The Space Pirates - Episode 6

For the final time I stick my CD on and listen, that’s listen to a Doctor Who episode. Its weird to think that I will have to enjoy/endure a Doctor Who episode in this manner. There have been times when I have wondered whether I should carry on or just skip the missing episodes but I have perceived. Just think when I watched the first episode of Marco Polo back on May 29, 2013, there were 107 episodes missing but now there are only 96. It’s a shame that the last episode of this part of the marathon is forgettable. I mean literally forgettable because as I was listening to this episode I found myself not really caring what was going on and what was happening to the characters. Due to the lack of images its just a lot of people running around and somehow Clancy has become a useful and likeable figure to those that weren’t so keen on him a few episodes.

I don’t like feeling the way I have felt over the last couple of episodes. I remember when I watched Episode 2 and thought that my opinion might change but sadly no. I still think that this story is deathly dull and the only thing that stops me from saying this is worst than ‘The Dominators’ is that as this is missing five episodes, it’s hard to be fair to this story. I can’t imagine that my opinion would improve that much but it shows what difference looking at an episode makes to how I rate an episode. Another thing that I have found disappointing is how poorly the regulars have been used. From the start they have been badly overlooked as it took so long to get them involved in the story that once they didn’t do very much and normally when I have listened to audio episodes I have at least been able to enjoy the regulars but over the five episodes I cant say that because they did very little and that’s a shame.

Overall despite my determination to try and find positives (that didn’t last long did it!), I think that this is one of the worst stories that has been made in the Troughton era. Only ‘The Highlanders’ has a worse rating and as we approach the end of the Troughton era I worry that my abiding memory of his time on show will be marred by stories like this instead of ‘The Tomb of the Cybermen’ or ‘Enemy of the World’. Poor episode to end a poor story.