Planet of Fire

I've had Planet Of Fire on video now for about five years but this is only the third time I've ever watched it. While it's by no means below average, I've always found it quite hard to work up much enthusiasm for it and I can't quite put my finger on why. Maybe it's the slightly shaky way that Peter Grimwade imposes his usual complexities on what is really a very straight story: he is restricted from stretching out too far, like he did with Mawdryn Undead, by the need for his story to do certain things like write out Turlough and Kamelion and write in Peri. Having said that, his first script Time-Flight shows that there is such a thing as overstretching. Anyway, the story itself...

One of the most common criticisms of this story is that the planet Sarn looks suspiciously like Lanzarote. I don't have that much of a problem with this specifically; my problem is that both Sarn and Lanzarote look like quarries. Expensive quarries, I grant you, and exotic, but still quarries. Then again, I suppose if they'd stuck to Dorset they'd never have had the scope to show off their new Bond-girl companion's assets. Fair's fair though, I have to say that Nicola Bryant makes a promising debut here (although her accent veers about uncontrollably) as she's written to be a much more proactive character; the following season it would just be two whingers whinging*.

The first episode begins with yet another backwards-religion-with-token-anarchist-who'll-side-with-the-Doctor-and-eventually-end-up-in-charge set up, but in fairness the dissenters are a well-written attempt at showing how the religion has developed over time as opposed to coming from the stockpile of rationalists like all the others. Also, the character of Timanov is supremely well acted by Peter Wyngarde.

Typically Grimwade-esque touches appear, such as mysterious alien touches blended into a normal Earth setting, and having apparently disparate elements that won't come together until later. In the case of Planet Of Fire it is the Trion artefact that has managed to find itself in a shipwreck, which is never properly explained. The fact that it has no bearing on the plot except to get Peri into the TARDIS does make it appear a rather cheap and lazy tool to introduce the new companion, but it's better than the usual method of "wow, a police box, I think I'll go inside" and it does help to generate the effective sense of mystery that sustains the first episode as it's linked with Turlough's hitherto unseen marking (a slight writer's liberty I feel) that actually looks quite painful. I should just mention at this point that the scene where Turlough rescues Peri form drowning is very well directed, with lots of quick cuts making it seem genuinely action packed. Then again, although it's not my field, for the female / gay audience out there I'm not sure how the sight of Mark Strickson in his Y-fronts compares with Captain Jack getting defabricated in Bad Wolf.

The TARDIS scenes are better than average in this story as the departure of Janet Fielding has greatly relieved the overcrowding problem (two's company, she's a crowd) that the TARDIS suffered from during Peter Davison's tenure. Also, it's interesting to note that the Doctor has changed his clothes for the first time in three years ("no time to wash, I've got a universe to save"). It's not significant, and frankly I'd take his usual costume over that waistcoat that seems to have been made out of a lampshade, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. There are a few points of genuine interest, such as the fact that Turlough's suddenly come over all shifty again like he did in the Guardian trilogy, and also that Kamelion is treated as if he's been in every episode so far. A season on and he's still as crude as ever; at least with K9 they managed to update him a bit between seasons 15 and 16. He really is inept here, far too crude to function as a character as the prop has no means of expression other than a few basic movements. In order for it to have been a success they should have stuck to just using the voice (like with K9) instead of attempting genuine animatronics. The production team only had him in this story because they didn't get away with him just disappearing after The King's Demons and as a character he's a lot to impose on any writer; Grimwade does well in the circumstances by having him spend much of his time as the hybrid shape shifter struggling to maintain the shape of Peri's stepfather Howard. By the way, how rubbish is it giving a stepfather a name like Foster?

Anyway, with all the Earth-elements together Dr. Hero, Mr. Shifty and Miss American-Eye-Candy set off for Sarn (notice how Peri's hair is immaculate when she wakes up from unconsciousness) and it is only now that a few plot points come together, although a lot is still left unexplained across the episodes. They all arrive on Sarn - and how thick is the makeup on the location scenes? Blimey, there's controversy on the new series about all the innuendo with Captain Jack, but it's 1984 and the Doctor's a transvestite! The twist introduction of the Master is a genuine surprise (unless you happen to have the video with a big picture of Anthony Ainley on it), but then again it's always disappointing to see the Master mugging like a loon as it's clear from episodes like Survival that Ainley is not a bad actor. Further Master scenes in part two actually show the Master being quite intense. Reports say that this is how he wanted it to be, but John Nathan-Turner, with his infallible eye for taste and style, ordered him to camp it up. This conflict of interests plays out on screen, but in the circumstances I can put it down to Kamelion's instability.

The second episode is really a big runaround between Kamelion and Peri, with Turlough's edginess the only thing that maintains the tension in an episode where nothing much happens: it's episode three come twenty-five minutes early. Ainley is given very moody dialogue by a sympathetic writer and the episode in general is very well acted, but on the whole it feels padded out (notice the one paragraph it gets here as opposed to the six the first episode gets). I do like the scene where Timanov finds Kamelion wandering in a daze and believes him to be the Outsider: all together now, he's a Star--maaaaaaan...

Episode three continues the formulaic feel with yet another doom laden exchange between the Doctor and the Master. Turlough is given above average characterisation - even in their last stories it was rare for companions to be so motivated - but with each revelation about his past the episode gets a bit more contrived, although it's minute compared to that artefact taken by Peri in part one. Also, I should say that Edward Highmore looks nothing like Mark Strickson, even though they are supposed to be brothers.

The volcano begins to erupt and we see the TARDIS is again used indiscriminately, a problem the plagued the Davison era, with the Sarn natives being let in to see the sights and just because a polystyrene pillar came down. That, it has to be said, is the kind of effect that hasn't improved since Ixta struggled with a weightless slab in season 1's The Aztecs.

This episode is more interesting though as it presents the first new ideas since the first part, like the god Logar really being a space suited man and the idea of numismaton gas. It strikes me as odd that this gas, which is the whole point of the plot, is only mentioned now. The Doctor only takes note when it comes pouring out the top of a mountain (a nice effect), which I would imagine would be hard to ignore. The cliffhanger is a good twist and shows some quality CSO, bit is let down by some unusually naff dialogue (for this episode, anyway) given to the Master. These paragraphs are getting thinner and thinner aren't they? It just goes to show how little of substance actually happens in these middle episodes.

Episode four sees the typical Grimwade complications coming thick and fast, but they just about come together. There are still big plot holes though, like how the numismaton gas changes back to normal fire. I'm usually generous towards Doctor Who, so I'll say it just about hangs together even though it is hard to take the Master seriously in his Lilliput form. The scene where three people look down on him is well matted, but the combination of film and video always looks a bit dodgy. The use of stock footage of a volcano is generally good but no effort is made to tally it with the location shooting, so rivers of lava appear and disappear. Also, in another Grimwade trademark, Kamelion is defeated by pretentious technobabble. The Master is destroyed utterly, but neither for the first or last time...

After the introductions in part one it becomes increasingly difficult to find anything to say about Planet Of Fire. By no means a bad story - it could have been terrible given the massive requirements imposed on the writer - it serves simply to write out an old companion and introduce a new. It does that well enough, but it can itself only be called average.

*And a partridge in a pear tree.