Colony in Space is the fourth story of season eight of Doctor Who, and was first broadcast in 1971. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. It is the second of the Pertwee Six-Parters.
It starts with a scene of three Time Lords telling each other things they already know, where they mention the Master and a "doomsday weapon." Rather than be exposition for our benefit, this is pure foreshadowing of things that will show up later in the story.
The camera dissolves to a close-up of the Doctor's TARDIS dematerialisation circuit. The Doctor is in his laboratory with Jo, where the Brigadier comes in and talks about looking for the Master. The Doctor knows that UNIT can't find the Master without his help, and after the Brigadier has gone he says
"Well, look what happened last time. The man they arrested turned out to be the Spanish ambassador."
This is almost certainly a reference to Roger Delgado's previous role as a recurring antagonist in the old TV series Sir Francis Drake, where he did indeed play the Spanish ambassador. If the Doctor gets the TARDIS operational again, perhaps UNIT can pop back in time to 1588 and arrest him?
The Doctor thinks he has got the TARDIS operational again, and he invites Jo inside for the first time, where she says
"I don't believe it! It's bigger inside than out!"
If Katy Manning had wanted the job of playing Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave she could have sent this bit in as her audition tape.
As soon as the Doctor plugs in his dematerialisation circuit, the TARDIS starts to dematerialise - well, that is what it's for, after all. The Doctor tells Jo he didn't do it and concludes
"Something's operating it by remote control. The Time Lords!"
Outside in the lab, the Brigadier comes in and sees the TARDIS disappear. He says
"Doctor, come back at once!"
Lol.
The Doctor recognises their destination as "the planet Uxarieus." On Uxarieus, there is a robot doing robot things. When it leaves the shot, the TARDIS appears. The Doctor opens the doors and Jo looks out, but she doesn't have the reaction you might expect:
"That's an alien world out there, Jo. Think of it."
"I don't want to think of it. I want to go back to Earth."
"Look, do you realize how long I've been confined to one planet?"
"All that talk of yours about travelling in time and space, it was true?"
"Well, of course it was true. Before I was stranded on Earth, I spent all my time exploring new worlds and seeking the wonders of the universe."
"But you don't know what's out there."
"Then let's find out. Don't you want to set foot in another world?"
"Well yes, I do, but..."
"Good, come on. We'll just take a quick look around, and then I'll try and get you back to Earth. Alright?"
"Alright."
Jo takes quite a bit more convincing than most Companions do, and it is because she is supposed to be an audience surrogate (a cat would surely have been a better choice for this but never mind), and this is the first time the Doctor has been to a world that isn't Earth since The War Games, all the way back in black and white, so by persuading Jo the Doctor is also persuading the audience to come along with him to explore a strange new world, to seek out new life and new civilisations, and boldly go where no cat has gone before.
When the Doctor and Jo leave the TARDIS together, a green alien with a spear sees them go while remaining unseen by them. He comes back later with his alien friends to steal the TARDIS.
The Doctor and Jo find the tracks of the robot we saw earlier, and then get captured by a manny with a gun. There is a hard cut to some mannys talking about having seen a "giant lizard" and some other mannys not believing them. The Doctor and Jo are brought in and are suspected of W-wording for a mining company, which the Doctor denies as vigorously as any cat would. The Doctor sees they have charts on the wall that show the mannys do not have enough noms.
Two mannys hear something raring outside their set, and when they go outside they see a giant CSO monster!
They telephone for help before something we don't see comes in and kills them. The Doctor and his new friend Ashe (John "Tlotoxl" Ringham) hear about the telephone call and rush off to help. Jo asks her new friend Mary about the monsters, and Mary replies
"There's no animal life, just a few birds and insects."
Er...
The Doctor investigates the mannys' room and sees claw marks. One of the other mannys helping says he saw the monster and
"It must have been at least 20 feet high!"
That's a long lizard! The Doctor shows how he is the clever one when he asks
"Then will you kindly tell me how a creature 20 feet high came through that door?"
The surviving mannys have a big argument about whether they should go back to Earth or not. The Doctor supports Ashe in saying they should stay. It is not clear why the Doctor picks a side here, except that it demonstrates to us which side is right by virtue of it being the side the Doctor has chosen.
Just when the argument is over and the wavering mannys have been persuaded to stay (like they're a colony of John Nathan-Turners), an injured manny comes in and tells them that the "giant lizards" have wiped out another colony on the same planet. This is Norton, played by Roy "Zippy" Skelton.
The Doctor goes back to the room for more investigating, until a robot comes in with great big claws on it. The crash-zoom-to-face cliffhanger had obviously not been perfected yet, since the camera cuts to the Doctor reacting to the robot's appearance, then back to show the robot and the Doctor falling over, and then finally to a close-up of the Doctor's face. But even then, instead of looking past the camera with a steely glare, as would later be perfected by Colin Baker (not too surprising, given how many goes at it he had), Jon Pertwee continues to look around frantically, as if he was not sure which camera was on him.
A more realistic reaction, perhaps, but it makes the ending seem confused rather than dramatic.
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