4.25: The Pirate Planet
In which arguably the most famous writer ever to work on Who arrives, and isn’t very good at it.
Broadcast: September-October 1978
Watched: September 2020
The Pirate Planet, Part One
This is one I weirdly sort of didn’t believe existed as a kid because there was no novelisation. In the ‘90s, when books were cheaper than videos and the internet was still in ASCII art, somehow that made it feel less accessible than stories that literally didn’t exist. [The reason it was one of only a handful of Who stories never novelised: the script was written by Douglas Adams, he didn’t want anyone else to novelise his script but the publishers couldn’t afford him because, in the years after his contributions to Doctor Who, he became incredibly successful and famous. The story was finally novelised by James Goss in 2017, sixteen years after Adams’ upsettingly early death.]
There is some real facial *acting* going on in the close ups of the crowds cheering the new golden age. Romana is oddly reminiscent of Kate O’Mara pretending to be Bonnie Langford.
The companion-is-better-at-landing-the-TARDIS joke was nicked by Steven Moffat in The Time of Angels. The idea of stolen planets was nicked by RTD.
The Pirate Planet, Part Two
“You mean, whole other worlds have died to make us rich?” ‘70s Who is quite often about imperialism isn’t it.
Ah, the first appearance of liquorice allsorts in the series.
There’s a lot in this story isn’t there? The sinister mentiads, the half robot captain, the robot parrot, the sinister nurse, air cars, the linear induction corridor... it’s all mental but it keeps chucking stuff at the screen.
If they’ve never seen the captain, how come the locals recognise his air car?
The Pirate Planet, Part Three
“I don’t understand.” “Exciting, isn’t it?”
This era fills a lot of empty screentime with shots of people walking across fields. What’s that about then?
Anyway, the number of ideas here is staggering. The Captain’s toy. Xanxia (is this actually about imperialism or is there just something about it in the water that seeps into everything?). The origins of the (strangely all male) mentiads. Lot of good bit parts like Mr Fibuli too. Everyone seems to be having a good time.
Love the scene where Tom gets properly angry about the crushed planets. Adore the walking the plank bit. Bruce Purchase having the time of his life.
The show is sadly not up to making a fight between a robot dog and a robot parrot dramatic.
The Pirate Planet, Part Four
“Newton’s revenge.” This is quite entertaining but utterly incomprehensible. I have no idea what is meant to be going on and fear the writer doesn’t either. It’s all just technobabble and then occasionally things go bang.
The idea the nurse is the power behind the throne is quite fun, but the idea the Captain is plotting against Xanxia is not set up at all. His grief for Mr Fibuli is played quite well though.
Weird that the spokes-mentiad is also the most recent recruit? That isn’t how organisations generally work. Weird too that there are no girl mentiads.
Still, “quite entertaining” is good, just so long as they don’t put him in charge, right? *looks to camera*
“If they’ve never seen the captain, how come the locals recognise his air car?”
Maybe it’s like the Pope Mobile or Airforce 1?
Titan announced a script book of this at some point in the first half of the nineties, presumably to take advantage of the absence of a novelisation, and all Adams would arguably have had to do was sign a release form and collect the cheque. But it didn’t happen.
Managed to finish watching this on iPlayer tonight (I am in the US these days and my VPN doesn't always play well with iPlayer). But, gosh, the ending is almost totally incoherent with lots of random stuff happening off stage. I quite liked a lot of the technobabble though and it's not like much of modern "Who" isn't equally incoherent, but this could really have done with the form hand of the script editor on it.