Colony in Space

058 – Colony in Space
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor takes Jo on her first TARDIS journey
Cast
Doctor Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor)
Companion Katy Manning (Jo Grant)
Others Nicholas Courtney — Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart Roger Delgado — The Master Graham Leaman, Peter Forbes-Robertson, John Baker — Time Lords John Ringham — Ashe Helen Worth — Mary Ashe David Webb — Leeson Sheila Grant — Jane Leeson John Tordoff — Alec Leeson Nicholas Pennell — Winton John Line — Martin Mitzi Webster — Mrs Martin Roy Skelton — Norton Morris Perry — Captain Dent Bernard Kay — Caldwell John Herrington — Holden Tony Caunter — Morgan Stanley McGeagh — Allen Pat Gorman — Long/Primitive/Voice John Scott Martin — Robot Roy Heymann — Alien Priest Norman Atkyns — The Guardian
Production
Directed by	Michael E. Briant
Written by	Malcolm Hulke
Script editor	Terrance Dicks
Produced by	Barry Letts
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Dudley Simpson
Production code	HHH
Series	Season 8
Length	6 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast	10 April–15 May 1971
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Claws of Axos The Dæmons

Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon

Author	Malcolm Hulke
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	23
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	April 1974
ISBN

Colony in Space is the fourth serial of the eighth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 6 weekly parts from 10 April to 15 May 1971.

Three Time Lords meet at an observatory and discuss the theft of confidential files relating to "the Doomsday Weapon." They begrudgingly realise that only one man can help them so the Doctor, accidentally accompanied by Jo Grant, is temporarily released from his exile and sent in the TARDIS to the desert planet of Uxarieus in the year 2472. There he finds an outpost of human colonists living as farmers. The colony is not a success — the land seems unusually poor and recently they are being besieged by representatives of rapacious mining corporations, and more recently, ferocious reptiles. The colony's governor, Robert Ashe, makes them welcome, and explains the colonists fled a year ago to the planet to escape the overcrowding and pollution on Earth.

Two colonists die in a reptile attack that night, and the next morning a man named Norton arrives at the settlement, claiming that he is from another colony that was wiped out by the reptiles. While the Doctor is investigating the dome of the dead colonists he is surprised by a mining robot controlled by Caldwell, a mineralogist for the IMC. Caldwell invites the Doctor to talk to his bosses and hear their side of the story. His superior, Dent, is a ruthless mining engineer, who has been using the mining robot to scare and now kill the colonists - something, which Caldwell finds repellent. Dent knows the planet is rich in rare minerals and wants it for IMC and his greedy troops agree that this should be done at any cost.

The original inhabitants of the planet, known to the colonists as "primitives", have a truce with the colonists - but this is tested when Norton kills the colony's scientist and blames it on a primitive, whom he insists are hostile. Later, Norton is seen communicating with Captain Dent, implying that he is in fact a spy sent from IMC to further disrupt the colonists and not the sole survivor of a similar colony as he claimed. The Doctor meanwhile returns to the central dome of the colonists, having evaded an IMC attempt to kill him, and explains to Ashe that the miners are behind the deaths. An Adjudicator from Earth is sent for to deal with the complex claims over the planet but when he arrives it turns out to be the Master. Impersonating the Adjudicator, he rules that the mining company's claim to the planet is stronger.