Doctor Who: How Frontier in Space has one of the best cliffhangers ever (that’s not a cliffhanger)
By James Aggas
Frontier in Space has an amazing moment that would have been one of the best cliffhangers in Doctor Who ever…if it had been a cliffhanger at all, that is.
You ever watch a Doctor Who story, reach an amazing moment, and ask yourself, “Why on Earth wasn’t that a cliffhanger? It’s too perfect not to be a cliffhanger!” This doesn’t often happen, but there is one moment from Frontier in Space that’s a perfect example of this.
For most of the Third Doctor story, the Doctor and Jo have been trying to prevent a war between the human race and the Draconians. They have a lot of difficulty along the way, especially when they find out that their old enemy, the Master, has been deliberately trying to provoke the war, using Ogrons and carefully planned attacks to increase tensions between the two empires.
At one point in the story, on the Ogron homeworld, (which looks suspiciously like a quarry,) the Master greets the Doctor. He says that he’s “brought some old friends along” with him. These “friends” slowly come into shot…and that’s when the Doctor finds out who the Master has allied himself with this time: Daleks!
The Master and the Daleks, working together! It’s a perfect moment, and would be an absolutely amazing cliffhanger…if it had been used as one. But surprisingly, that didn’t happen.
Frontier in Space was, until The Magician’s Apprentice over four decades later, the only time we saw the Master and the Daleks on screen together.
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
A missed opportunity?
Instead, the moment doesn’t occur until over half way through the serial’s final episode. That’s actually really shocking, especially as we hadn’t really seen a team up between villains like this before. Maybe with the one exception of the Monk and the Daleks in The Daleks’ Master Plan. But that didn’t feel as big as Frontier‘s moment.
It’s a real shame it hadn’t been used as the cliffhanger for part five of the story. It’s easy to imagine fans talking non-stop, eager to see what the Daleks and the Master had planned together. It’s an excellent moment that feels big.
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And of course, it’s disappointing that these two forces of evil didn’t share a whole episode together. Especially since this was, until The Magician’s Apprentice in 2015, the only time we saw the Master and the Daleks together on-screen in the same story. (The Five Doctors almost counts, as it does feature both enemies, but they don’t meet each other in that story.)
I can see why the Daleks’ appearance was minimal, especially since Frontier lead directly into the next story, Planet of the Daleks.
Still, them showing up as a surprise alongside the Master could have given us one of the best cliffhangers in Doctor Who history. While what we got was awesome, and Frontier is a very strong story overall, I can’t help but feel that they missed an opportunity there for a golden cliffhanger.
Next. Why Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is hugely underrated. dark
Do you agree that this moment in Frontier in Space could have worked as an excellent cliffhanger moment? Are there other moments in Doctor Who that weren’t cliffhangers, but you wish they had been? Let us know in the comments below.