The Sun Makers - Episode 1

The Sun Makers is the third story in a group of adventures that I was worried about when I started this period of the show. However after re-evaluating ‘The Invisible Enemy’ and ‘Image of the Fendahl’ then I am expecting the same to happen here. In the past I have found the plot to be rather boring because all it seemed to be about what Robert Holmes moaning about taxes. This story takes place on Pluto which when this episode was transmitted in 1977 was a planet but in 2006 it was demoted to a dwarf planet. This episode takes place three days after the show celebrated its 14^th birthday. Tom Baker makes his 85^th appearance as the Doctor, Louise Jameson is now on 27 episodes having overtaken Caroline John and will be just behind Ian Marter by the end of this story. Now that is the facts and interesting stuff over with. Oh, one more fact is that this is the 95^th Doctor Who story and Tom Baker’s 21^st as the Doctor which means he is tied with Patrick Troughton. There that’s it now.

This is the first story that K9 appears as a companion. I wish sometimes that K9 would suffer the same fate as Chameleon did where he appeared in his debut story and was then put away in a cupboard until his final story. It doesn’t take long for this episode to feel like it has a hint of the George Orwell novel 1984. There is talk about death taxes and every so often there is a ‘praise the company’ chant. Cordo is the first face we see in this episode and is basically in debt and will have to work himself to death by the end of his first scene. By the time that the Doctor and Leela arrive, he is about to kill himself. Its good that the Doctor and Leela try to talk him out of this as he becomes their friend and the way into to the story.

Gatherer Hade comes across as a comedic character. He is almost child like in certain moments which is perhaps a good idea when the story has such dark tones in it. I actually found him to be the highlight of the episode. The scene that Hade had with Marn outside the TARDIS was a nice scene and that pretty much sums up the episode. It was made up of some good scenes and these two characters are going to be in most of those good scenes.

There is another familiar face in this serial when William Simons plays Mandrel. He most recently appeared in ‘Heartbeat’ as Alf Ventress. Mandrel is leader of a rebel group who are called the others. They aren’t particularly pleasant people and quite why we are suppose to be supporting them against Gatherer Hade’s lot is a mystery.

The cliffhanger is rather unremarkable one because all that happens is the Doctor is stuck in a box and some gas is released. It’s not a terrible way to end the episode but I think that it certainly didn’t have much of a response with me is because the build up was rather poor. I cant quite make up my mind about whether I like the satirical tone of the serial. I don’t necessarily think that there is anything wrong with this in principal but it has be done in such a way that it doesn’t feel like a lecture. I get a feeling that after just one episode, this story is perhaps just going to be average which normally would be a good thing but considering my opinion has changed about other stories, this is turning out to be the weakest (not worst) story of the season.