135: Planet of Fire

8/14/08

There's an awful lot of story packed into this 4 parter, but I'll condense it to the important facts. First, we end up on the planet Sarn, where there are two factions of people, one who believes in a deity, the other who doesn't. The side that believes in the deity is led by "the chosen one" who has a triangular mark on his arm. This mark, we find out, is also shared by Turlough..

Spoilers ahead.

Turlough, as it turns out, is in political exile from his home planet of Trion. He'd been sent to earth as his sentence, watched over by a solicitor at the school. This is why he's been behaving oddly and knew all sorts of things a human schoolboy wouldn't know. I wonder if this plot direction was planned from the start or if it developed over time.

This episode also saw the return of the Master. If you ask me, producer John Nathan Turner went to the Master well at least one times too many during this three year period, but Anthony Ainley plays it with relish. I have to confess that this is my least favorite Master story of the whole 5th Doctor period, though.

This episode also saw the return and writing out of Kamelion the robot. He factors into the plot heavily, and is given a very definite ending.

Last story at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks, Tegan left, and this time we have Turlough leaving at the end of the story. If you figure in that Peter Davison leaves the very next story, it's not hard to figure out that they were making way for the new Doctor and new companion, and that the door was about to be closed on a whole era of Doctor Who. It's sad, if you think too deeply about it.

But, what we are introduced to in this story is the new companion who will accompany the 6th Doctor, Peri Brown. Peri, played by Nicola Bryant, is not the best actress, doesn't have a terribly convincing American accent, and always plays the damsel in distress, but I find her to be incredibly pretty, and the most attractive of all the companions:

So while we are closing the door on an era of Who, we are opening a new door. I've got one Peter Davison story left in my marathon viewing of 5th Doctor stories, and while I'm sad, I'm excited at the same time.

As for Planet of Fire, it's another one of those stories that is par for the course. I give it a 6/10.