Friday, 12 September 2014

The Pirate Planet - Episode 2

After being less than impressed with the opening episode, I was preparing myself to find something that would make me change my mind. A woman suddenly appears in this episode and she looks like a nurse but is clearly more than that. Obviously I know who she is and what her involvement in the story is but as first appearances go, its slightly underwhelming and its one of the few things that Douglas Adams does right.

Romana is captured and spends most of her time with the Captain. I think that the Captain has lost a bit of fun in this episode. The shouting that he does for 98% of the episode does seem to be a tad bit boring now. I really done know what they actually bring to the story. Sorry I know what they bring to the story and that is nothing. I actually hope the other guys win, that’s how little I actually care about the Mentiads.
What does get mentioned in this episode is just where the second segment of the key to time and why the tracer is picking up everything. The explanation that the planet is actually a pirate planet and gobbles up planets is quite a clever idea and this seems very much like a Doctor Who. The scene where the Doctor and Romana discover this in the caves comes just the Mentiads bore us with their presence.

The corridor sequence that features in this episode does seem very Douglas Adams as there is comedy feel to it. The problem that I do have with this episode and perhaps this story is that it cant quite make up its mind whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. I think that it becomes a little bit distracting and as a result its left me feeling confused. This is definelty a stronger episode than the previous one because there’s a bit more meat to the story. Sadly whilst Douglas Adams has worked on the context of the episode, he still has trouble to deal with the cliffhanger. This is the second weak cliffhanger in a row and its weird that one of the best sci-fi writers ever has written appears to be a dud.

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