Planet of Fire brings The A-Z of Classic Who to be precisely halfway through coverage of the Fifth Doctor's era, an era in which the word 'The' was very strenuously avoided in episode titles, thus explaining why this has happened relatively early on (for comparison, I've covered one solitary Second Doctor story so far). Not the most important milestone and not one I have much to say about, just an interesting factoid.
Unfortunately, Planet of Fire is not a terribly impressive story to celebrate this halfway mark on. While it's not totally without merit, it does unfortunately capture some of the worst aspects of Eighties Who in a neat little package.
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| "Hmm, looks like I'll have to call tech support" |
Planet of Fire is written by Peter Grimwade, a name you may recognise as having directed several stories earlier on in the Eighties, something he turned out to be rather good at. Logopolis, Kinda and Earthshock are all stories directed by him, all stories I've previously covered on The A-Z of Classic Who and all stories in which I strongly praised the directing. Unfortunately, he then decided to try his hand at writing instead. His resume includes the infamously shit Time-Flight and the admittedly decent Mawdryn Undead - however even the latter story did show several weaknesses in the script, coming mostly from a seeming inability to think out or develop some of the most basic ideas and plot points. However, it's also been reported that much of this story is the work of script editor Eric Saward for various reasons, so just bear that in mind I guess. I'll tend to refer to both of them unless I'm specifically referencing either of them. What I will say is that whether this was a Grimwade masterpiece ruined by Saward or Saward rescuing a dogshit script by Grimwade (and I don't know which and don't particularly care to find out) not much in this reflects well on either of them.
Planet of Fire attempts to explore some serious and quite weighty topics. The problem is not necessarily with this obviously - Doctor Who can sometimes be at its' absolute best when undertaking such an approach. Anyone watching this story back in 1984 who wanted proof of this could merely have tuned in the week after this story aired to watch The Caves of Androzani. The problem with this story, and several other stories that try this approach, especially from the Eighties, is that it seems happy to bring up these ideas and themes, but not actually explore them in any real way.
The complex themes and ideas this story bring up but do nothing with are practically endless - the complexities for the relationship between the Doctor and Turlough, the issues surrounding political dissidence and the consequences that can be wrought by authoritarian regimes on dissidents, religious extremism and its potential human cost (so soon after doing Meglos I tire of this one but whatever), the question of Kamelion's true loyalties and his overall nature, Peri's (potentially abusive) relationship with her stepfather and how that shapes her approach to this story's events, the effect the Doctor can have on impressionable young people, and I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting. These are all fascinating ideas and could well form the basis of a very solid script. They don't though, because Grimwade shows absolutely zero interesting in doing much with any of these except well.... just mentioning them and that's it.
So strap yourself in, because I'm going to look individually at all of these ideas and they do the square root of fuck all with them. This either makes me very thorough or very dull. I don't care to find out which.
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| Expecting to find themselves on a BBC Quarry, the Doctor and Turlough were shocked to find themselves on a Spanish island instead. |
The Doctor's relationship with Turlough was never the most satisfactory in the series' history, starting poorly in Mawdryn Undead and across the Black Guardian trilogy where it never felt like he move beyond 'arrogant little shit' status or earned his place in the TARDIS. They wisely realised to avoid another Adric they needed to tone this down but unfortunately that meant all we were left with was 'smart person who was sometimes a bit edgy'. To be fair, Mark Strickson did understand his character and was never a weak link in things, and to also be fair, the potential for interplay was somewhat crowded out by the Doctor - Tegan dynamic that was more important to this era overall.
But Tegan is gone now - indeed, at the beginning of this story the Doctor laments on the Daleks causing her to leave - a nice moment that reflects the Doctor's inability to see the real reason for Tegan's disillusionment and departure in Resurrection of the Daleks (I'm willing to bet this scene is almost certainly the work of Saward, given he wrote that story). It's of course somewhat ruined by Big Finish somehow squeezing several Five-Turlough stories between Resurrection of the Daleks and this story in one of their sillier and more egregious retcons, but whateves. In any case, Tegan is now gone, and it's just the Doctor and Turlough. Furthermore, he's going in this story, so now's clearly the time to make that relationship work.
The problem is that it falls back on the old 'Turlough isn't trustworthy' stuff in order to try and make this work, which get old by about the end of the Part Two of Mawdryn Undead and has been thoroughly and lazily done into the ground by this story. In this story, the relationship becomes increasingly strained as the Doctor feels he's being lied to, and I have no problem with this in theory. There are moments in this story that should be genius - the Doctor at one point tells Turlough that their friendship is over if Turlough's been lying to him, which is a unique and potentially fascinating dynamic to explore between Doctor and Companion. The problem is this reaction and indeed the whole basis of this relationship is based in either things we don't really see or because the characters have to act like total idiots. From what I can tell, Turlough keeps the nature of the signal they get in the TARDIS in Part One from the Doctor because... that's what the script demands? I suppose its meant to convey Turlough's distrust of others in general and that even after his time with the Doctor he can't fully accept his friend's good intentions and clear willingness to help but it just comes across making Turlough look petty and stupid - if he can't trust the Doctor at this point, are we supposed to take the development of that relationship seriously? The Doctor accepts and trusts Turlough... after being lied to, manipulated and only really told the truth under duress. It makes Turlough look like an arse and the Doctor like a naïve gullible tit. Frankly, after waiting to so long to find out about Turlough's history in the first place, it's lucky the Doctor wasn't swindled out of his TARDIS or something like that. The next companion will be a Nigerian prince who just wants to store his wealth in the TARDIS Index File no doubt.
It's not all bad - for a start, the two people putting the most effort into making this work are Peter Davison and Mark Strickson, who do sell it well. Also, the dynamic of distrust between Doctor and companion is interesting even when not fully explored and there's some good dialogue throughout related to it - it's just a shame the promise of the premise was not fulfilled.
Speaking of Turlough, his backstory is also a major narrative feature of Planet of Fire It reveals that his father was on the wrong side of a civil war on their home planet of Trion. It's implied (or maybe outright stated, I can't remember and I can't be arsed to check) that the victorious side was an authoritarian regime of some kind, which exiled Turlough and his family. In any case, the downfall of said regime is what allows Turlough and his long lost brother to go home at the end of the story. The reason I explained all that is so I can highlight what a promising backdrop this is for exploring political dissidence and how authoritarian regimes' repression of it can affect the people involved. So, the natural question is 'how much is this promising setup explored' which the obvious answer of 'not very much'. The most we get is an explanation for how Turlough's brother got to Sarn, which was kind of necessary plot information anyway, and more about how Turlough ended up on Earth and hated it there. While admittedly 'the most hellish place in the universe is English public school' jokes are quite funny, they don't particularly sit with the tone they should have been going for here or add much to Turlough's character in this regard. For his brother, his relation with the Sarn plot is explored far more extensively despite being far less interesting, while Turlough's feelings about how, despite going home at the end of the story, this has changed his and his families' lives forever is left frustratingly unexplored, as is the actual nature of this power struggle on Trion anyway. It's just used as a backdrop and is one more frustratingly underdeveloped aspect of this story.
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| Turlough was dismayed to find the Doctor couldn't get better than 2 bars of reception on his phone |
The far less interesting plot involving Turlough's brother is the main one on Sarn, which is yet another look at religious extremism. As with Meglos the problem with this is that its either going to be a hideously one-sided argument or its going to try and play the old 'we should all get along' card, which is fine in cases not involving human sacrifice. I don't care if the Old Priest Guy (no I don't care to look up his name, it really doesn't matter, it's not as if he's some memorable character anyway) is misguided and dogmatic but eventually comes round to our heroes view or whatever, the guy has been setting people on fire. I think I've made it clear I don't mind Doctor Who tackling topics like this, but just like Meglos it's haphazardly thrown in. At least with that story Not Barbara was motivated by desperation and survival instinct as much as dogma, as a religious leader present in a seemingly dying civilisation there was at least a bit to her side of the argument. Old Priest Guy is just an arse. Who sets people on fire. Additionally, the 'advanced civilisation treated as religion' stuff is lifted pretty much directly from The Face of Evil and it was done much better there. Overall, this story explores an unoriginal and tired concept and does piss all with it.
Further to this, we have a group of designated good guys who are the religious dissidents of Sarn. Now this is again an interesting idea and could be used to explore both their characters and the society they come from. What caused this movement to grow? How does it affect their viewpoints and their lives? What does it mean for the overall society, especially if said movement is growing faster than the authorities can control? Guess whether these topics get any development. Unfortunately, it's just lip service at best, which most of these dissidents just being generic good guys and nothing else. The observed effects on their wider society are basically 'it's making Old Priest Guy a bit cross and more inclined to some burning'. Amusingly, the theological proof that their god is false is found by two people just climbing a mountain, one of whom keeps falling over in a stereotypically unfit guy way, showing they're hardly expert climbers of anything, and therefore implying that nobody in their movement even bothered to go and check before. Stuff like that is an utterly unmistakable hallmark of lazy writing.
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| Religious pioneers, apparently |
Now, Kamelion. Kamelion is an unfortunate example of how idiotically lazy the people who made Eighties Who really were. He was introduced as a fascinating concept: a robot that can take the form of anyone. I mean, the potential there speaks for itself. Now, for once this isn't potential wasted necessarily by this story (although it doesn't help) - it is after all his only other story besides The King's Demons and I do at least salute them for trying, even if the results are not impressive. Instead, this stems from a tragedy and then an appalling lack of nerve and imagination. It's reasonably well known that the designer of the Kamelion prop died in an accident shortly after The King's Demons was made and he was the only one who knew how to operate it. Now that was a terrible tragedy, and meant they couldn't use the character as they intended, but putting him in the cupboard was just an astoundingly lazy move and showed how creatively bankrupt they really were to be frank. The answer is so blindly obvious it hurts: just introduce an actor to play him at the start of the season, have the Doctor go "oh I'm glad you've chosen a human form you like Kamelion", then have him change body when the story wants or needs it. We didn't need to see the robot at all!
But that's not what happened, and I have to stick to my usual system of always judging a story as it is, not what it is not. So with Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson and Peter Davison all leaving the show within the space of three stories, it was fairly obvious the robot in the cupboard would be thrown overboard at the same time.
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| Once he's updated to iOS 15 of course |
The way they did it was basically embracing the obvious concept they should have done from the start and use the robot form sparingly and have an actor stand in. They also decided to try and use it as a way of exploring his true nature and loyalties, which I guess is fine on paper but doesn't really work, for three reasons. Firstly, this is exactly the same thing they were doing with Turlough, only even less interesting because there was no real motivation or character journey behind it, because, well, he was just a guest character here, let's be honest. You could argue that it's meant to be a mirror of that I'd argue if that is the intent it doesn't work because Turlough's journey is at least important to his character and backstory, whereas Kamelion is just a character we barely know being controlled by the Master yet again. Even with the weakness of the Turlough plot considered, this does not compare. Secondly, this is exploring something that had never really been in doubt or particularly needed to be looked at. I don't think anyone came away from The King's Demons thinking it was at all likely Kamelion was still under the control or in league with the Master. It also means that we're to interpret the Doctor thought this all along and decided the best course of action would be to leave him in a cupboard. Probably not intended, but a fairly unpleasant nonetheless. Finally, it just doesn't work because all it's in aid of it the Master's silly plan which involves him essentially just being a plot device in said plan, either to just be the Master's physical form or to chase Peri around Lanzarote ("By god we paid for these volcanoes, by god we're getting the most out of them!") in silly silver make up and shuffling along like a zombie.
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| Kamelion was hoping to get a tan and was disappointed at the cloudy weather |
I think the degree of respsect they had for this character can be neatly summed up by his final scene. Crippled by the attempts to sever the Master's control over him, he begs the Doctor to kill him, which the Doctor does frankly with a minimum of fuss, which is undoubtedly the story's low point. Consider, the other companion deaths in Classic Who 's history. When Katarina died, the Doctor was full of quiet grief and bitter regret that he had been so foolish to take his girl so far out of her own time and place, into a world so alien to her... and she'd paid for his mistake with her life. When Adric died, the Doctor was shocked into stunned silence, that for once he had failed, that he had come up against something too big to defeat without a cost and that cost was his friend, reminding him of how powerless he truly was. When Peri 'died', the Doctor was outraged, outraged by the forces that had led her to her death, outrage as the smokescreen one of those forces was still putting up in front of him, and outraged at himself, for failing her when she needed him the most. When Kamelion died, it's because the Doctor shot him. In the face. Because he can't find a way to help him after all of about two minutes of searching, never mind the fact that in about fives minutes the Master's going to be burnt to a crisp anyway, rather removing the pressing nature of the problem. It implies that the Doctor never gave much of a shit about this pesky robot and that he's happy to be rid of it, which is a frankly appalling idea. Can you imagine the Doctor acting this way with any of his human companions? It once again reeks of lazy, hack writing, that this event doesn't matter because my script says it doesn't matter, even though it obviously should. What else should I expect from the writer who made the Doctor's reaction to Adric's death be 'let's go on holiday'. A dreadful scene that shows how half-arsed the approach to this character, and much of this era as a whole, really was.
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| The Master on the other hand was finding he was getting a bit too much of a tan |
I suppose I should mention the Master because have done so only in passing so far. I'm going to be brief because frankly the Master is the least interesting part of this story. His plan to silly and uninteresting, his shrinking himself is exceptionally stupid and leads to some very lame comedy, plus the stuff with the Master trying to convince supporting characters to oppose the Doctor is old hat this point. There are only two positives to him in this story: Anthony Ainley's hammy overacting is always fun to watch and you can tell how much he loves the role, and the final confrontation between the Doctor and the Master, which showcases their relationship well. The Master is at first triumphant thinking he's won, and taunts and threatens the Doctor until his plan goes awry, and he's begging for the Doctor's mercy. The whole time the Doctor is staring wordlessly - it's a nice scene that leaves the Doctor's thoughts and the true nature of their rivalry open to interpretation.
Anyway, I suppose it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. Now is the time for me to go on record as saying I don't like the character of Peri, either in concept or execution. The character originated from one of John Nathan-Turner's usual wheezes, namely that an American companion would improve the popularity of the show stateside. Now I don't necessarily have a problem with this, although it does smack of JNT's usual style over substance approach. They had, however, done near enough the same thing with Tegan to shore up the Aussie audience and that turned out alright. There are two reasons why Tegan worked and Peri, for me, does not. Firstly, it's that they cast an Australian to play the Australian companion. Now I don't have anything at all against Nicola Bryant, she is not a bad actress at all and very little of what I'm about to discuss is her fault in any real way. However, she is not American, she does not sound American and her attempts to do so are unimpressive to say the least. I can't fathom what was going through JNT's head with this - it's the equivalent of an American show introducing a British character to increase popularity over here, but they end up sounding like Dick van Dyke from Mary Poppins. Apart from the initial burst of publicity, it's going to jar viewers and be counterproductive in the log run. It also does not help that her Americanisms sounded like exactly what they were - created by British writers for whom the closest they'd been to America is coming from the location shoot of Mawdryn Undead on a Piccadilly line train that would eventually end up at Heathrow. Secondly, and more importantly, they had totally the wrong idea about her characterisation and this led to some extremely unfortunately long term implications. They essentially and simplistically, made the character a young naïve college student who would be the eyecandy and scream at things - the stereotypical companion people who never watched the show had in their heads. This was a colossal mistake - I imagine it was supposed to be in the vein of Victoria or Jo I imagine, missing that they were both far more interesting characters than just those simplistic characterisations, never mind that both of them were actually quite a bit tougher than they looked. Peri never feels like that to me - she's just 'the American Doctor Who companion' and that's it, especially as beyond the basic stuff I mentioned, her characterisation tended to vary wildly from story to story. More to the point, this all became exceptionally uncomfortable after The Caves of Androzani - see, there's subtext in this story that I'll get into in a bit, that Peri is seeing a handsome dashing young man (or so I'm told - being a heterosexual male it's not quite my area of expertise) and decides to embark on an adventure with him. In the very next story, she's nearly poisoned and only avoids being sexually assaulted because the would be assaulter is insane from having his face burned off. Her handsome, dashing young friend then transforms into a much older man who attempts to strangle her and even after that continually treats her like shit. Essentially, the implication is that Peri was almost manipulated into joining these adventures that suddenly turned south on her. I guarantee none of this was intentional, it's entirely a product of her weak characterisation as a naïve peppy cheerleader and the idiocy of the people making the show of this time when it came to characterising the Sixth Doctor. It was entirely the wrong kind of character for what they had in mind - one of the things I like about Terror of the Vervoids is that Mel, irritating little squirt she is, does not take the Sixth Doctor's shit and the dynamic is obviously much healthier as a result. This is also why Evelyn worked so well as a companion in Big Finish. None of this is the case with Peri and I don't feel her character has ever really worked that well - even in Big Finish the same traps were fallen into. In fact, the only time I feel the character has come close to working is the Fifth Doctor-Peri-Erimem audios, where both the Doctor-Peri dynamic is much healthier and she has Erimem to have sort of a sisterly relationship with, which makes the whole thing work much better, at least for me.
In terms of Planet of Fire by itself, the attempts to explore her character are, once again, complex ideas let down by lackluster execution but there's an unpleasant context to much of these ideas that honestly belies the frankly juvenile attitude they took to writing for her. First of all, the infamous bikini scene - it is pretty inexcusable and I'm not including a screenshot of in this review because I refuse to justify it. What's even worse is what follows, where of course the poor girl gets intro trouble swimming and needs the big muscular Turlough to come and rescue her. Where's my sick bucket gone? I'm only not calling this the most sexist scene in the show's history because Turlough's stripping down to the undergarments means that it was probably intended as a 'sexy' scene for both genders, making Strickson's body just as much an object as Bryant's. So a juvenile approach to sexuality instead of open sexism: hooray? This entire scene is an utter embarrassment from start to finish and what's worse, it is almost totally irrelevant. The only plot functions it serves are to get Peri into the TARDIS and to establish the weird Trion artefact which I'm still not sure has any explanation or purpose in the story, and its probably just within the bounds of conceivability both of those things could have been achieved in a way that doesn't make me ashamed to like this show.
So with part of her purpose unsubtly and embarrassingly displayed, how else does Peri's story here unfold? Well it has its ups and downs, but mostly downs. While she does get some moments where she's allowed to show a bit of spine - she does fight back verbally against the Master at points for instance - she does mostly come across as hopelessly naive and clueless, and the scenes of her being chased around L̶a̶n̶z̶a̶r̶o̶t̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶c̶e̶n̶e̶r̶y̶ Sarn are extremely unimpressive from... well I was going to say a character standpoint, but any standpoint really, apart from the scenery itself. It inspires no confidence in the character to see this robot guy with its silly makeup lumbering after her. She also, like Turlough in Mawdryn Undead, doesn't really do anything to make me feel like she's earned a place in the TARDIS, and this contributed to a phenomenon I'll discuss in a bit.
Before that though, it's worth discussing what I feel is an attempt to inform Peri's character - the idea that she's suffered abuse from her step-father Howard. Now this, I'll admit, is some very tenous stuff, which is either a deep flaw in the presentation of this or me looking far too deeply into it and finding patterns that aren't there. Apparently Bryant and director Fiona Cumming denied this was the intention, but they weren't the ones writing the script, were they? I'll admit however it's a strong possibility I'm looking too deeply into it.
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| It also doesn't help he's yet another body shamlessly exploited for the camera, but hey ho |
I personally doubt it though and here's why. See, when Peri is recovering from the embarrassing scene I mentioned and scorned earlier, she talks in her sleep and says things along the lines of 'no Howard don't', you know, the kind of things people say in that situation on TV but not in real life. If it was not the intention to promote this idea, why would have have been included? And indeed, why would Peri's emotions that nearly dying in such a way cause Kamelion to take Howard's form if some kind of negative relationship between them was not the intention?
Anyway, if the idea is that the way her character is presented stems from this, it fails for three reasons. The first is obvious, is that it's barely explored and makes no sense even in the context in which it is. I won't pretend to know how people who have been abused in such situations would act in real life, so I won't comment on that might affect the way she acts in the story, but the fact is it's not looked at all, and thus it doesn't seem to inform her character in any way. Secondly, Howard does appear in this story, both his actual self early on and then as Kamelion using his form. When the real Howard does appear, he appears to be a perfectly reasonable guy. Yes, I know, in real life that means absolutely the square root of jack shit, it could just mean he's good at hiding it. The thing is though, this isn't real life, this is a work of fiction, and in fiction the way you portray your character needs to convey what they are like as a person and how you want them to be treated by the audience. Either that, or you need to make it clear within the context of work that what we are seeing is a smokescreen and the real person is beneath that, which story does not do. Howard hardly seems like the loveliest guy in the world true, but the only actually genuinely unpleasant thing he does is keep Peri on the boat, which let's not forget is to prevent her from shitting off to Morocco with a bunch of people she's only just met. While the act itself may be dickish, and you may or may not think that what Peri wants to do is safe, it's difficult to take from the dialogue and the performance that he's doing it out of anything except genuine concern for her welfare. And well, it's hard to really blame him when considering the wider context of this character. She does end up joining someone she barely knows for a trip into the unknown, which eventually ends up leading to her death. (Or marriage to Brian Blessed, depending on your view of canon, but that does rather ruin the point I'm trying to make so shut up). Again I'm not saying that in a real life situation someone who behaves like Howard does here could not be an abusive person, do not mistake me at all. In the context of this piece of fiction, however, we are told, not shown that this is the case - in fact, it's not even that, it's 'shown the opposite and only really aluded to' which is not a sign of top quality writing.
The last point I want to make is a pretty simply one - you want to have this character be a victim of abuse within your work of fiction? Then for the love of all that's holy, don't have an incredibly sexualised scene of her swimming in a bikini and then having the rest of the story with her in a costume leaving fairly little to the imagination. I'm not sure what else to say about that really - don't sexualise your victim of domestic abuse! That shouldn't need saying! Who knows which of the two writers is to blame for this - on the one hand, unpleasant ideas shoved in for shock value is rather Saward's forte, but then again, half baked ideas that aren't properly fleshed out are rather Grimwade's so who knows. I also think it's plausible based on their comments that Bryant and Cumming tried to minimise this during production as much as possible (an entirely understandable sentiment on their part let me make clear) which may contribute to the the feeling this isn't properly explored. Either way, it's not pleasant and it's only beaten out as the worst thing in this story because casual murder is worse. And because this might not even have happened and I'm looking at patterns that don't exist, but let's gloss over that.
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| That was all a bit depressing, so here's a bad perspective shot with a mini Master |
Finally, I want to touch upon something I've alluded to - the idea that the Doctor's lifestyle can appeal to impressionable young people looking for excitement, despite the danger. As I said a little further up, it does contribute to it feeling like Peri hasn't earned her place in the TARDIS, that the Doctor's just letting her in because she's fallen for his charms rather than because she's proved the lifestyle is for her, which adds a further dimension to this. Now it's worth considering the companions of Eighties Who and how they relate to this. Nyssa only joined the TARDIS initially to look for her father and stayed because she had nowhere else after the destruction of Traken. Tegan and Turlough both only initially joined for a purpose (Tegan to get home, Turlough to kill the Doctor... rather informs their characters eh) and grew intro travelling. We never saw Mel join the TARDIS so we can only infer, but she seems to relish the danger of it, something that certainly applies to Ace who seemed to have no issue creating much of said danger herself. Which leaves Adric and Peri, who joined out of a sense of adventure without knowing precisely what they were getting into... and they both ended up being killed. Or married to Brian Blessed in Peri's case, but let's stop overcomplicating things. The idea that the Doctor is unintentionally leading young people to die is quite a dark way to look at the show but it is also an idea that maybe needs to be considered. The problem is that it isn't. It's vaguely alluded to, entirely through inference, and honestly I can't even rule out that I'm yet again looking too deeply into it. There are moments where the subtlety of it works - while as I said I can't personally comment on the attractiveness or otherwise of Peter Davison, it's clear the intention was 'young woman falls for attractive man who offers a life she wants' and the way they interact does somewhat support this. In the end, though, as I said, it's just inference, and in a story already packed with half-baked ideas this is yet another half baked idea.
One of the biggest problems with Planet of Fire is something I haven't even mentioned yet - this story just isn't fun to watch, in any way. Now I must clarify what 'fun' means in this context - plenty of stupid shit like Paradise Towers or huge swathes of NuWho are called 'fun' as an excuse for their shoddy storytelling, as if bad jokes and spectacle-driven ideas make up for the lack of a coherent narrative, believable characters and a consistent internal logic. But fun is important - it needs to be entertaining because otherwise what's the bloody point. If I wanted to make myself miserable I'd get into self-flagellation or something.
To use an example, The Caves of Androzani, which may I remind you was the very next story broadcast after this one, is just as dark, if not darker than this story, with some similarly unpleasant themes, but because it is well-written with excitement, tension, well-rounded characters with believable arcs and journeys and creates a compelling overall narrative, I take enjoyment out of watching it, and therefore for me, it counts as fun. I should find Doctor Who fun, it's something I like, and while it is a cardinal sin as a Doctor Who fan to admit I like it, I'll take the hit to make this point the one time. I don't get that from this story at all. Everything is too half baked and ill thought-out to provide any intellectual enjoyment, but because it's so unpleasant and downright mean-spirited in places it's not enjoyable on a surface level either, like, for instance, something like Battlefield - hardly the pinnacle of intellectual Who and nothing like as clever as it thinks it is, but still an enjoyable watch nonetheless. Planet of Fire just isn't. It's a slog through one depressing half baked scene to another. The only real enjoyment I got from watching it for this review was the bad special effects of the miniaturised Master, which combined with Anthony Ainley's acting was quite funny - but in a 'laughing at the story not with it' kind of way. If Doctor Who wants to be unfulfilling intellectually then fine, it's hardly Asimov after all, but to be this drab, depressing and lifeless while doing it is unforgivable.
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| I suppose it's up to fanfic writers to decide which of those two the Doctor was preferring to see in tight skimpy clothes |
I suppose it's time to talk about what I do like about this story, and there are a few things. While most of the acting is not great, Peter Davison, Mark Strickson and Anthony Ainley deliver the goods as I've mentioned previously. There are a few decent jokes - the Doctor leaving some alien money at the cafe in Lanzarote is a bit silly and out of character but nevertheless amusing, especially the angry Spanish waiter chasing after him. Speaking of Lanzarote, the location work is absolutely gorgeous - it's easily the best of the Eighties Who foreign location shoots and Cumming milks every penny out of the travel budget with some excellent shots of the landscapes. Cumming also does the best she can with the script she's given - the pacing is far from bad, it is shot nicely and the production designer also should be given some praise.
Overall, this is not a total disaster, and there were plenty of those in this era of Doctor Who let's not forget, but it's also not actually good by any real stretch of the imagination. At best it's a lackluster story with important themes not properly thought out or given their proper due, and at worst it can be downright unpleasant, with inferences being made that I'd rather not have to make, which combined with a juvenile attitude to, say, their primary female character, for instance, makes a story that mostly fails. In the end, it's a story somewhat overshadowed by the classic that followed a week later, and it's fair to say that reputation is not undeserved.
Final Score: 3/10. While not totally without merit (it's nice to look at and paced well for instance) and I appreciate the attempts to explore complex themes, those attempts are mostly unsuccessful. It's usually either lackluster or unpleasant, and isn't worth much of your time.
Next Episode: Planet of Giants
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