24 FEBRUARY – 31 MARCH

Assisted by the Ogrons, someone is using “hypno-sound” to make space pilots see things they haven’t – in an effort to spark an apocalyptic war.

By ALAN BARNES

Two Tribes

Prior to his premature death in 1979, writer Malcom Hulke (right) admitted that Frontier in Space was “a very political idea really” – with a cold war between the future empires of Earth and Draconia in danger of turning hot. “The two sides as far as I was concerned were the Soviet Union and America and somebody else trying to tickle ’em up and get them at war with each other when they were quite capable of living at peace.” The name of the reptilian Draconians wasn’t derived from ‘dragons’ but from classical history – after a term used to describe the notoriously harsh penal code of Draco, a 7th-century BC Athenian legislator. Director Paul Bernard, a former designer, first sketched out the Draconians’ look –among other aspects. “I decided the manner in which they spoke – that they would have a lizard-like hiss,” he told the fanzine DWB in 1993, “and that they’d have the scales, and had to look sharp and intellectual…” The creatures’ half-masks were subsequently realised by sculptor John Friedlander. Jon Pertwee later professed himself “extremely pleased with the Draconians, who were the most beautiful pieces of work…”