Day 316 – November 12th 2021
Planet of Fire Parts Three and Four
Planet of Fire – Part Three
Tell you what, Anthony Ainley is putting in his best performance here since The Keeper of Traken. I didn’t notice his over-the-top theatricals during the cliffhanger yesterday but the reprise here gave me another chance; they’re brilliant! He gestures and performs like a southern preacher, and it properly suits his character more than the usual way he plays the part. I can’t tell if he’s doing it subtly differently because he’s conscious of playing Kamelion, but it works either way. The swapping of his regular costume for a three-piece suit only adds to the effect. He’s allowed to have a bit more fun with the role than usual, and that makes him all the more enjoyable to watch. I love the way he throws out a casual ‘gullible idiot’ as he makes his escape.
Ainley also gets to be the star of the cliffhanger – surely one of the most bizarre the programme has ever given us? I knew the twist, but even I found myself enjoying the revelation that the Master has been shrunk and trapped in a box. It’s just so ridiculous that I can’t help but love it. The effect is pretty well pulled off, too, both when looking down at him in the box and on the reverse angle when looking up at Peri looking over him.
I’m also a big fan of the black TARDIS interior, and I’m trying to remember if we saw it in The King’s Demons or if it’s introduced here. Either way it looks great, and that surprises me because I had it down in my head as something slightly naff. They get plenty of use from the regular TARDIS set here, too, with the addition of Jason King, Melkon and four extras to the list of guest characters who’ve been given a peek inside. There’s a point outside the ship when Doctor Who invites everyone inside and I thought we might get a new record to round out Davison’s era!
It’s not only Anthony Ainley who stands out in this one. Peter Wyngarde is putting in a great performance as Timanov. I’ve often heard of him being a bit of a punchline when it comes to guest casting in 1980s Doctor Who, but I can’t Fault him here. When he talks about the experience of seeing Logar as a child it’s surprisingly moving stuff – definitely the highlight of the episode.
I think this episode suffers because it lacks the location filming which has been so integral to the previous pair. The only location work we get in this one is a single static shot of the volcano, which is repeated three times. It’s annoying because it comes across as a time (or money) saving choice. In the last episode we got a gorgeous sequence of Doctor Who and Turlough making their way from the ruins to the volcano, where the return journey here is boiled down to ‘here’s a shortcut underground’. It’s telling how much less interest I’ve got in the story when it doesn’t have the stunning vistas to look at.
One last thing to note here – with the confirmation that Malkon is Turlough’s brother, we’ve seen family for all of the companions introduced by John Nathan-Turner. Adric had his brother, Nyssa her father. Tegan’s had a full compliment from aunts to cousins and grandfathers, and Peri’s got her stepdad. It’s curious because I don’t think many earlier companions ever got their relatives on screen. Leela’s dad takes the rest of the Horda for her, Bennett might have been Vicki’s step dad (but I honestly can’t remember), and Sarah gets her aunt Lavinia, but we don’t actually meet her until JNT’s on the scene. By my reckoning that makes Mel the only companion he introduces for whom we never see a family member on screen. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before!
5/10
Planet of Fire – Part Four
That’s more like it – the location filming is back with a vengeance, and we get some of the best of the entire story in this episode. There’s some particularly impressive shots of Peri making her way through the landscape as it begins to smoulder and burn. My main takeaway from all this is that I’m surprised they went back to simply rocking up in a foreign city when it came to overseas filming the following season. Surely they must have looked at this and realised that it’s the way forward? The New Testament has done overseas alien planets several times, especially in the last few years, but I don’t think any of them look quite as impressive as Sarn does here. Maybe it’s the shock of the new for me? This looks even better because we’ve never seen the show do anything quite like it before?
I’ve also never noticed it before, but Smith and Jones owes quite a bit to the ending of this episode, doesn’t it? The ‘welcome aboard’ moment, as the TARDIS lurches off into time and space is replicated almost verbatim there. That’s not a bad thing, by the way. This might be one of my favourite ‘new companion’ moments ever — there’s something so fresh about the way that Peri actively asks to join Doctor Who on his adventures, which I’m not sure we’ve seen before. Adric stowed away, Tegan stumbled in and stuck around, Nyssa was lumped on him when Traken was destroyed. Now I think about it, Turlough may have asked to join him, but with ulterior motives. Whatever the weather, there’s something genuinely great about this moment. It’s not the only bit lifted for the New Testament, either — Peri commenting on the arrival of the Trion ship (‘Now that’s what I call a real spaceship!’) is repeated exactly by Donna in Planet of the Ood. I’m guessing Russell T Davies might be a fan of this story?
I can’t say I particularly love Turlough’s departure, though. It’s played as the big revelations about his past that we’ve always wanted to know… but I’m not sure we have really cared about any of that. Sure there’s questions asked while you’re watching Mawdryn Undead, but I can’t say I’ve given his backstory a single thought since then. We do, at least, get confirmation that the weird solicitor mentioned in his debut was a Trion agent, but that makes me think that they’d have been far more use posing as a teacher at the school…! Turlough mentions a couple of other disguises used by the Trions, too, and I wonder if these are from unseen adventures, and real people that Doctor Who and he have encountered on their adventures?
Turlough: ‘The Trions have agents on every civilised planet. An agrarian commissioner on Verdon, a tax inspector on Darveg, and a very eccentric
solicitor in Chancery Lane. They’ll know, all right.’
We can certainly add a member of the Trion species to the list of people who get to see the inside of the TARDIS, as one pops up when it’s time to take Turlough home.
Elsewhere, the dialogue is something of a highlight in this episode across the board, and it feels like it’s got more of a polish than the previous episodes have shown. I’m especially fond of the Master’s threat to Doctor Who;
The Master: ‘I shall come from this fire a thousand times stronger, to hound you to the borders of the universe! I’ll plague you to the end of time for this. Help me! I’ll give you anything in creation…!’
I wasn’t expecting an awful lot from Planet of Fire, and while I can’t say that the story has done very much for me, there’s enough good in here to make it a story I’ve enjoyed, and I can see myself sticking it on when I fancy just watching a bit of Doctor Who in future. 6/10.
