To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.
Colony in Space originally aired in 1971.
Are you some kind of scientist?
I’m every kind of scientist.
– Caldwell and the Doctor
Colony in Space is an interesting story for many reasons. For one thing, it’s the first colour adventure to travel to another world. It was the first time since Jon Pertwee took over the title role that the character had been allowed to leave the surroundings of modern-day Earth. Even if he did land in a quarry. Colony in Space demonstrated the possibilities to tell futuristic and extraterrestrial stories in the new and remodelled version of Doctor Who, and the show began to slowly venture further and further afield over the next few years, with the Doctor finally regaining control of his TARDIS in The Three Doctors a little under two years later.
However, Colony in Space is also interesting because it is a script from Malcolm Hulke, who has really become one of the more Doctor Who script writers more inclined to pepper his scripts with political and moral philosophy. Colony in Space is an interesting exploration of those themes, even if it does run a little bit long in places. (That said, Hulke is one of the better writers of the six-part format in the show’s history.)
Go on, try to fight the urge to pronounce the episode title like “colony… IN SPACE!”
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