Planet of Evil - Episode 2

The second episode of this story starts with the less than convincing anti-matter monster. What it lacks in visual menace it does make up for it in ability to cause a convincing death. One thing I don’t get about the deaths in this story however is what happens to them. When they are killed they disappear yet in the next shot they are a skeleton. It might have been because they couldn’t make it work on screen but it just looks a bit odd as it is.

One guy in the supporting characters look an awful lot like Terry Scott from Terry and June. Clearly its not but it made me smile a bit. It was at this point that I realised that the story wasn’t connecting with me. I think that Louis Marks should be praised for trying to do a different type of story but unfortunately it just doesn’t work. Another major problem that there is about this episode is that apart from learning that the planet is trying to stop people leaving with its minerals, there is nothing that really happens and that’s a frustrating thing that happens.

I do love the bit where the tracking prop is flying around the jungle and the shot that we see from its POV is one of if not the best shots in Doctor Who. Even when it was flying through the jungle it still look really good. I think its quite good that its dropped into the plot that no one may be allowed to leave the planet because of what Sorensen has bought on board. It’s hard to dislike Sorenson even when the viewer knows that what he’s doing isn’t a great thing. His discovery is for the greater good but its made clear that he’s also thinking about his legacy.

The Doctor falling into the black hole ends with a freeze. It’s a trick that was last used in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ and I think that it works better here than it did in that episode. Despite some good things that happen in this episode, I just can’t get excited about this story. It’s not terrible and its directed with a certain level of enjoyment but I just think that the story itself is not great. I would like there to be a bit more drama to proceedings because at the moment it’s one of the least exciting stories of Tom Baker’s tenure.