwell, Clay Hunter, Jay Mcgrath, Alan Peters, Charles Pickess [colonists - uncredited]
Bob Blaine, Les Clarke, Brian Gilmar, Brian Justice, Keith Simon, Mike Stephens, Stewart Stephens, Terry Walsh [IMC guards - uncredited]
Lw Clark, Max Diamond, Billy Horrigan, Mike Horsburgh, Alf Joint, Valentino Musetti, Jay Neill, Dinny Powell, Barry Stephens, Walter Turner, Terry Walsh [extras - uncredited]

The Time Lords give The Doctor use of his TARDIS but only to retrieve the secrets of a Doomsday Weapon stolen by the Master and sent to a desolate planet in the future. There The Doctor is embroiled in a dispute between Colonists and Miners over land ownership. When The Master arrives the nature of The Doomsday Weapon is revealed.

Terrance Dicks' axiom that by being set on Earth gave him only two story variants meant that even at this early stage they sent The Doctor into space. They shouldn't have bothered. By far the worst of the season with a slim, over-familiar story that aims for worthy and tacks the Master on the end for some action. Its political points are simplistic and, looked back on with hindsight, laughable. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.

UK
Television Distributor: BBC
Video Distributor: BBC Video

1971
April
10: UK - Episode One first television broadcast [on BBC1]
17: UK - Episode One first television broadcast [on BBC1]
24: UK - Episode One first television broadcast [on BBC1]

May
1: UK - Episode One first television broadcast [on BBC1]
8: UK - Episode One first television broadcast [on BBC1]
15: UK - Episode One first television broadcast [on BBC1]

BOOKS

Doctor Who: The Television Companion pp.208-211
credits, synopsis, review [by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker]

OTHER SOURCES

screen
credits

KEYWORDS

aliens, mining, space travel, superweapons, time travel

Last Updated: 21 April, 2008