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Serial 6N: Frontios
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| Plot |
| Production |
The Wanderers was formally commissioned on November 26th, around which time its title changed to Frontios. (The Frontios, Frontious and Frotious all appear on BBC documentation, but these are all likely typos.) One imaginative concept devised by Bidmead did not make it past the scripting process: originally, the Gravis was to be accompanied by a translator built out of colonist body parts. However, director Ron Jones -- making his first Doctor Who serial since Arc Of Infinity a year earlier -- objected, believing that it would limit his selection of shots, and would require considerable effort to achieve with little substantive gain.
One of Jones' key guest performers for Frontios was veteran actor Peter Arne, who had appeared in more than fifty feature films, ranging from Return Of The Pink Panther to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Arne was to play Mr Range, and arrived on August 2nd, 1983, for his scheduled costume fitting. Later that day, however, Arne was murdered in his home. Jones was forced to hastily recast the role, hiring William Lucas to replace Arne. Arne's death was not the only tragedy to befall Frontios. About a month earlier, designer Barrie Dobbins had committed suicide after accomplishing much of the preparatory work for the serial. Dobbins' assistant, David Buckingham, was asked to finish Frontios in his place.
Much as they had on Warriors Of The Deep earlier in the season, costume woes plagued Frontios. In Bidmead's original conception of the Tractators, they were able to curl up into a ball, and would kill their victims by encircling and smothering them. Jones even hired dancers and actors of similar skill to play the monsters. Unfortunately, costume designer Anushia Nieradzik's completed outfits were very constraining and inflexible, forcing Jones to abandon these plans.
Early on, it had been decided that Frontios would be entirely studio-based, to save money for the more expensive serials to follow (one being Saward's own action-packed Dalek serial, the other Doctor Who's third international shoot, this time in Spain). Jones was therefore allocated two three-day sessions, the first beginning on Wednesday, August 24th and the second a fortnight later from September 7th. Just prior to this, Nathan-Turner held a press conference on August 19th, unveiling the actor who would replace Peter Davison as the Doctor, Colin Baker, who was joined by Nicola Bryant, cast as new companion Peri Brown. Both Baker and Bryant would make their first appearances in the latter half of Season Twenty-One.
Recording for Serial 6N proceeded smoothly except when it came to the excavation machine. Bidmead had envisaged this as being entirely fabricated out of human remains, much like his unused translation machine. This concept had already been scaled back to make it less gruesome, but Jones was nonetheless unhappy with visual effects designer Dave Havard's creation, and shot around it as much as possible. Saward rewrote the serial's final scene, which provided a cliffhanger into the next serial, Resurrection Of The Daleks (the revised version of his The Return, originally planned as the Season Twenty finale until strike action at the BBC forced its postponement). To this end, he essentially reused the original climax to The King's Demons, the serial which was to precede The Return.
Episode one of Frontios badly overran, forcing Jones to make a number of trims. Much of this involved Cockerill and explored his deepening sense of rebellion, such as by allowing Tegan, Turlough and Norna to skulk about the colony without alerting Brazen. Another cut scene saw Tegan and Turlough return to the TARDIS to find it surrounded by curious colonists; Turlough later refers to this in a segment retained for broadcast when he remarks that they've lost their "news value". The editing of part three was such that the explanation for the Gravis' knowledge about the Doctor -- that the Doctor and Tegan's voices echoed through the Tractators' tunnels -- was lost.
Frontios was Bidmead's last televised Doctor Who work. On March 6th, 1984, Saward wrote Bidmead and asked him if he would be interested in writing a new story teaming the Tractators with the Master; nothing came of this idea. Later that year, Bidmead was commissioned to write In The Hollows Of Time, which would likely have been included in the original version of Season Twenty-Three. When all those stories were scrapped in the wake of Doctor Who's eighteen-month hiatus in 1985 and 1986, Bidmead was asked to pen a story for the new Season Twenty-Three entitled The Last Adventure (later called Pinacotheca). Saward was unhappy with Bidmead's submission, however, and it was abandoned in early 1986. Since then, Bidmead has continued to work as a freelance writer, with an emphasis on articles for computer and technology-related journals.
| Details |
| Episode | Date | Time | Duration | Viewers | Audience App. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 26th January 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'39" | 8.0m (58th) | 66% |
| 2 | 27th January 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'35" | 5.8m (115th) | 69% |
| 3 | 2nd February 1984 | 6.40pm | 24'30" | 7.8m (59th) | 65% |
| 4 | 3rd February 1984 | 6.42pm | 24'26" | 5.6m (112th) | 65% |
| Producer | John Nathan-Turner |
| Script Editor | Eric Saward |
| Writer | Christopher H Bidmead |
| Director | Ron Jones |
| Designer | David Buckingham |
| Costume | Anushia Nieradzik |
| Incidental Music | Paddy Kingsland |
Principal Guest Cast: Lesley Dunlop (Norna), John Gillett (Gravis), Peter Gilmore (Brazen), William Lucas (Range), Maurice O'Connell (Cockerill), Jeff Rawle (Plantagenet).
Novelisation: Frontios by Christopher H Bidmead (book 91), September 1984; cover by Andrew Skilleter.
Video Release: The Awakening/Frontios, episodic format, March 1997; two tapes; PAL (BBC Video cat.# 6120) and NTSC (Warners cat.# 1080) formats available; cover by Colin Howard.
Rankings: 56th (68.97%, Doctor Who Dynamic Rankings website, 22nd June 1999); 61st (70.99%, DWM 1997 Annual Survey).
| Sources |
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