Contributor: John Keegan
Written by Douglas Adams
Directed by Pennant Roberts
One would think that any episode written by Douglas Adams would be an instant favorite. British humor can be something of an acquired taste, but there was a period of time when I was young that all things British were all the rage. Cable networks from A&E to MTV regularly scheduled British shows of all flavors, and comedies were high on the list. And what young, proud geek hasn’t picked up the Hitchhiker’s Guide books at least once?
This serial just left me scratching my head. At the core of the story is a set of solid science fiction concepts. After all, the “pirates” are using a hollowed-out planetary shell, converted to a spacecraft, to materialize around an existing world, strip it of its resources, and move on to the next target. It’s basically a technological version of Galactus. Imagine that happening with a planet with an indigenous population, and it’s actually a fairly dark idea.
The Doctor and Romana lead on what they think is the planet Calufrax, where they find a society that is dominated by “The Captain”, and where there is also a denigrated class of people known as the Mentiads. (Three guesses what their special ability might be.) In truth, they have landed on the planet-shell of Zanak, which has surrounded Calufrax.
Things look pretty dire for the quality of the story when the Captain appeals to the crowd, and they give the most half-hearted cheer one can imagine. Before long, the Captain gets enough screen time that you want to beat him to death with that ridiculous robotic parrot, and send Mr. Fibuli back to whatever Buggles tribute band he escaped from.
It turns out that the next target is going to be Earth, which may actually be the first time in the history of the series that Earth was truly threatened with utter destruction and mass death. (Adams has a thing against Earth, it seems.) That should be enough, but the story is littered with other complicating layers, many of which feel extraneous. For example, the Captain is really controlled by the ancient evil Queen Xanxia, and the Mentiads get their powers from the residual effect of Zanak’s world-destroying process.
By the time it is revealed that the portion of the Key to Time that the Doctor and Romana were chasing after is, in fact, the planet Calufrax, the story has pretty much gone off the rails. It’s nice that the Mentiads effectively sacrifice their futures for the sake of ending the trail of destruction, thus helping the Doctor save Earth, but I’m still not sure what was going on with Xanxia.
My understanding is that the story itself was much more ambitious, but the original story had to be whittled down to work on the scale that the show’s budget would allow. That would make a lot of sense, because this really does feel like an episode cobbled together in some haphazard fashion. There’s also an odd mixture of the serious and comedic that never quite gels, which may be the result of tinkering.
It also feels like the characterization of Romana sees a downgrade in this serial. In “The Ribos Operation”, she was a lot more imperious and stood up to the Doctor at every turn. That’s not the case in this story; Romana seems to be depicted as more of a typical Companion, in that she doesn’t have much of a personality.
This will likely come as a surprise for some, as many fans consider this one of the best of the Classic Era. I simply don’t get it. The fact that the Captain is meant to be using that bombastic idiocy as a cover for a keen intelligence doesn’t matter when the actor doesn’t seem to realize it. A more subtle approach to the entire production might have helped quite a bit, but some of the problems are the scattershot script and the guest cast, and those are hard problems to overcome.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 1/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Score: 5/10
