Doctor Who: Colony in Space

.

Colony in Space is the fourth serial of Doctor Who Season 8, first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 10 April to 15 May 1971. It was written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Michael E. Briant. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, and Roger Delgado as the Master.

The Doctor and Jo are sent by the Time Lords to the planet Uxarieus, where a small human colony struggles with failing crops, staged “monster” attacks, and pressure from a ruthless mining company.

As tempers rise, the Master arrives posing as an Adjudicator, seeking an ancient alien weapon hidden in the ruined city. The Doctor tries to protect the colonists, expose the company’s tricks, and stop the Master from turning lost technology into a disaster, while Jo learns to balance bravery with caution on her first trip in space.

Episode 1

High on a scrubby alien plain, the Doctor’s TARDIS lands with a soft thump and Jo Grant tumbles out after him, blinking at two suns. They’ve been sent (though the Doctor won’t admit it was The Time Lords) to investigate a faint, peculiar energy trace. A struggling human colony huddles nearby: prefabs, irrigation lines, hopeful faces worn thin by crop failure and night-time attacks.

Leader Ashe tries to stay diplomatic; Winton, the firebrand, is less patient with strangers. Jo hears drums in the wind and glimpses silent “primitives” watching from rocks, then a larger, unseen predator smashes a storage hut and vanishes, leaving clawed panels and panic. The Doctor studies the soil and frowns: something is leeching vitality from the land. He follows a trail of machine-regular gouges that don’t match any animal.

In the council hut, the colonists argue whether to abandon the world or appeal to Earth. A girl produces a scrap of worked metal found in the hills, older than the colony and impossibly precise. That night, searchlights arc across the plain and a ship drops from the sky, sleek and hard-edged. Its badge reads IMC: Interplanetary Mining Corporation. Captain Dent steps out smiling and claims the entire planet by mining charter.

Episode 2

IMC gets to work with contracts and guns. Captain Dent speaks softly about lawful extraction while Morgan, his enforcer, makes the point plainer. Caldwell, an IMC surveyor with a conscience, walks the fields and looks ashamed. The colonists insist they’ve a legal claim; Dent shrugs and unveils seismic scans proving rich ore seams right under their crops.

Attacks intensify. The Doctor traces the “claw marks” to a mining robot fitted with hideous prosthetics and concludes IMC is staging monsters to scare settlers off. Before he can prove it, he and Jo are seized by primitives (small, solemn beings) who shepherd them down into a labyrinth of stone. Painted walls show a vanished, high civilisation. Deeper still, robed “Guardians” watch over humming doors that no one must open. The Doctor tries to communicate and is led to the surface with a single, warning gesture: leave the city alone.

Back at the colony, Winton loses patience and raids an IMC camp, earning brutal reprisals. Caldwell quietly slips Jo a map and says: “Pick your allies.” The Doctor presents his robot theory, but Dent laughs and promises to summon an Earth Adjudicator who will settle things “properly.” Jo notices Caldwell doesn’t laugh. Out on the plain, something ancient stirs.

Episode 3

Lines harden. IMC arrests Winton and parades him as proof of “colonist violence.” The Doctor hijacks a demonstration and exposes the faked monster: paint flakes from metal claws; a lens glints where an eye should be. Dent denies, then orders Morgan to bury the evidence and the witnesses. In the caves, Jo and a colonist stumble into a hidden chamber of living machinery and are chased out by hooded Guardians wielding energy staves.

Caldwell starts to break ranks, quietly helping the colonists evacuate women and children to a ridge while trying to keep Morgan from shooting anyone in the back. The Doctor argues for a formal appeal; Ashe, exhausted, sends the message. IMC accepts (confident they can win on paperwork) and tightens security. Night falls, generators hum, and the “primitives” beat slow drums beyond the floodlights.

At dawn, a sleek shuttle lands and a robed official steps out with a case full of seals and authority. He is the Adjudicator: and when the Doctor sees his face, his stomach drops. It’s the Master, immaculate and smiling, already reading the file. He proposes a site visit, a hearing, and a “reasonable” solution. Jo whispers, “It’s him, isn’t it?” The Doctor nods, jaw set. The game has changed.

Episode 4

The Master holds court with velvet menace. He tours the colony, praises their pluck, admires IMC’s “efficiency,” and produces clauses that put both sides in his debt. His provisional ruling gifts the mineral rights to IMC and offers to relocate the colonists “at government expense.” Smiles curdle. The Doctor challenges jurisdiction; the Master invites him to prove there’s more at stake than ore.

Together, an uneasy duet, they descend into the forbidden city. Guardians herd them toward a central hall where a vast organic engine throbs behind crystalline doors. The Master’s eyes gleam: he has been hunting this. He hints at stolen files and a weapon that could draw power from distant suns. Above ground, Dent moves to evict the colonists by force; Caldwell baulks and is relieved of duty. Jo slips between patrols with messages, rallying a stubborn core who refuse to leave their seedlings to dust.

In the city, the Guardians test the Doctor’s intentions with a vision of blazing skies and empty continents. He bows his head and pleads restraint. The Master offers partnership. The Guardians allow the intruders deeper on one condition: touch nothing without understanding. The Master smiles and reaches for the controls. The Doctor says, very quietly, “Don’t.”

Episode 5

The city opens like a flower and reveals its heart: a control sphere linked to an immense doomsday device that once cowed the cosmos. The Master forces the Doctor to help decode the interlocks, promising to spare the colony if they cooperate: and offering, again, to share rule of the galaxy. The Doctor stalls, teaching Jo enough to sabotage from the edge.

Each test pulse shakes the planet; crops wither in minutes; the colonists stare at fields dying before their eyes. Dent seizes the moment, storming the settlement and herding people toward a ship he has quietly booby-trapped. Caldwell snaps. He turns his gun on Morgan, spirits settlers to safety, and confesses to Ashe that IMC will never stop while the ore lies under their feet. In the depths, the Guardians surround the Master and the Doctor.

They show a final mural: their world fell when pride outweighed wisdom. The Master calls it myth and advances the sequence. The Doctor flinches at the power figures and glimpses the edge of catastrophe: a chain-reaction that will strip life from half a sector. He makes a choice. He will end the weapon: even if it buries the city and everything in it. Jo meets his eyes and nods once.

Episode 6

Everything breaks at once. IMC march the colonists toward the rigged ship; Ashe makes a quiet decision, boards alone, and lifts off as a decoy while the others scatter with Caldwell’s help. In the city, the Master completes the activation pattern and invites the Doctor to enter a command that will give them the stars.

The Doctor instead cross-links failsafes into a dead end, feeding the machine’s power back on itself. The Guardians chant; the floors tremble; mosaic ceilings crack. The Master realises the betrayal and lunges for the exit, escaping in the confusion. The Doctor drags Jo clear as the city collapses, the weapon sealed forever under tons of stone. On the surface, Caldwell confronts Dent with proof of sabotage and a colony armed enough to stand their ground; an incoming message from Earth (triggered by the Adjudicator’s irregularities) tips the scale.

IMC withdraws, sullen. Smoke hangs on the horizon where a ship fell like a star; the colonists bow their heads and then, stubbornly, look to their fields. Caldwell asks to stay. They hand him a spade. The Master vanishes into the sky with a promise of reckoning. The Doctor and Jo step into the TARDIS. Somewhere far away, old Time Lords nod: crisis averted, lesson learned: for now.

Themes

Often dismissed as the “quiet one” of Season 8, Colony in Space earns more credit than that label suggests. It swaps the lurid pop of The Claws of Axos for measured world-building and a clear moral spine, landing closer to the adult, political tone of Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Ambassadors of Death.

As drama it sits a notch below the folk-horror punch of The Dæmons, but its patient pacing, grounded stakes, and sharp critique of corporate power make it a confident mid-to-upper-tier outing for the Third Doctor: solid, thoughtful, and quietly expansive.

Placed between The Claws of Axos and The Dæmons, it meaningfully widens the UNIT era. The Time Lords’ covert mission echoes the exile first set in Spearhead from Space and foreshadows later interventions in The Mutants and the liberation promised in The Three Doctors. The Master’s “Adjudicator” gambit deepens the Season 8 chess game begun in Terror of the Autons and The Mind of Evil, and points toward grander scheming in Frontier in Space.

Its colonists-versus-corporation theme reverberates through the ecological reckoning of The Green Death and, further afield, later off-world dilemmas like The Curse of Peladon. By ending with a hard-won, imperfect peace, Colony in Space proves the era can leave Earth without losing its edge.

.

This is a chapter from Craig Hill’s book “Doctor Who – The Third Doctor”, chronicling every episode featuring the Third Doctor. It is available on Amazon.

.

To view the list of other Doctor Who serials, please click this link

Doctor Who Episode Guides for Sale on Amazon

Step aboard the TARDIS and journey across the universe with every incarnation of The Doctor in this series of unofficial Doctor Who episode companions.

This collection of twelve books explores every televised adventure of the Time Lord’s lives.

Each volume in the series delves into a different Doctor’s era, offering detailed episode guides, behind-the-scenes insights, character profiles, and story synopses.

Once you have clicked the link, choose which book you want, and then whether you want to buy the Kindle (eBook) or Paperback versions.

Previews are available before you buy.

Visit the Australian Book and Language Studio

www.abls.com.au