The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee and his companion Jo arrive on a cargo ship in the future. A strange noise is heard and the crew of the spaceship believes the Tardis crew to be the Earth Empire’s former enemies, the Draconians. The two races are at peace, but it’s a very shaky peace and an outbreak of all out war seems likely. The cargo ships are being attacked on both sides and both sides blame each other. However when the ship the Doctor is on is attacked, it is only Ogrons, a race of unintelligent mercenaries who attack, but the human crew sees them as Draconians. Who is trying to trick the Empires? Why would they want to start a war? Is there a greater force at play? And how can the Doctor convince the humans to listen to him when they think he is a spy?
That’s basically the plot. Most of the story involves the Doctor moving from place to place trying and mostly failing to persuade people to believe his story. Now, from the sound of that, you’d think the story would be long and boring, but it’s really not. This is because of a lot of different reasons. The Cold War theme worked very well at the time, but it surprisingly still works now, but more in just a building tension way, rather than in any topic sense. It’s still great though, there’s an atmosphere of dread and depression over the whole story and it works very well. It helps that the sets and direction make the worlds and ships visited all seem rather dark and washed-out. You really feel like these are real Empire run, almost wartime conditions. The aliens the Draconians are fantastic creations, they seem like Japanese Samurai, and even have a feudal system. Their make-up looks amazing and their costumes are luxuriate and a deep green colour, to contrast with the functional and grey uniforms of the Earth. There are also some great locations in this story, the Earth command, a Moon prison, a number of very different looking ships, the Draconian Court, the barren wasteland of the Ogron world and even deep space. The whole look and feel of the story seems like it’s had a lot of detail into it and works very well.
The other main reason this story works is the actors. The supporting cast does a good job, but this is obviously a show run by three people. The Doctor, Jo and ‘spoilers’ the Master. All three of them do a fantastic job and have great chemistry between them. Jon Pertwee brings a touch of class and conviction to the role that’s seldom rivaled, Jo is one of the best companions, fun, pretty, but a bit of a ditz and of course Roger Delgado as the Master, well… No-one is as good as him. I like the other Masters, the actors all do a great job with the part, but, Roger Delgado just is the Master. He’s suave, smart, arrogant and the perfect foe for the Doctor.
There are only two problems with this story.
1. It does at some points drag, especially when there are whole episodes which are fun, but don’t really further the plot.
2. This is the last story with Roger Delgado, before he died in a tragic car accident. And although he’s brilliant here, he doesn’t get a proper send-off. The end of the story is a bit confusing and we never really see what happens to him, so there’s never really a final confrontation. It’s a shame, but it isn’t this story’s fault.
Overall this story works really well. There are a couple of problems which stop me giving it a 5/5, but I really enjoyed it. It’s very well made and the cast are great. Definitely one to watch.
4/5
This however was all build-up for the reveal of the Daleks in Part 6, which leads us directly on a cliffhanger into the next story Planet of the Daleks. So come back next week to see what I thought of that one.
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