2.20: The Space Pirates

In which the regulars take their time, and the best bit is the music.

Broadcast: March-April 1969

Watched (listened): November 2019

The last partially missing story! Thank god, no more annoying decisions about whether to put “watched” or “listened” at the top of these posts. Onwards!

The Space Pirates, Episode One

I do kind of like the way this one basically starts with some terrorism. The music is *fantastic*. So is Hermack’s voice. 

Watching a recon for reasons. Why are there a few random two second clips of this surviving? (The BBC found a reel of silent effects shots, c2004.)

Feels a bit weird meeting someone else called Ian.

Oh thank god the TARDIS has arrived, only 15 minutes in. Odd choice to have them show up so late. (Apparently, the regular cast are knackered and increasingly militant about it.) That said, the way we gradually, inexorably build towards the inevitable moment the beacon gets blown up with the regulars on board is quite neatly done. “We are going to be too late again!”

The Space Pirates, Episode Two

“Rubbish-y new-fangled solar toasters!”

Honestly, the music is so good. And the model work. Genuinely sort of wish we could see all of this one. Also - we’re seeing an office argument, but a different one! Change!

Nice the way the regulars end up in a pile in such a way that you can see Zoe’s miniskirt and booted legs. (One of my less evolved fanboy friends, who I’m not naming for their own good, would like it to be known she’s wearing shorts, not a miniskirt.)

Only just dawned on me that it’s not just Milo who’s nicked from a western. Rustlers, prospectors, the law men… It’s not a “pirate” story at all.

The actor playing Milo Clancey is only 43 years old. Christ.

Some nice direction in this one too. Based on only one episode I know, but I think it might be the best looking space episode yet.

“Oh dear. What a silly idiot I am.”

The Space Pirates, Episodes Three & Four

Listened back to back. 

I really like this one. Is that weird? It’s new. I like the characters and the world building and the lack of monsters. Maybe it’s because I like Who on the radio and I’m going to miss that. I dunno.

Milo throwing out copper needles is basically throwing tacks in front of the chasing stagecoach, it is combining pirates with a western in space. 

Zoe being cleverer than the Doctor is fun. “I like drawing pins! Usually.”

I like that the point we realise Issigri is running the pirates is the exact point the regulars decide to go to her for help. And Hermack is great.

Mad to think I’m nearly out of Troughton yet there are still a dozen episodes left.

The Space Pirates, Episodes Five & Six

Interesting the way Holmes writes the Doctor as basically a schoolboy - the drawing pins, the marbles. I don’t think we’ve seen that before, really; the seeds of the fourth Doctor on show.

With the best will in the world, the bomb defusal bit is not remotely tense of exciting. Can’t tell if that’s because I can’t see it, or because you know they’re going to get out of it, or it’s just inherently not an interesting thing to watch.

There’s a bit where I’m fairly sure some lines are spoken in the wrong order:

DERVISH: This is something that can’t be rushed.

(Dervish opens the box with the detonator in it. Caven grabs his shoulder.)

DERVISH: Do that again, and we won’t have half a second left. I’ve known one of these things go up if somebody so much as coughed!

CAVEN: We’ve got half an hour before that V-ship drops on us.

...wouldn’t it make much more sense if Dervish’s second line was in response to Caven?

We all know about season 6b. (Okay, but people reading it might not: it’s the fanboy theory that, after capturing the regulars in the next story - sorry, spoilers - the Time Lords send the Doctor and Jamie on various missions for them, which is why they look older in their later appearances such as The Two Doctors.)  I’m amused by the idea of a season 6a in which the regulars and Milo have adventures while trying to find the TARDIS. Nobody tell Big Finish.

LOL at the way they don’t bother to show the scene in which Milo convinces Hermack of the truth because there’s no way of writing it convincingly.

Another thought on [writer Robert Holmes]: he does go for a thickness that a lot of the Troughton monster serials are lacking. There are always multiple plot threads, characters feel like they have lives beyond plot functions, etc.

Anyway. I rather enjoyed that. It might be a case of the pictures being better on the radio - I really enjoyed Fury too - and if it came back, or was animated, I’d find it as dull as almost everyone else. But then again Abominable was really very dull even on radio, so.

I am looking forward to, I think, every one of the next seven stories. Huzzah!