Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet
There are some Doctor Who stories that have been elevated to legend status. It's usually those stories that the fans have less access to than others, whether it be due to the fact the story is missing from the BBC Archives or that the story has not yet been written down in a novelized form.
The Pirate Planet is one of those stories.
Written by the now legendary Douglas Adams, this is a story that has languished in fans' memories for years. Adams has shown little or no interest in revisiting this story to novelize it and unfortunately, the publishers can't come up with the correct sum to give the writing duties to another.
And while it was available in the basic Who syndication package, a lot of fans didn't have access to it for years. That is, until the advent of commerical released Who stories on video.
And so, we can take a good, long look at The Pirate Planet.
Sitting down to review this story, I asked myself a few basic questions: Does it live up to the hype and is it a classic?
The Pirate Planet lives up the hype. It's an entertaining bit of Who from the Tom Baker era. It's easily one of the stronger Key to Time stories with some nice peformances by Tom Baker and Mary Tamm (at least in episode one!) The plot is simple and devious enough to be ingenous. Adams keeps throwing twists and turns into the story at precisely the right moment to keep you guesing as to the real purpose of the planet. And the fact that the Doctor must shut down this operation before it is turned on Earth only makes it that much more tense.
The script is a tour-de-farce for Baker, who gets to play the range from comic clown to one of the best serious moments of his reign when the Doctor confronts the Captain about the purpose of his plan. It's just a shame that after Adams gives Mary Tamm some strong scenes for Romana in episode one, she is shuttled off to being the typical Who companion in the background for the remainder of the story.
But is it a classic? Sadly not. Apart from Baker, the Captain, and the wonderful Mr. Fibuli, the rest of the acting is rather substandard. The Mentiads are an interesting concept, but aren't that well realized. Also, the actual recovery of the second segment of the Key is done off screen, and there are also some gaping plotholes that just beg for an answer and keep the story from being an all-time classic.