The Pirate Planet (1978) Review

BY THE BLACK HOLES OF STEVEN MOFFAT'S PLOTTTING, HOW DARE THEE RUIN A CHARACTER OF SUCH IMPERIOUS QUALITIES AS THAT OF THE BOISTEROUS CAPTAIN?! I'LL HAVE YOUR UNWORTHY HIDE COVERING MY FLOORS AND SOFTENING MY FEET BEFORE THIS DAY IS DONE!!!!

The Pirate Planet features some great concepts, dialogue and a fun cast, but is let down by the most convoluted plot the series has done so far.

WRITTEN BY

Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy(which I've never seen) fame. It's his first Doctor Who script. Not the worst start, but definitely disappointing for someone as well known as him.

PLOT

Whilst looking for the second segment of the Key To Time, the TARDIS crew materialise on the wrong planet only to discover that the right one has been gobbled up under the orders of a psychotic space pirate Captain. And his next target is Earth...

ANALYSIS

I am furious right now. That last episode was just godawful and almost completely deflated the wonderful Captain by revealing him to be just a puppet to some stupid holographic queen. I still have no idea what happened to the planets the Captain had captured. Or how Zanak can continue to exist if it's completely hollow from the inside. Or how they retrieved Calufrax. 
It's the worst single episode of Doctor Who I think I've ever seen and had no place in a story with as much promise as this.

Other huge flaws in this story are poor direction(a hallmark of the Williams era, it must be said), lack of focus, some of the acting and even the characterisation of both the Doctor and Romana, which I'll get into below. 

Fortunately, there's a lot of good humor in the story, plenty of great jokes and I absolutely adore all the pirate references. If they had kept it to the pirate analogy, it would've turned out just fine.

CHARACTERS

Tom Baker is really starting to annoy me. I thought I was okay with him not taking things seriously anymore(loved his flippancy in The Invasion Of Time), but his acting has become so bad. I've heard people online praise the "Appreciate it?!" scene, but all I could see was overblown pantomime. He delivers almost every single line unnaturally and his comedy has become excruciatingly annoying slapstick. The personality of the Fourth Doctor himself makes no sense to me anymore either. It's like every single scene he is in, he is trying to confuse everyone. At least let the audience in on the joke!

Meanwhile, Romana, who has such an epic start in the previous story, has basically nothing to do in this one, wears awful makeup and a crap costume and doesn't even have anything funny to say. 

Most of The Pirate Planet is carried by the brilliant Captain. If it weren't for part four, he would've challenged my beloved BOSS(from The Green Death) as the most lovable Doctor Who villain ever. Just imagine an evil half-Darth Vader Brian Blessed trying to run a planet. But Adams just had to screw it up by making him a slave to the Queen, completely ruining him. If he was just a devious, pompous madman, it would've worked so much better, but now, he's not really an effective villain as far as I'm concerned. He's not even an effective character, he's just a tool. And he had so much potential!

The Captain's first mate is Mr. FIBULI!!!, a neurotic scientist working hard to keep himself alive. He's given a surprising amount of depth by the great performance of Andrew Robertson, who conveys someone so terrified that we're not really sure if he has or hasn't a moral center. 
I also love that the Captain abuses him throughout the whole thing, but when he dies, he mourns him. One of the few beautiful moments of part four. 

I'm also very happy with the development of K-9 and how he appears to be constantly evolving(adopting the phrase "piece of cake", for example) and even adapting to the Doctor's personality for some hilarious moments. His showdown with the Captain's parrot was a great idea, although not very well executed(apart from the perfect moment of him showing up with the parrot in his metaphorical teeth).

Pointless Queen with a pointless holographical cover is pointless and later becomes pointlessly the boss despite pointlessly contradicting the earlier now-pointless scenes. She's pointless.

I rather liked the Mentiads and how they were built up as a scary foe(they kind of reminded me of the inhabitants of Exxilon from Death To The Daleks with their raggedy clothes), but turned out to be the nice chaps. 

Ralph Michael made a nice, minor appereance as the disbelieving Balaton. I'm only pointing him out because I loved his role in Jeeves & Wooster(as Bertie Wooster's uncle) and he was just utterly wasted here.

NOTES

*I love the Doctor's version of the story of how Isaac Newton discovered gravity.

*Tom Baker does the worst fake mumbling-in-sleep since that American guy in The Claws Of Axos.

*The town set is awful. The houses look fake, there's no reason given for the gemstones randomly lying about(if they are still considered to be treasure on the planet, then why abandon them?) and it came across very cheap and plasticky.

*Why was the hologram projector just lying around the time dam room?

*The parrot is just awfully executed in every way. Every time he takes off, they cheaply film close so the strings wouldn't be seen and then he has a badly CSO-d gun fight with K-9.

*The guards in this story are the worst shots in history(yes, worse than the Stormtroopers). They shoot so far away you'd wonder if their guns are malfunctioning.

*Nice to see the sonic getting a bit more action. It was gone for a loooong while during the Hinchcliffe years.

*I loved the jelly baby gag(although what was that circular candy?) with the air car.

*All of the TARDIS scenes in this story were lovely. The Doctor and Romana have such wonderful banter.

*I'm kind of annoyed that we didn't see the Doctor transform Calufrax into the second segment at the end. Would've been a better reminder to the kids of what this whole thing is about.

BEST QUOTE 

DOCTOR: "Hello, K-9. Surprised to see us?"
K-9: *deadpan* "Amazed, master."

CONCLUSION

I had a lot of fun watching it, but in the end, all the fabulous ideas boiled up and exploded into nonsense. Worst anti-climax ever.