Planet of Fire

"Continue the sacrifices! See that this Doctor burns slowly..."

Writer: Peter Grimwade

Format: TV

Broadcast: 23rd February - 2nd March 1984

Season: 21.05

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Turlough, Peri

Synopsis 

A strange signal from Earth draws the TARDIS to the island of Lanzarote, where Turlough rescues a young American girl, Peri, from drowning. Among her possessions is an artefact bearing an alien symbol - the same triangular mark that Turlough has branded into his arm. 

The mystery deepens when Kamelion falls under the control of a powerful mind, and the TARDIS travels to the volcanic world of Sarn. As Turlough is forced to face his past, the Doctor must stop his oldest enemy from harnessing the revitalising powers of numismaton gas... 

Verdict 

Planet of Fire was an excellent story and served as a great penultimate adventure for Peter Davison's fantastic Fifth Doctor. The bulk of what I've done with the Fifth Doctor since I started this blog has been his Main Range audios from Big Finish and perhaps a novel or two, both original and Target, but watching him on television once again was a joy as he really is superb in this format. Davison gave a stellar performance in this serial I thought and it was brilliant to be doing a story with this incarnation where the Doctor was on form. He's been rightly criticised for his performances for Big Finish and although I feel some of the criticism is exaggerated as it's far from being the case that every story he has is a bad performance, but he doesn't quite feel the same as he does on television. It's a shame really as I think every other Doctor to grace the audio stage thus far has improved on their television performances. I'm looking really forward to the upcoming release of Only the Monstrous to see how John Hurt's War Doctor does with some more performed stories. Anyway, back to the story at hand and I thought it was a really good one to be fair. Doctor Who once again subtly makes a mockery out of religion and I absolutely love it but the story was hugely significant for a number of reasons. After the emotional and eventful events of Resurrection of the Daleks, in which Tegan departed the TARDIS after a rather lengthy stay, the Doctor would say goodbye to another friend of his in the form of Turlough. I'm really glad that after a shaky start with the Black Guardian, he became centrepiece to the story and really stole the show in my opinion, even if his attire was somewhat questionable. Well, I say he stole the show but I may have to immediately retract that statement after what Nicola Bryant showed us in part one. She looked absolutely sublime in her bikini and that was something that rather amused my seven year old cousin with whom I watched the story with. It had been a while since we watched a story together, I think the last was Terror of the Zygons back in September, but with me at university across the border, we had to take advantage of a night together. With time constraints and football to watch in between parts, we decided upon this story rather than my Christmas present of  The Twin Dilemma. For Peri's first story, I thought she was magnificent and I really am grateful to Big Finish for giving us more Fifth Doctor and Peri stories, along with the addition of Erimem to the fold. For a debut, she was magnificent though and I loved how she was trying to swat the mini-Master when she caused him to exit his contraption that was controlling Kamelion. Ah, poor old Kamelion. He's not the best thing ever to come out of the series is he but for the two adventures he appears in he's not all bad. The design and ability of the robot is far inferior to K9 but I do like the idea of a shape-shifting robot. The idea is actually really good but I think it just shows how difficult the robot was to use for filming in that we had Howard appear in between states for the most part. The cliffhangers were pretty good and if I was watching on broadcast and the surprise hadn't been revealed, I would've absolutely loved part one's ending. The Master's arrival was excellent, as it usually is. Anthony Ainley is a superb incarnation of the Master and he gave arguably his best performance here as he wasn't being an all mighty and powerful Time Lord for the most part. He was showing the signs of a wounded robot. The Master being miniaturised was quite funny and I loved the cliffhanger to part three very much. As if he was in a position to threaten Peri! I really liked and just loved how despite being in no position of advantage or authority, the Master still thought he was superior. I liked the references to Time-Flight and The King's Demons very much and I think it was fitting that before the Fifth Doctor departed, he battled his greatest adversary one more time. The majority of the setting being on Sarn was excellent and I really liked the Trion involvement. The revelation that Turlough was a prisoner and this was his race's prison planet was superb. After getting a reprieve from exile and a way back home, Turlough was always going to say farewell to the Doctor. It's only fitting that Peri took his place after she was saved from quite pathetically drowning earlier in the story. It was a nice moment when the changing of the guard occurred. The way the Master was dealt with was sublime but also rather surprising! This time, the Doctor was taking no risks with the Master. After putting Kamelion emotionally out of his misery, he saw that the Master was destroyed. The ambiguity of the Master's final words not being finished was fantastic. Overall, a really good story with the likes of Malkon and Timanov serving as good characters. We really enjoyed! 

Rating: 8/10