Frontios
Doctor Who serial
Frontios is the third serial of the 21st season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts on BBC1 from 26 January to 3 February 1984.
Set in the far future, the serial involves the alien Gravis (John Gillett) enslaving the last surviving humans to mine the planet for use as a spaceship for the Gravis.
Plot
The TARDIS lands in the far future, on the planet Frontios. An unknown enemy is attacking the planet with meteor showers and is disappearing several prominent colonists, including the colony's leader, Captain Revere. Revere's son, Plantagenet, becomes leader of the colony.
The Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough emerge in the middle of the bombardment and decide to help the colonists. Following a second bombardment, the TARDIS is seemingly destroyed. Plantagenet orders the execution of the Doctor, but Turlough intercedes. Plantagenet tries to attack the Doctor but suffers a heart attack. The Doctor saves his life but Plantagenet is dragged into the ground.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Frontios” is doctor Who serial. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Frontios, Doctor and serial, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5506077. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frontios” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.